It turned out to be easy to stop city hall’s controversial road closure on Mount Royal.

All it took was a fast-approaching city election that threatened to defeat the party in power.

Since 2023, Projet Montréal has incessantly pledged to close Camillien-Houde Way to cars, while leaving it open to largely hardcore cyclists.

All its party leadership candidates supported this plan, including new mayoral candidate Luc Rabouin, despite huge public opposition. But facing an imminent Nov. 2 election, the new party leader suddenly changed positions, for now.

Unfortunately, Rabouin hasn’t fully backed down. He’s left the door wide open to bringing the road closing back after the election, once they find a way to “integrate public transit links” into the plan.

But the obvious way to solve that public transit problem is to leave the bus lane open on the mountain’s eastern side, instead of demolishing it as the party absurdly planned.

But if so, why not allow some car access for seniors, the disabled, cemetery gatherings and others, as people have demanded for years while city hall wouldn’t listen?

Let me remind you that in our last city election in 2021, Mayor Valérie Plante also vowed NOT to close the mountain road, after a vast city-wide consultation voted

© Montreal Gazette