Emmanuel Chatzidakis says business at his restaurant on Queen Mary Road, in the city’s Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood, has plunged.
“It’s probably fallen about 20 per cent, 25 per cent,” he tells Global News.
He is among the latest group of merchants on Queen Mary, west of Decarie Boulevard, who are angry and worried, claiming that since the city installed a reserved bus lane on Queen Mary in the fall of 2022, restricting parking during rush hour, car clients have had trouble accessing the businesses.
“Especially this winter, when people tend to eat earlier,” Chatzidakis says. “Supper is at 5 o’clock as opposed to 6 o’clock; the restaurant is empty until about 6:30.”
A sign on the restaurant’s front door warns clients of the restriction on that side of the street — no parking between 3:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
In a statement to Global News last month for a story about one merchant who plans to close because of the parking issue, Côte-des-Neiges – Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough mayor Gracia Kasoki Katahwa claimed that “several new businesses had opened on Queen Mary since the implementation of the reserved lane.”
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But Shovit Rana, who opened his café on Queen Mary across the street from Chatzidakis’s restaurant five months ago, says he’s losing clients too and doesn’t want the reserved lane either.
“In the morning, I think until 9:30 you can’t park your car in front of my café,” he explains.
The bus lane on that side of the street opens at 6:30 a.m. when, he says, peak time for his coffee shop starts.
“If someone is coming from (the municipalities of) Hampstead or Côte Saint-Luc, where are they going to park the car in the morning?” he says.
Opposition city councillor for the area Sonny Moroz voted in favour of the bus lane but now wants the city to do another impact study. He believes the first study is outdated.
“Given that the study was pre-pandemic, and now we’re post-pandemic and the lived experiences of the merchants are not reflected in what the study had anticipated,” he says.
In a statement sent to Global News for this story, the borough mayor says the administration understands the economic challenges businesses are facing. “That’s why our departments work closely with the various CDN-NDG merchants’ associations and SDCs, including the Queen-Mary merchants’ association, who receive funding from the borough,” she writes.
She adds, “the reserved bus lane on Queen-Mary in 2022 speeds bus service and improves access to Queen Mary’s businesses for thousands of people everyday. Furthermore, the 51 bus is the busiest bus line in the city, bringing many potential clients to Queen-Mary’s businesses. Finally, people who drive to Queen-Mary still benefit from a parking lane in the center of the street, which other commercial arteries in the borough don’t have.”
But merchants argue that the congestion problem the bus lane was meant to solve exists on the east side of Queen Mary, where drivers coming from downtown turn unto Decarie Boulevard, north and south. According to them, there’s no such problem on the west side and they want the bus lane gone.
Furthermore, they claim that the increase in foot traffic on that side of the street the city promised would happen with the reserved lane has not happened.
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