Comments on: No bikes on Summit Circle … path

By: Sid

Sid — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:17:51 +0000

Actually this is to deter mountain-bikers who get a little too happy when they spot some actual genuine single track - a rarity in Montreal. Of course westmount applies full buzzkill to the problem with that favorite bureaucratic remedy to all life's problems: prohibition. Oh, and signs, they sure do love signs.

By: C

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:00:05 +0000

we saw them as we were leaving the car- I assumed I was in a safe neighborhood and didn't think twice about them.

By: Marc Dufour

Marc Dufour — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 14:56:27 +0000

Indeed. Here is what happenned to me this summer in Mont-Royal:

http://www.cptdb.ca/index.php?showtopic=9368

By: Jean Naimard

Jean Naimard — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 14:52:55 +0000

How do you know it was two cyclists?

By: Zvi Leve

Zvi Leve — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:48:34 +0000

I see that you too have been contesting some tickets yourself! It certainly is true that "ignorance of the law is not a defense for violating the law" but there are also limits to what it is reasonable to expect a citizen to know. In my particular case, there were numerous parking signs indicating all sorts of restrictions, but the sign which indicated the hours of the street-cleaning was not on the particular sign post I was looking at. How is a reasonable person supposed to know that *one* sign is missing on that post? And similarly for the second case - if there are different parking rules in application, the original signs should be covered.

By: Marc

Marc — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:10:23 +0000

At least Westmount doesn't have a ~~Berlin Wall~~ fence where the public security questions anyone who enters via one of its six gates.

By: Jean Naimard

Jean Naimard — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:05:03 +0000

(Whoops, I forgot...) The absence of french on the signs also do not invalidate the law (despite how much I love law 101). However, the absence of french on a ticket will invalidate the ticket, given the constitutional guarantee that justice must be administered in french or english.

By: Jean Naimard

Jean Naimard — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:03:01 +0000

I find it quite surprising that the tickets were thrown out in court. When you get a ticket, it is in application of the Law, which sits in some official ledger somewhere in City Hall after it has been approved through the necessary legal channels. The signs by the streetside are merely a reflection of the law to inform the public what is the actual law.
However, since ignorance of the law is not a defence for violating the said law, the absence of suitable signage does not invalidates the law, which still fully applies in that case; hence the great success of speed-trap cities who hide a speed limit sign with a truck in order to ticket unsuspecting motorists. The absence of proper signage in Westmount falls under the same category.

By: Jean Naimard

Jean Naimard — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:40:14 +0000

4) Why isn’t Justin Trudeau volunteering to be the bicycle poster boy for Montreal? We need celebs… but I guess most of them are busy cutting us off in their limos on the way to save the world from climate change.

Using Trudeau would be counter-productive. Trudeau was elected by the immigrants, not the "pure laines". In fact, Trudeau is a dirty word in Québec; more than 25 years after he left power, Trudeau is widely despised and hated for his constitutionnal coup. You would know that if you were not utterly disconnected from Québec society.

By: C

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:34:00 +0000

semi-related- a few years ago, a friend's ontario-plate car was broken into at oakland and summit circle by 2 cyclists. we both lost our purses and wallets, among other things. The non-westmounter, opportunist thieves no doubt went down the ridgewood way, through the forest at that intersection.

the no cyclist image on that very corner gave me a chuckle for sure!

By: Horonymous

Horonymous — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:39:30 +0000

Once I saw the path beside the road I thought the no bicycle sign must be for that. Although wouldn't it be safer for the cyclists to use the path so the SUV driving soccer moms wouldn't run them over? I'm all for sharing the road but too many drivers think the road belongs to them.

By: SMS

SMS — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:07:48 +0000

Maybe a sidewalk would remove the need to post those signs!

By: Jean Naimard

Jean Naimard — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:53:23 +0000

Right. Westmounters are not a hundredth times douchebaggy as Mont-Royalers... (And Montréal-Ouesters).

By: Frank

Frank — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:23:49 +0000

Watch TVA run with this (no pun) and make it another anti-Westmount story.
Of course it would be in WM's interest to clarify the damn sign though coming up with a symbol to indicate "no bikes on the jogging path" would be a tough one. Also had you not indicated as much I would
not have known that small dirt lane was a jogging path o.O

By: red light means go

red light means go — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:39:41 +0000

What do you expect from a town where people can't figure out how to cross on the green hand (see Sherbrooke/Claremont), that put giant cement blocks in the bicycle path so that pedestrians could walk on it in Westmount Park, and that closes down the bike lane (in front of a parking garage) to facilitate street parking in the fall (Atwater/Maisonneuve)?

You might want to put your investigative journalism skills to task at the bike path at Concordia University. Does Concordia hate bicycles? I think so.

1) Why can't people figure out that it is a bike path? This should be part of the entrance exams for Concordia... Question: When standing in a bike lane what do you do? Response: Get the FECK out of it!

2) Why the heck has that area been under construction for ever and no one can come up with a system that doesn't result in people walking on the bike path?

3) Why aren't cops standing there making mad $$$ by giving out several hundred jaywalking tickets a day? It's public safety, but I guess they prefer to go to Dairy Queen to get ice cream.

4) Why isn't Justin Trudeau volunteering to be the bicycle poster boy for Montreal? We need celebs... but I guess most of them are busy cutting us off in their limos on the way to save the world from climate change.

By: Zvi Leve

Zvi Leve — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:38:35 +0000

Ah yes, signage Westmount. A few years ago I received a number of parking tickets in Westmount due to non-standard and/or missing signage in the area. After the first ticket I actually called the city to tell them that they were missing a sign. Their response: there has not been a sign at that particular location for at least ten years now and furthermore it is my responsibility to check the signs in BOTH directions when parking a car. A week later I did check the signs in both directions and yet I got another ticket because they had placed "Resident only" signs (in English only) near the houses without indicating anything on the official signs!

Needless to say both tickets were thrown out of Montreal Parking court within minutes, and the judge agreed with me that their signage was completely ridiculous (I had photographic proof). As far as I know, nothing much has changed. Westmount does their own thing, and they are often very zealous in the application of the not very clear rules.