Pedestrians forced to take to the streets (and possibly penalized for it!)

"Gatineau residents will be walking in the streets until the end of winter because the city has given up on plowing sidewalks.

The city says there's simply too much snow for them to remove, so they will be plowing the snow that has been clogging streets since the weekend onto the sidewalks."
- Ottawa Sun, March 13, 2008

However, in a separate article in “La Revue” (March 12, 2008 edition) Gatineau Police have announced that they will be ticketing pedestrians that they consider to be unsafely walking in the streets.

While I understand the role of Police in ensuring safety for the citizenry of Gatineau, this seems like a bit of a cash grab. I think Police should be enforcing on-street parking regulations and ticketing cars that are parked in already narrowed streets, where those cars create a dangerous situation for drivers and pedestrians - especially on main roads and near schools.

As an example, on-street parking on Boulevard de la Cite has effectively narrowed the street width to one lane. On 2 occasions this week alone, traffic has been backed up along this street as only one car can pass at a time. The focus could also be in areas near schools where children are forced to walk on the street, and on-street parking makes it difficult for one car to pass in certain areas, let alone a car and a pedestrian.

While I hope next winter won’t present similar problems, hopefully city council will enact legislation that protects pedestrians rather than penalizes them. Ticketing poor pedestrians forced to take to the roads because of winter weather while not enforcing things that have been shown to save lives (like mandatory bike helmet laws) seems a bit hypocritical to me.

Is Common Courtesy lost in Gatineau?

On Saturday December 8, 2007 I was enjoying lunch when I was interrupted by a backhoe scraping snow off my lawn. I went to take a look at when was going on to find a contractor crew digging a large hole in my front yard.

I understand that construction has to happen, and I know that technically the city claims an easement of the first 6 feet of property from the curb. However, this does not negate common courtesy. I feel it is the duty of work crews to inform property owner prior to destroying their property, and provide them with contact information BEFORE they begin such work.

I will have to live with a large unsightly hole in my front yard for the remainder of the winter, and I can only hope that come spring I can even contact the contractors to come make the proper repairs. This is not the first such incident. In June of this year, my entire side yard was destroyed by construction and it took 3 months, 8 phone calls and a threat of legal action to get it repaired (this incident was recorded in a previous blog post).

I will be contacting the City of Gatineau on Monday about today's incident, and will post their reply in this space.


UPDATE Dec.11 - I have finally received a message from the Gas company (Gazifiere). The Gazifiere rep actually told me that this "happens all the time". Also, he would not commit to when they will come make the grass repairs, saying that I can call them the first week of June and they will have a schedule for repairs by then.

I have informed them that this is unacceptable, and I am demanding a firm date in May for repairs, or a financial settlement and I will do the repairs myself.

I hope more citizens start to stand up for themselves. Don't let these comapnies intimidate you!

City of Gatineau Noise Bylaws

Here is an open note to the construction team that started work at 7am at 192 rue de la Plaine on Sunday Nov 18th.

Please familiarize yourself with Bylaw 44-2003 :

CHAPITRE 5
TRAVAUX
7. En raison de la nature irritante du bruit (sirènes, ondes de choc, impacts répétitifs, etc.), les travaux sur un chantier de construction, de rénovation ou de démolition, qui se situe à moins de 150 mètres d’un immeuble servant d’hébergement, ne peuvent s’effectuer que du lundi au samedi, entre 7 h et 21 h, sauf dans le cas de travaux d’urgence sur des infrastructures publiques ou de travaux qui ont été expressément autorisés par le Comité exécutif.

Dear fellow citizens, the City continually refuses to enforce this with bylaw enforcement officers and expect us to call the already overworked Police Services to enforce this law.

Please be sure to report ANY violations until the Police force the city to take action. Only when citizens get serious will the city get serious.

BTW, on Wednesday and Friday I witnessed drug deals on my street. Next time I will post the license plate of the offender in this spot.

Gatineau - Services Part 2

The second totally inadequate service in the city is the Bylaw enforcement.

The 2 major issues?
1. On Street Parking
2. Construction Noise Violations.

1. Parking - People in the city of Gatineau seem to park wherever they want.

On my street, cars often line BOTH sides of the street (where all these cars are from since every house has a double driveways is beyond me). Even if there is space on one side, people often park directly across from a car on the other side. This means that every day a section of my street is LESS than one lane wide.

Why Gatineau lets this slide, I will never know.

2. Noise Violations.
Did you know there is a 7am to 9pm, Mon to Sat construction law in Gatineau? Seems the contractors, police and by-law officials don't either.

Outside of those hours, and never on Sunday or Holidays can construction take place. So why is it that for the last 4 months I have had to listen to hammers, chainsaws and whatever else until 2 in the morning sometimes?

And don't think I don't complain - I have written 3 e-mails to the City and had a phone conversation with a "Steve Wong" about this issue ... but I still had to listen to a gas powered electric generator until 11:30pm yesterday ...