Montreal City Weblog

Updates from August, 2018 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

• Kate 22:16 on 2018-08-31 Permalink | Reply  

  Metro is continuing with its pieces summarizing the Quebec election situation in Montreal ridings: Verdun, Saint-Henri–Sainte-Anne, Westmount–Saint-Louis, Sainte-Marie–Saint-Jacques, Bourget. These are all linked from their excellent map of Montreal ridings (best looked at in the enlarged version) as will any future ones posted.

  Most news we’re seeing now, and this will be true for several more weeks, is promises from various parties, snark among political opponents and hastily squelched scandals – the usual campaign stuff. I’m not here to do extensive reports on the Quebec election – campaign promises are not news – but anything significant affecting Montreal and its ridings I will try to cover.

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• Kate 20:29 on 2018-08-31 Permalink | Reply  

  La Presse says here that the SPVM plans to deploy fewer cops around construction sites during the rentrée and I can confirm it’s already true. Thursday afternoon at Jarry and St-Denis the traffic lights were on the blink, literally, flashing red both ways. St-Denis is being excavated all along there, but around 5 p.m. not a single worker or cop was on site, and the traffic was insane. Drivers were honking and nearly colliding, pedestrians were clustering in little groups before venturing across, cyclists were taking a deep breath and plunging in front of irritated SUV drivers.

  So I called 911 and described the scene and they said OK. I stood watching while traffic clashed for fifteen minutes, then I went to call 911 again, but stopped when I saw a cop cruiser – which squeezed through the intersection and moved away at speed. Oh I see. A second cop car did the same a few minutes later. Definite whiff of “not my call, not my job” about that.

  It took over half an hour before cops arrived to direct traffic and reset the blinkenlights. Luckily nobody got clipped.

  Reducing cops around construction? Even cadets? Save a buck, kill a pedestrian? Not a great plan.

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• Kate 09:14 on 2018-08-31 Permalink | Reply  

  The CSDM, Quebec’s biggest school commission, is running some very blunt ads looking for new teachers: “Disadvantaged setting, multi-ethnic environment, classroom may not have windows” sort of thing. No “grande séduction” going on here*.

  The commission is also still grappling with repairing its decrepit school buildings to provide enough space for a surge of new students.

  A generation ago, schools around town were being sold off nonchalantly for conversion to condos. Looks pretty silly now.

  *Evidently, multi-ethnic environment is a bad thing. Interesting.

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• Kate 08:58 on 2018-08-31 Permalink | Reply  

  Weekend driving problems from TVA. And from La Presse.

   

• Kate 08:24 on 2018-08-31 Permalink | Reply  

  An average 3.75 cyclists die on Montreal streets yearly, and Rosemont borough has the worst record.

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• Kate 08:20 on 2018-08-31 Permalink | Reply  

  A Journal de Montréal blogger looks at what distinguishes the opposition party at city hall, examines a couple of obvious political gradients (left-right, nationalist-federalist) and discards them, then finds in Ensemble’s recent shopping list for the Quebec election a clue in how they differ from Projet.