In a scene representative of downtown chaos, an orange page, poured into the tarmac and now into the snow, greets visitors outside one of Montreal’s most prestigious hotels.
• Also read: Downtown Montreal: A quarter of orange cones are useless
“I can imagine the tourists arriving in Montreal seeing that and I find it a bit unacceptable. It’s not good for the image of downtown or that of the Ritz-Carlton,” said Peter McGill City Councilor Serge Sasseville.
The latter posted on Twitter on Friday a photo of this “extremely ugly” cone planted on a sidewalk on Sherbrooke Street to illustrate their ubiquity in Montreal.
On the pavement in front of it is an orange cone with bitumen freshly laid over it @RitzCarlton of Montreal in the Peter-McGill neighborhood @CentervilleMTL. Even though I’m their councilman and they ask me when he’ll be removed, I can’t answer them pic.twitter.com/dLOYqOLW17
— J.Serge Sasseville (he/him-he/him) (@SergeSasseville) January 20, 2023
Three other large cones and a white-orange barrier surround it. When asked by the Journal, the city justified the use of this installation pending the installation of a new lamppost.
The cone is thus used to protect the base of the lamppost already installed underground, “due to the lack of more suitable materials, which are currently being ordered”, writes the publicist Camille Bégin.
The asphalt was poured to make the sidewalk safer for pedestrians. “But I think we should have done everything at once,” says Mr. Sasseville. When we dig to install a standpipe, we make sure to install the lamppost at the same time!”
If the cone surfaced last Wednesday, it’s not known when it will be removed. Just yesterday, the Montreal Chamber of Commerce presented a study that found a quarter of the metropolis’ cones were useless.
“This is a case that illustrates the problem well. That doesn’t make our downtown attractive at all while we’re trying to bring workers back,” he summarizes.