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Beaconsfield street extension hinges on court
City wants to open up dead end
Karen Seidman
The Gazette
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Beaconsfield Mayor Bob Benedetti. (Gazette file photo)
A group of Beaconsfield residents is awaiting a Superior Court judgment that will decide once and for all if James Shaw St. in Beaconsfield can be extended into Kirkland.
The judgment will also specify if the city of Beaconsfield contravened a temporary injunction, granted in September 2006, by adopting resolutions and doing studies about the extension of the road when the court had already forbidden any “work” concerning James Shaw.
The city interpreted that to mean it had to cease all digging, which it did, Beaconsfield Mayor Bob Benedetti said in an interview.
“We hope we made our case and will see a judgment made in our favour,” Benedetti said this week.
The 10-day trial, held last month, could lead to a permanent injunction forbidding the extension of the road if the residents win.
It also brought to light details from the impact study the city commissioned by engineering firm Genivar on how traffic flow would be affected if James Shaw – now a dead-end – were to be opened. James Shaw runs north-south near the former Fresh Meadows golf course in north Beaurepaire. It would lead into Gérard Guindon St. in Kirkland.
The impact study showed that opening the street would cause a huge increase in traffic on five streets – James Shaw, Henri Jarry, Elizabeth, Coronet and Montrose (south of Coronet) – while there would be only a marginal decrease in traffic on two streets – Montrose (north of Coronet) and Windermere.
Daniel Chénard, a lawyer representing James Shaw resident Marie-Josée Gendron and 10 of her neighbours, said the report clearly shows that opening the street “would be penalizing people on James Shaw and Elizabeth.”
For example, according to the report, traffic on James Shaw would increase from 540 cars a day to 1,519, an increase of 181 per cent, with an increase on Elizabeth Dr. from 1,324 to 1,920 cars a day, an increase of 45 per cent.
Traffic on Montrose would drop to 6,450 from 7,000, a decrease of 7.8 per cent, while on Windermere the number of cars would drop to 2,900 from 3,000, a decrease of 3.3 per cent.
In terms of the city’s argument that the extension was precipitated by the fire department’s assertion that it took too long to get to the area in case of an emergency, a report presented by the Montreal Fire Department showed that Baie d’Urfé, Pointe Claire, Kirkland and Beaconsfield would all have the same response times regardless of the extension. Only Ste. Anne de Bellevue would see its response time drop to 7.4 minutes from 11 minutes upon opening up James Shaw.
Benedetti said the report doesn’t specify that two trucks have to reach the scene of a fire before firefighters can respond, and he believes the James Shaw cul-de-sac is a real impediment to that happening quickly.
“To get two fire trucks there reliably, we’re looking at 10 minutes – and that’s way too long,” Benedetti said. “Someone will die, that’s the reality.”