Hanes: Good Samaritans show up Montreal’s failure to keep streets clean

Few have been spared the ravages of Montreal’s disastrous potholes this spring.

Not Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada, who took to social media to share the double blowout her tires suffered on her way home from City Hall in February.

Not radio host Patrick Lagacé, who wrote a rant about getting four flats in six months.

Not the 8,000 motorists on the Island of Montreal who have called CAA-Québec for roadside assistance due to punctured tires between January and early April.

Not even a pedestrian who stepped in a pothole and broke her ankle after an Angine de Poitrine concert (in what has to be peak Montreal 2026).

So when Saad Tekiout, a landscaper with an altruistic streak, started asking Montrealers where the worst potholes were and patching them himself at a cost of $50 a pop, he instantly became a darling of the media and an appreciative public alike, generating headlines and earning pats on the back.

Tekiout’s gesture “for love of my city” has since inspired at least one copycat vigilante.

But the only folks that aren’t impressed by their exploits are city officials. The mayor politely asked Tekiout to stop. And Montreal’s legal department warned his actions are illegal.

OK, fine. The city is responsible for maintaining road infrastructure and could be held liable for shoddy work. 

But Montreal crews have proven incapable of keeping up with the magnitude of the task at hand this year. (Or any year. Sigh …)

Hearing the current administration blame the last one for the pitiful state of the asphalt, learning that the contract had expired for the company that is supposed to help fill holes, or finding out some of the city’s patching machines were broken, is cold comfort to the thousands of Montrealers who have had to pay out of pocket to replace flat tires.

And despite Martinez Ferrada shovelling over $6 million, deploying 24 more blue collar workers, ordering two new machines and mending 15,000 pockmarks in the pavement, her administration is still hardly making a dent in the problem.

So are Montrealers really better off risking wrecking their undercarriage while they wait for overstretched city crews to get around to repairing roads as cratered as the dark side of the moon? Or is it worth letting a few Good Samaritans with the necessary equipment pitch in to help fix our roughshod streets?

The question of where municipal responsibility ends and civic duty starts is also pertinent in another area where the city is struggling these days: sanitation.

With great fanfare, the administration announced an early start to its spring cleaning blitz at a press conference in mid-March featuring executive committee chair Claude Pinard, blue-collar workers and street sweepers. But a month later, parts of Montreal are as dirty as ever.

In a bit of civic-minded stunt journalism, a pair of La Presse reporters went out and filled two trash bags in 15 minutes along a stretch of bike path in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve in late April. They exposed the fact the city had fallen behind on its ambitious glow-up plans, in part due to wintry weather, in part due to three days of work stoppage by striking blue-collar workers.

Martinez Ferrada said the bar had been set high. And she encouraged Montrealers to “do their part” and “get out their brooms” to tidy up around their own homes.

And many do. Spring is a time when many community groups go out to pick up trash in parks or neighbours get together to remove the detritus that has accumulated in their green alleys.

Some eco warriors, like Jimmy Vigneux of Mission 1,000 tonnes, put city crews to shame with their superhuman efforts. During the month of April, he navigated the Island of Montreal, covering 149 kilometres and gathering 800 pounds of rubbish. In a Facebook post at the end of his tour, he confessed he was shocked how much garbage is strewn about and said something is clearly not working.

Once again, a do-gooder is exposing the city’s failings.

Which brings us back to the administration’s promise to make sprucing up Montreal a priority and who is ultimately responsible.

It’s true: there are too many litterbugs. And everyone would benefit if more Montrealers demonstrated enough civic pride to not only clean up their own messes but grab the odd discarded wrapper on the ground or put a few stray cans in the recycling bin.

But the city has unfortunately cut some of the services that encourage people to dispose of their waste properly. Martinez Ferrada’s administration slashed roving hazardous waste collection points that periodically popped up in boroughs and reduced the schedule for ecocentres where people can drop off junk.

This will make it much harder for Montrealers who don’t have cars to get rid of old paint cans, depleted batteries, or obsolete televisions. Much of it could end up on the curb as dangerous environmental pollution.

At least the city is resuming weekly garbage pick up in Mercier—Hochelaga-Maisonneuve this summer, which was reduced to every other week by the previous administration. Residents complained of overflowing bins sullying their neighbourhood.

The city must lead by example and help citizens help keep Montreal clean.

That approach is a lot harder when it comes to patching potholes. But if Montreal is not up to the challenge itself, can the city really afford to reject the good will of those who can lend a hand?

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Allison Hanes

I started at The Montreal Gazette in 2000 as an intern. Since then I have covered the National Assembly and courts, worked on the assignment desk and written editorials, before debuting as city columnist in 2017.

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