Verdun borough is planning to demolish the Natatorium, the Art Deco swimming facility on its western waterfront.
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Kate
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Kate
The Journal’s Bureau d’Enquête says that the $870 million cited to bring the Olympic stadium up to snuff omitted ventilation, lighting, power and sound and that the true invoice will be around $1 billion.
Kevin
And this estimate doesn’t even include the upgrades necessary to make it useful as a place for concerts or events with people in the stands.
I predict they’re going to end up building another stadium inside the Big O, maybe 30,000 seats.
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Kate
Weekend notes from CityCrunch, La Presse, CultMTL, The Main.
Some notes on weekend road closures and bridge closures.
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Kate
Backing up his minion Geneviève Guilbault, François Legault said Thursday that it’s easier for mayors to “quêter à Québec” rather than to cut their own expenses to meet their cities’ needs.
DeWolf
Municipalities are creatures of the province, especially in Quebec, where there are even more restrictions on their powers than in other provinces.
This is like someone tying your hands behind your back and telling you to go feed yourself.
Meanwhile, and perhaps not coincidentally, the CAQ are third in the polls. A third referendum would be better than this disaster of a government… and maybe rents would go down too!
James
You could certainly say the same thing about provinces begging for money from the federal government!
Kate
I don’t think the relationship of town to province is legally the same as that of the provinces to the federation. How they can raise money, what they’re allowed to decide about, isn’t comparable.
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Kate
There’s an inquiry whenever SPVM police are involved in a car chase, and police who were reprimanded after chasing the suspect in a parking lot murder are unhappy about this decision, saying it leaves them in operational limbo.
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Kate
A plan to pedestrianize Old Montreal, starting with the streets around Notre‑Dame, is meeting resistance from about half the individuals surveyed, who live, work or do business in the area. Of course Ensemble doesn’t like how Projet is going about it, although they offer no better notion than waiting a year.
DeWolf
Honestly the plan is far less ambitious than I expected. A big chunk of those streets are already pedestrianized from April to November: St-Paul, St-Vincent, Place Jacques-Cartier. The big deal here is that St-Laurent and one block of de la Commune are included, which I think is fantastic because it will make for some really nice, spacious places to walk. Otherwise, it’s a bunch of tiny streets the size of alleyways that should already have become car-free years ago.
DeWolf
Also, lol at Ensemble’s position. Some hand-wavy statement about citizens needing to be consulted and then a demand to postpone the project.
We can see what kind of administration Ensemble would be: a do-nothing government that kicks the ball down the road at every opportunity.
DeWolf
There are more specific details here:
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/espaces-pietonniers/3136/644?u=kilgoretrout
It’s even more modest than I realized. St-Laurent and de la Commune wouldn’t be pedestrianized, they would simply have expanded space for pedestrians. Several streets with hotel access would have traffic calming measures implemented. Basically, the only sections that would be fully pedestrianized, and which aren’t already, are the little sidestreets around St-Paul East and the streets directly around Place d’Armes and the basilica.
This is the bare minimum of what should be done in the area. And yet it’s facing opposition because apparently tourists from Ontario absolutely *need* to drive straight up to the doorstep of the Notre-Dame Basilica, otherwise they’ll stay home and we’ll lose all their business.
Joey
This is a classic PM move – the actual policy as announced is, as DeWolf points out, very modest. So modest that, to most Montrealers, it may not even be noticeable. And not bold enough to actually reduce Old Montreal gridlock. But still modesty is required to get reactionary merchants on board. Of course, the merchants association inevfitably abandons ship and whines to the press. PM winds up looking like inconsiderate zealots, even though they took a moderate approach. If you’re gonna get all the flack, go big! Turn half the streets in Old Mtl into pedestrian-only! Restrict vehicle access to residents, delivery vehicles, and commercial vehicles (the latter two could be expected to demonstrate a waybill work order justifying their presence in Old Montreal on any given day)! Charge $10/hour for parking meters! Make transit free to and from downtown! Anyone who’s spent any time in Old Montreal the last few summers will rejoice at how it won’t be awful anymore to maneuver through endless traffic jams. And drivers will be as pissed off as if they had to sit in traffic.
There are rare occasions where PM digs in its heels and does what it actually wants, but that’s usually when the ‘opposition’ is effectively powerless groups of citizens (e.g., JMP softball field) and/or when individual PM officials have a direct interest in the outcome (not implying corruption, more like preferences for ‘pet projects’ that aren’t necessarily disclosed).
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Kate
Parks Canada has given in and is replacing the public trash cans along the Lachine Canal.
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Kate
TVA says a man has put up a tent near the new Maison Benoît Labre in St‑Henri and they report that some locals are not happy with the presence of others attracted by the drug inhalation site.
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Kate
In 2021, the CAQ announced a big project of 17 museums to glorify the culture of Quebec, to be called Espace Bleu. It was recently cancelled, but now there’s a plan to put $92 million into a history museum in Quebec City instead.
Ephraim
Will they finally mention that less than 20 minutes (likely just 13½ minutes) of glory the French had?
Blork
Soon it will be just a big room showing “Les Filles de Caleb” and “Aurore, l’enfant martyre” on continuous loop.
Kate
Soundbite from Legault on CBC radio says the museum will start with Champlain, and with the difficulties that the French settlers initially faced….
Daisy
That makes sense, since there was no one here before Champlain and the French settlers, right? And if there was, they didn’t speak French, which comes to the same thing.
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Kate
CBC investigates how vacant buildings keep burning down. The city estimates that 800 buildings are standing empty around town.
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Kate
A document revealed Wednesday in the National Assembly claims that nine of our metro stations are in poor shape – but doesn’t say which ones. And once again Geneviève Guilbault washes her lily white hands.
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Kate
McGill’s expansion into the old Royal Vic space will be adding a new downtown lookout and an additional access to Mount Royal park.
Meezly
So the Quebec govt is “contributing $620 million of the $870-million price tag” for McGill’s New Vic project, but at the same time, it seeks to scare away out of province students with its planned tuition hikes. In other words, running the province like a business but potentially hampering economic progress due to crippling ideology.
But I’m looking forward to see how this development project progresses.
Uatu
Should be interesting. I’m interested to see how my old department will be transformed. And I’m glad that it’s open to the public and not turned into an exclusive walled enclave of condos for rich d bags.
Margaret
The Quebec Govt investing in the old Royal Vic space now does not mean it will be an anglophone university benefitting from the investment somewhere down the line if tuition fee inequities put that university and its infrastructure up for sale eventually.
Joey
I like how this is turning out. Not sure that the report is accurate (McGill probably doesn’t need a huge new addition to its campus to house its sustainability and policy offerings), but whatever. As someone who argued that the old Vic should’ve been demolished and replaced by trees, I’m pleased with this second-best option.
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Kate
It’s not like this wasn’t foreseen, but the REM is on track to cannibalize transit revenue in the urban area over the next few years.
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Kate
Cars are bursting into flame all over, Thursday morning’s incident involving three vehicles in Île Bizard being the latest in a series.
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Kate
Once again a pedestrian has lost against a heavy vehicle: a woman was killed Wednesday afternoon in Pointe‑aux‑Trembles by a truck driven by a man that may have been impaired.
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