In a unanimous decision, the Vanier District Council recently deplored the fact that the Réseau de transport de la Capitale (RTC) removed four bus stops in the Wilfrid Boulevard area at the beginning of the winter and without consulting citizens. -Hamel is known for being very windy. After several delays, the RTC confirmed on Thursday Newspaper that these bus stops will finally be reinstalled shortly.
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Pierre-Marc Doucet didn’t let up this week. This Vanier Neighborhood Council member noticed that four RTC bus shelters had disappeared from the landscape around mid-October, a few weeks before the first snow.
“At home we use public transport a lot. With winter upon us, we have already experienced two or three mornings of strong winds on Boulevard Hamel. “Monday, with the storm, it wasn’t fun to ride the bus,” he said.
Mr. Doucet stressed that the disappearance of these bus stops comes “at the worst time of the year” and regretted that the RTC “did not warn the population in any way.”
Resettlement applied for
The latter particularly regretted the disappearance of the bus stop that was in front of the CLSC des Rivières (Christ-Roi building), a sector where users are by definition more fragile.
In its resolution passed last week, the neighborhood council called for the four missing bus stops to be reinstalled.
The organization demanded that the RTC “ensure that any decisions or future actions it takes regarding the replacement of bus stops at RTC stops are subject to a clear announcement of the details of the actions to be taken in order to properly inform users.”
Confusion at the RTC
On the RTC side, spokeswoman Raphaëlle Savard claimed on Thursday afternoon that the four dismantled bus stops will finally be rebuilt “in the coming days”. This decision was made “at the request of our president” (Maude Mercier Larouche) and after the resignation of the neighborhood council and the call of the Journal, she specified.
An hour earlier, Ms Savard had nevertheless reiterated that only one of the four “outdated” bus stops would (perhaps) be reinstalled if an agreement was reached with the owner of the private property.
“When a bus stop reaches the end of its useful life, we no longer have money to maintain it. I understand that it is sad to no longer have bus stops […] But we can’t put bus stops everywhere on the network,” she said.
Alicia Despins, local councilor for the sector and elected official opposition party, said she agreed with the neighborhood council’s exit. She regretted “the lack of communication” from the RTC and explained that the disappearance of four bus shelters amounted to a “restriction of services” to users. But that was before we learned that these bus stops would soon be reinstalled.
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