The people spoke, and the Plante administration says it has listened.
Mayor Valerie Plante says her administration plans on redoubling its efforts to make it easier for pedestrians to get around town — including at a key intersection near the old Montreal Children's Hospital site where a pedestrian was killed back in December.
Plante says it will spend the next several months analyzing dozens of intersections, particularly in the downtown core, to see if and how they can be made safer for pedestrians and drivers.
Among the intersections being looked at is the intersection of Atwater Ave. and Tupper St., on the fringes of the old Montreal Children's Hospital site, where a dumptruck tried to make a turn onto Atwater Ave. and ended up killing a woman trying to cross the street last Dec. 12.
Mayor Valerie Plante said in many cases she expects recommendations to give pedestrians more time to cross the street. At the intersection of Atwater and Tupper, for instance, the amount of time pedestrians are being given to cross the street has been increased from 9 seconds to 18.
"Drivers in general, we've got to be patient," the mayor said. "The street belongs to everybody, whether you're in your car, driving a truck, walking, cycling. People need to be patient and respect the lights."
Among some of the other proposals expected to be considered — increasing speed limits, adding more sidewalk bulges to narrow the streets at intersections, and making intersections a little more visible for drivers.
"For us as an administration, it's how do we make sure that people have enough time to go across the street, which we know in many, many cases it hasn't been analyzed or changed in years," said Plante.
Meanwhile, opposition leader Lionel Perez says more needs to be done — and in fact, should have already been done.
"We were repeatedly asking for things to be done," Perez said. "We know they committed during the campaign that in the first year, they would secure more than 60 interesections, the most dangerous intersections, and that wasn't done. Unfortunately, it took the death of someone."