17,000 Montrealers and counting sign petition opposing driving ban over Mount Royal

The backlash is growing over the city's plans to block cars from going over Mount Royal.

More than 17,000 people signed a petition opposing the move, and editorialists from La Presse and The Gazette have come out against it.

“It equates to social engineering, telling people how they’re going to live. And it’s not going to really reduce the number of cars on the mountain, it’s going to increase the number of cars around the mountain – Cote des Neiges Rd., Pine Ave. Park Ave., what have you,” said Jennifer Crane, who opposed the ban.

Montreal’s administration has no plans to back down, as some members of Valerie Plante's team say they've been a bit surprised by the backlash.

In an op-ed piece defending the move, Plante said Camillien-Houde Way was a parkway that was meant to be a drive through nature. She said that era is long gone, and thousands of cars now use the route every day and it's become dangerous.

Plante’s team said it's time to limit car traffic so that everyone – pedestrians, cyclists and car drivers – can enjoy the mountain more.

“The fact of the matter is 40,000 cars a year are added to the Montreal area. We have to do something. We cannot continue to have this kind of volume of traffic, because a car takes up way more space than a pedestrian or a cyclist and that's public space, said CDN-NDG Borough Mayor Sue Montgomery.

Plante also reiterated that the plan to ban through traffic is a pilot project, and that adjustments will be made as needed.

Opponents, however, say a lot of people who live in Cote des Neiges Rd. depend on that route, and say the mayor’s team is showing itself to be anti-car.

“A lot of people on both sides are very, very unhappy with this because we like to use the road. It’s a nice roadway. You can drive very gently over the road. Nobody’s going 70 kilometres an hour -- except for the cyclists ,” said Crane.

Opponents say they plan to keep making noise in the hopes the city will back down.

Meanwhile a petition in favour of the Plante administration's now has the support of more than 4,000 people.