Projet Montreal is speaking out against what they say is the wasteful overtime of having police officers direct traffic.

The opposition party at City Hall says the amount of money being spent on trained police officers coordinating traffic is outrageous.

“We shouldn’t be wasting our resources on this,” said Projet Montreal city councillor Alex Norris, who said overtime money should only be spent for legitimate reasons, like investigating crimes, but not on directing traffic, which is not good for officers' morale.

“Let’s put the resources where they need to be put,” he said. “At Projet Montreal, we feel this is monumental waste of money, resources and expertise.”

Last year between 100 and 160 officers were directing traffic in Montreal, each one being paid time-and-a-half, or about $60 per hour.

The officers are supposed to keep traffic moving at busy intersections where construction is taking place, even though many critics and commuters say traffic flows better without officers present.

Now Projet Montreal says there is no point to having highly trained police officers paid millions to direct traffic.

"The Projet Montreal solution is the same one that has been used in cities around the world, including Vancouver, where they pay civilians between $22 and $26 to do the same work," said Norris.

"We raised the issue last year and Mayor Coderre reacted with complete indifference to the situation. There's been no clear indication by the administration that we need to make this a priority in our negotiations."

Norris believes that this year anywhere from 60 to 250 officers are on traffic duty depending on the day of the week.

The city said it knows that having officers on OT directing traffic is a waste of money, and say they have been working on solutions – but it’s slow going.

Police officers handle difficult intersections as well as construction sites across the city.

“The amount of resources that we have to put is directly proportional to the amount of work going on in the city, so it's no secret to tell you that it's been going up every year,” said Andre Durocher of the Montreal police.

The money is not insignificant with overtime totaling  in the millions of dollars and growing, but according to Montreal police, legally there is no way around it.

“Not any citizen can go and direct traffic. In the Highway Safety Code, only a police officer can tell somebody, for example, to go through a red light or turn where it's prohibited, so you need a change in legislation to do that,” said Durocher.

The city cites that legislation as the problem, claiming it has been in negotiations with the police brotherhood to remove that clause from the collective agreement. So far, negotiations are stalled and arbitration has begun.

“We've requested what we call the smart traffic lights that can detect pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, however we can request it, but we're not the ones who buy them,” said Durocher.

The city said it is looking into those solutions but cannot change anything until negotiations are complete.