MONTREAL - The Plateau Mont-Royal borough altered one of its traffic calming measures on the corner of Gilford and Chambord after Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay said it represented a risk to public safety.
The borough had installed permanent posts at the intersection to dissuade cars from passing through the school zone, however it did so without first checking with the Montreal fire department.
"They have placed a permanent installation that for us was a problem if we had to have access to a fire hydrant, or if we had to use our ladder truck," said Montreal fire chief Serge Tremblay.
The borough replaced the permanent posts with temporary pylons.
"We had consulted the fire department on the exact same posts a week before, three corners (over)," borough mayor Luc Ferrandez said. "So we thought, OK, if they've said yes to this, they'll say yes to that."
Mayor Tremblay issued a press release Friday calling on the borough to remove the posts.
"Earlier this summer, I said we need to give the Plateau mayor the benefit of the doubt because this was a pilot project," Tremblay said of the glut of traffic calming measures instituted by the borough this summer. "But as mayor of Montreal, I can't accept that a borough modifies the flow of traffic without first checking with the fire department."
Ferrandez says the mayor's offensive was motivated more by politics than public safety.
"It's to distract the attention of Montrealers on fiascos that Tremblay and his team are in day after day after day," Ferrandez said.
