When I first moved into District 2 in 1995 one of the first things I noticed, living rather close to the railway tracks, was the loud noise emanating from the trains.
This was a decade before I became a city councillor, so I voiced my concern to the Mayor and Council at that time and the Member of Parliament for Mount Royal. Not a lot happened. At one point, during an earlier term of office for the federal Liberals, then MP Irwin Cotler even held some public meetings with high ranking officials from the government and Canadian Pacific. But there was no great improvement. In our household, white noise machines helped block out the horrible sounds. Since our home was not physically right next to the tracks, this solved our problem. However, I realize it is hardly the solution for everyone.
When I was first elected in 2005, then Mayor Anthony Housefather and Councillor Dida Berku made it a priority to try and get this problem fixed. Residents in virtually every district in the city are affected by the trains.
As Anthony Housefather, now our MP, notes that when we first demerged we had literally dozens of noise and vibration complaints per week. Most of these related to shunting and idling in the yards overnight. We were able to work with CP to drastically reduce the frequency by which this occurred and to move certain works further from homes.
I must say that complaints on this front have been very minimal over the past decade. But very recently, the horrible noises have returned and for many residents that translates into sleepless nights. We do have an excellent process in place and strong relations with CP. Our senior legal officials are on the case as is Mayor Brownstein, Councillor Berku (who chairs our Railway Committee) and MP Housefather, who can access Minister of Transport Marc Garneau.
In message on the Let’s Chat Facebook page, MP Housefather stated: “Côte Saint-Luc, like many communities in the country, borders on rail tracks. We have the compounded issue of bordering on the second-biggest rail yards in Eastern Canada. Like many cities that grew after the Second World War we built houses far too close to the tracks and the yards and in the decades since, as rail traffic has increased, residents have suffered. When I was Mayor we set up a process which has gotten even stronger today under Mitch Brownstein, where in addition to the complaint and adjudication mechanism set out under law which can be found at https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/publication/guidelines-resolution-complaints-over-railway-noise-and-vibration, Côte Saint-Luc's City Clerk escalates certain complaints directly to CP and we work with complainants on files to assist where escalation is needed.”
What Côte Saint-Luc and other cities originally asked for from the federal government was for a mechanism to resolve complaints. This was answered when the Canada Transportation Act was modified to allow the Canadian Transportation Agency, a quasi-judicial administrative tribunal of the federal government, to resolve complaints regarding noise and vibration caused by the construction and operation of railways under its jurisdiction. But for the CTA to hear a case, the collaborative measures set out in the link above must be followed.
As MP Housefather notes, over the last number of years, certainly following the Lac Megantic incident, our priority (both at the municipal and federal level) shifted to the issue of yard safety and safety in the way railways transported dangerous goods. “It was an issue I raised as a priority as Mayor and when I was running in the last federal campaign and Mitch and Dida have continued the pressure from the municipal side. In that area we have made much progress which still continues,” he said. “Marc Garneau our Minister of Transport has required a faster phase out of the Dot 111 boxcars, which were involved in a number of the incidents. The Minister has also introduced a mandatory minimum level of insurance for federal railways to carry based on the type and volume of dangerous goods they carry, launched the Railway Safety Improvement Program, increased the overall funding for railway safety projects and the number of eligible recipients who can receive it, required railways to provide municipalities and first responders with even more data on dangerous goods to improve emergency planning, risk assessments, and training, provided municipalities with additional information about the railway crossings in their communities through Canada’s Open Government Portal, among many other initiatives that have already been publicly announced. I commit that this is an area that I will continue to focus on.
“While rail safety will remain a top priority, I understand your frustrations on the issue of railway noise and can assure you that I will continue working directly with all Côte Saint Luc Council Members on this file. But the process itself has been largely fixed. Now it is a matter of using the process to its fullest.”
What I appreciate seeing here is citizens not sitting back and taking a passive attitude. We live in the era of instant communication, so the magic of email and social media can be effective.
