WATCH: Residents living in the normally quiet city of Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue are dealing with a loud and growing problem: heavy traffic on Chemin Ste-Marie.Tim Sargeant reports.
MONTREAL — Residents living in the normally quiet city of Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue are dealing with a loud and growing problem: heavy traffic on Chemin Ste-Marie.
Thousands of vehicles are being detoured onto the quiet street from the bustling A40, where heavy construction is underway to take down two overpasses.
The problem seems to be that many of the cars are speeding and using residential driveways to make illegal U-turns.
“People would come in my driveway, do a U-turn here,” James Morris told Global News, pointing to his driveway’s entrance.
Detour signs are posted for drivers to encourage them from making U-turns, but Morris said he recently counted 105 vehicles in a 30-minute period where drivers ignored the signs and made U-turns instead.
“It’s only been one week and I’m fed up already,” Morris observed.
Drivers coming off the A40 at exit 41 in the westbound direction are forced to stay right at the fork of Chemin Ste-Marie.
Many aren’t following the detour signs that eventually take traffic west toward Boulevard des Anciens-Combattants.
“It’s constant and it’s 24 hours.”
“I keep my windows closed at night now because my kids can’t sleep because you hear people peeling out and bombing through here,” Steph Tanguay told Global News from the edge of his driveway.
Mayor Paola Hawa is promising to install new detour signs in the coming days in order to encourage motorists to use a second detour further west on the A40 in Senneville.
“We will be addressing that in the next few days to a week,” Hawa told Global News.
This will provide much needed relief for residents along Chemin Ste-Marie, who say that even worse than traffic noise is the fear an accident on their street could be just around the corner.
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