The Terrebonne bike path was the big item on the agenda at Tuesday night’s nearly 5-hour long CDN-NDG borough council meeting. The councillors voted unanimously to remove the controversial bike path earlier than planned. Borough Mayor Sue Montgomery voted against the motion.
By the end of the meeting, the angry tone of recent debates had dissipated and the councillors appeared ready to put the past behind them and work together again.
In her opening remarks Montgomery said that she was proud of the bike path.
“I love watching the kids ride to school,” she said. She spoke about how she had marched with the city councillors at the climate rally in the spring. “Was that just for show?” she asked, pointing out that bike paths are being created so that people will drive less. She urged the city councillors to be courageous and stand up for what is right in the face of public opposition.
In his opening remarks, councillor Lionel Perez said it will be sad to lose the bike path. But that “when the city makes changes, a process needs to be followed.” Perez said the path was put up in good faith however the population wasn’t heard and that it was unfortunate the path had become a wedge issue.”
Councillor Christian Arseneault said that the borough has been in a pretty bad place for a few months. He said he hoped the councillors could find common ground. He echoed Perez’s comments in saying that cycling infrastructure is necessary but “it has to be done properly.”
In their opening remarks, councillors Marvin Rotrand, Magda Popeanu and Peter McQueen said they’d speak on the Terrebonne bike path later.
Tensions from the previous session threatened to ramp up again when Popeanu proposed that two questions from residents be eliminated from the question period because they related to cases before the courts, refereed to a report, and revealed confidential personal information.
Montgomery said she didn’t find questions 31 and 15 inadmissible because the issues had been discussed in the recent emergency council meeting.
Rotrand then accused Montgomery of flouting the law. He suggested legal advice needed to be obtained before the questions could be answered. Everyone finally agreed on this point and the two questions were moved to the following meeting.
One hundred and three questions were then set to be answered in the 90-minute period allotted to questions, with only three questions per subject allowed. The majority of the questions related to the bike path, and were therefore skipped over.
During the question period, Montgomery had to remind Rotrand for the second time that she was speaking and not to interrupt.
“My hand was up” said Rotrand. “Don’t be so testy.”
“Mr. Rotrand, could you please withdraw the remark that I’m testy, it’s sexist,” responded the mayor.
“If it will make you feel better, I will do so,” said Rotrand.
“You are really condescending, I don’t appreciate it,” said Montgomery.
It was late in the evening before it came time to vote on the removal of the bike path.
Rotrand accused the mayor of “showing a total lack of empathy.”
He said she reinvented history when she claimed there was a vote for the bike path, when in fact the path had been approved along with a number of amendments. He said the bike path needed to be removed quickly so that “the healing process could begin.”
Rotrand also said the mayor changed her tune when she moved from focusing on a shared street discourse to one centered on climate change. He said the bike path wasn’t about a dispute between residents and cyclists, it was about ordinary families. He said a tiny vocal majority was tied to an ideology and hostile to other forms of mobility.
Arseneault said that he wanted to emphasize how all councillors had gone into this in good faith. He said the bike path was a “good idea, poorly implemented” and that the feedback he received showed the vast majority of NDGers were for a reasonable compromise.
Perez said the councillors had dropped the ball and that McQueen and Arseneault had flip flopped on the bike path. He accused Arseneault of issuing his mea culpa after weeks of trying not to do it.
“At the end of the day let’s not forget this administration is governed by an ideology,” he said. “They believe in an absolute truth, that all of society is cured by bike paths.”
Montgomery said she looked at the petition with over two thousand names which has been cited in the media and by councillors as evidence that citizens are deeply opposed to the bike path.
She noted that, “Mr. funny butts from sexy town,” was one of the signatures, and that people from Chile, San Francisco, Florida and India were apparently against the Terrebonne bike path. “It is not really a petition we can take seriously,” she said.
Montgomery said the dispute is not about residents versus cyclists because residents are cyclists. She said that although people feel they have a right to park their car on the sidewalk, they actually have no inherent right to “leave their private property on public space.”
“The planet is dying. I don’t know what is going to wake people up to this fact,” she said. “All we tried to do is put in a 1.6-kilometre bike path. If we can’t do that we are doomed.”
Montgomery agreed that communication with residents failed but blamed it on McQueen and Arseneault.
“At a certain point, you can’t keep trying and please others, you have to take a stand,” she said. “You have to show courage.” Montgomery accused the councillors of only caring about their political futures.
But while there had been a lot of tension in the meeting up to that point, a miscommunication helped turn things around.
The mayor interrupted Rotrand when he was making his reply.
“Did you just say I have dementia?” asked the mayor, sounding astounded.
What Rotrand had actually said was “what you didn’t mention.”
Rotrand replied kindly to this accusation.
“Sue, the last thing I would accuse you of is having dementia,” he said and cracked a smile.
While Rotrand went on to criticize Montgomery’s characterization of leaders who stick to their ideals in the face of opposition as foolish, rather than brave and courageous, there was a noticeable shift in his tone.
The proposal to adopt a working group to study the issue resulted in another change in mood.
The councillors put forward an amendment to the mayor’s proposal of a working group on the Terrebonne bike path. Montgomery had proposed that McQueen be in charge of the working group and that he pick the members of the group, some who would be for and others who would be against the bike path.
Instead, the councillors proposed the creation of a selection committee who would choose the members of the working group and proposed to push back the date of the working group from February to April.
The mayor said she would have liked to have seen the amendment before the meeting. She called the proposal “unfriendly.”
“I hope you don’t see it as hostile,” said Rotrand.
“I didn’t say that,” said the mayor, smiling.
After the amendment was passed, Rotrand and McQueen had questions for borough director Stephane Plante about the status of projects such as school bus pickups and aqueduct work on Queen Mary.
The meeting ended with a few smiles from the mayor and even some laughter. It was almost midnight when everyone said their good-byes. A feeling of relief was visible on the faces of the tired councillors. It wasn’t just that the long night was over. It seemed as though the storm had finally passed.
