A controversial new traffic sign in Anjou has many seeing red. People have been getting tickets because of a sign they complain is unclear. To complicate matters, the sign appears to have been vandalized.
Anjou recently decided drivers will no longer be allowed to go straight down Azilda when crossing Chateauneuf.
They’ve installed two signs denoting a mandatory right turn at the intersection, but on Friday afternoon, driver after driver went straight through. One of the signs is left of the intersection, and the other has been covered in black paint.
“It’s been blacked out once before, then the city came to clean it up, and the next day, it was blacked out again,” said Jeremiah Allard, who lives on Azilda just south of the intersection.
Residents say during the morning and afternoon rush hours, it’s a chaotic scene.
Aldo Roman Moller got a ticket for $169 for going straight through the intersection on Friday morning. He said he had no idea he was doing anything wrong until he saw the sirens, and that he was not the only one.
“There were like four or five police vehicles and like three or four civilian cars stopped as well,” he told Global News.
“Every morning, there are three cops here, two cops there, one there, and they pull everybody over,” said Allard.
But the commander of the local police station says on May 8, he told all his officers not to give tickets there at all.
“I sent a message out to all the officers at Station 46 to not enforce that particular sign,” said Cmdr. Michael Chartrand of the Montreal police. “The sign was put up there — there’s also conformity verification, but it didn’t meet our standards for enforcement.”
Though the going theory was that the sign covered in black had been vandalized, the commander says the paint came from the borough itself.
“The sign was obliterated by the city. It might look like graffiti, but the city did the obliteration and they’ll clean that off when the conformity issue is fixed,” Chartrand said.
Residents say tickets have been handed out by the dozen.
“There’s got to be 100 tickets already within two weeks,” Allard said.
The commander says if tickets were given, they may have come from outside his station.
“It could be another traffic section, a divisional traffic section,” he said.
Anjou borough manager Cherif Ferah told Global News he’s only been on the job for one month, and would have to research the file before answering.
Moller plans to contest his ticket.
“I’ll contest. I’m not gonna pay this, it’s unjust,” he said.
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