Residents call for traffic-calming measures near site of girl's death in Montreal

Residents living near the site of a hit-and-run in Montreal that killed a seven-year-old girl last month are calling for tangible traffic-calming measures.

Children and adults in the Sainte-Marie neighbourhood, just east of downtown, marched through the streets Tuesday morning to call on the city to do more to stop cars speeding through local streets. They say drivers looking for a shortcut to the Jacques-Cartier Bridge when traffic is too busy along the larger streets are creating a hazard.

"It's quite complicated sometimes just to cross the street, because the cars want to go fast," said protest organizer Renaud Antoine. "They don't pay much attention to the people living here."

Mariia Legenkovska, a Ukrainian refugee, was killed last month when she was struck by a car on her way to school.

Mariia Legenkovska is seen in a family handout photo. A Montreal-area man charged in a hit-and-run where the 7-year-old Ukranian girl was killed walking to school has been granted bail. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Legenkovska FamilyThe protesters say they want an action plan from the city for this area, because it sees a lot of through traffic due to its proximity to the bridge.

"What we're asking for is a traffic-calming plan for the neighbourhood," said protest organizer Chris McCray. "It's easy to disrespect signage, so we're asking for physical measures, so, for example, changing the direction of certain local streets so that drivers essentially can't turn down them to take a shortcut."

City officials say the administration has targeted 50 locations around schools, parks and daycares where it plans to implement measures to slow drivers, including speed bumps, narrowing streets and widening intersections.

"We want to make sure we work with the community too. We want to make sure that we talk to people, we want to make sure that we talk to school direction," said City of Montreal executive committee member Sophie Mauzerolle, adding that it plans to act urgently.

"We really want to go fast on this because we don't want to see collisions happening in our streets," she said.

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Organizers will be meeting with city officials on Thursday.