Hampstead must step up as good neighbours

For many years the relationship between the city council of Côte Saint-Luc and the town council of Hampstead was pretty awful. Mayors Bernard Lang and Irving Adessky were not on speaking terms. When the Partii Québecois undertook the forced mergers and created the borough of Côte Saint-Luc-Hampstead-Montreal West the one good thing that came of this action was the wonderful way the three (then) former municipalities worked together and got to know each other.

We demerged officially on January 1, 2006 and as Mayors Anthony Housefather and William Steinberg assumed office it appeared that a new era had begun. A deal was struck for Hampsteaders to use our library. Hampstead invited us to their events and we did the same to ours. Now this relationship is in jeopardy due to what some are calling "the nightmare on Fleet Road" which has inconvenienced thousands of people in both communities.

We have placed a lot of effort to synchronize traffic lights on Fleet Road. More recently we implemented a double left turn at Cavendish and Fleet, something that sped up traffic significantly. Then, without consultation, Hampstead turned back the clock on good relations by implementing new traffic configurations on Fleet during the morning rush hour. This is nothing short of a disaster for motorists and not just those from Côte Saint-Luc. Parents from Hampstead who drop their children off a schools such as  Bialik, Hebrew Academy and the JPPS CPE cannot even turn left  on Fleet to return to their own street. Cars are honking! It is a bad scene.

We have come such a long way in inter-municipal relations. I call upon Hampstead Council to cancel these new restrictions immediately.

Please also see my colleague Glenn J. Nashen's comprehensive commentary on this issue at: http://gjnashen.wordpress.com