A Lachine councillor says the Ministry of Transportation must change its attitude toward pedestrians following the death of an elderly woman.
On Monday morning the 80-year-old woman was walking east across the intersection of Notre Dame St. and St. Pierre Ave. on a green light, but did not make it all the way through before the light changed.
A truck driver waiting at the intersection went north on St. Pierre as soon as his light turned green, having failed to see there was a pedestrian directly in front of him.
"He never saw the woman in front of his truck," said Montreal police officer Manuel Couture.
The woman died immediately.
Lachine councillor Maja Vodanovic said traffic in the area has increased tremendously because of the construction to rebuild Highway 20 around the Turcot Interchange.
"The main problem in St. Pierre has been traffic. Traffic and truck traffic and every week someone says someone is going to get killed, it is too dangerous," said Vodanovic.
"It is a tremendous tragedy and I really hope the MTQ starts putting the priority on pedestrians and not on the circulation of the trucks."
She said that the neighbourhood is now seeing vehicular traffic funnelling into it from far and wide, and that it's become extremely dangerous for anyone travelling on foot.
"We have garbage bags over the pedestrian lights. We have this dangerous intersection where our kids are dropped off because the buses don't want to go into St. Pierre because there's too much traffic. We're putting our children at risk," said Vodonavic.
She's demanding the street lights in the area be changed to ensure the safe crossing of pedestrians especially near Martin Belanger Elementary school, which is located just a few blocks away from the scene of Monday's deadly collision.
