A Rosemont corner where a 63-year-old man died after being hit by a bus on Monday is among the most dangerous in the city and critics are saying not enough is being done to protect pedestrians.
The pedestrian was crossing at the corner of Beaubien and Pie-IX, a wide intersection with six lanes of traffic, when he was struck by the school bus. He was taken to hospital where he was later pronounced dead.
The bus driver was treated for shock. Police said though there were schoolchildren onboard, they were not aware of the accident.
Police say both the bus and the victim had the green light.
Marie-Victorin city councillor Guillaume Lavoie, who belongs to Projet Montreal, said top city officials have failed Montrealers by not addressing concerns about the intersection.
“Like many citizens, my sentiments went from outrage to worry to anger,” he said. “The anger is that this intersection, we know, is a top-five dangerous intersection in Montreal. This has been the case for many, many years now.”
In 2011, a CTV special report identified the intersection of Pie-IX and Beaubien as the third most dangerous for pedestrians.
“I don’t want to go around distributing blame, but the top brass of this city is treating this as the morbid normalcy of city management. It just happens," said Lavoie. "It doesn’t just happen. We need a redesign of this street.”
Lavoie said he’d like to see the speed limit in the area lowered but also called for other modifications to the intersection, such as extending the curb to enhance motorists’ ability to see pedestrians and the construction of physical barriers such as concrete poles.
“What we need is today, we borrow a few orange cones and there are plenty of those in the city, and we make sure it’s impossible for all users of this intersection not to know this is a dangerous corner,” he said. “It’s not normal, nor is it acceptable for pedestrians to stand on the corner and be in danger.”
City councillor Marc-André Gadoury said the city is aware and is working on it.
“As of now, it's six lanes of cars separated in the middle. Instead of that we'll have two lanes of cars on each side, and the bus lanes in the middle,” he said. “For pedestrians, they'll have wider crossings, but instead of being two sections of a wide road, they'll have three sections of a narrow road, so easier to cross for the pedestrians.”
The road isn’t expect to begin until next year, but in light of the pedestrian’s death, Gadoury said the city will look at the intersection to determine if any changes can be made earlier.
