MONTREAL — The total number of alleys closed to traffic in the Montreal Plateau is about to double, going from 35 to 70 by 2018.
Officials explained the decision was made in response to an accident in the Sud-Ouest borough.
Last week, a truck hit a six-year-old boy as he was riding his bike on the sidewalk.
The driver was entering de Biencourt Street from an alley, and told police he didn’t see the child.
“This is something we can do,” said Luc Ferrandez, Plateau-Mont-Royal borough mayor.
“We have the power to do it.”
The borough has already closed several alleys, either by having planters that only allow space for pedestrian or bicycle traffic, or they have green corridors that look much like a small park.
“It’s really changed our lives in the sense that I no longer fear for my children’s safety when they go out the back door,” said Greg Mikkelson, a McGill professor who lives near one of the closed alleys between Esplanade Avenue and Saint-Urbain Street.
The borough is also going to install speed bumps in 750 alleyways, something it hopes will reduce the amount of truck traffic that rumbles through.
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