As of 18:00 Tuesday a quarter of the recent snowfall had been whisked away.
Updates from January, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
A piece of art that doubles as a rock-climbing face will be installed near the Université de Montréal’s new science complex.
qatzelok
For my eye, it’s more of a rock-climbing wall that got classified as a work of art to capture the 1% budget for visual art.
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Kate
François Legault’s minister responsible for Montreal has washed her hands of Royalmount, saying it’s not up to her to intervene.
Speaking of Legault, while cutting immigration to Quebec he was quoted this week as saying he wants more European newcomers. Funny, I can hear a dog whistle, can’t you?
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Kate
Plans were unveiled Tuesday morning for the renovation of Phillips Square.
Blork
$50 million? How can that possibly cost $50 million? All they’re doing is widening sidewalks and putting in a few trees!
Kate
The bill for redoing Place d’Armes almost ten years ago: $15.5 million according to Wikipedia.
Various prices have been mentioned for redoing Dorchester Square and Place du Canada: a quote from the Gazette in 2010 mentions $23 million but that didn’t include later work on the northern edge of the square, costed at $4.2 million in 2016. Those two squares had the complication that they’d previously been a cemetery.
Work on Place Vauquelin was assessed at $12 million in 2015 including work on an antique fountain. As an adjunct to city hall and as a part of Old Montreal it’s reasonable to keep the small square looking nice.
Didn’t one of my readers kvetch about the cost of spiffing up Carré St‑Louis? I can’t look it up.
But these price tags (which may not be final or complete) are all significantly lower than the Phillips Square plan.
CharlesQ
There’s more information here: https://www.makingmtl.ca/squarephillips but there’s no breakdown of the cost (which should be mandatory for all public projects, it must be somewhere). There’s mention of the “vespasiennes” that were there where the columns with the bronze vents at the top are. Anyway, the very detailed PDF with loads of information (in french) on that site.
Mr.Chinaski
The price includes all the infrastructure. I refer you to this : https://twitter.com/SylvainOuellet/status/1087863658498191360 showing how much stuff has to be gutted, the second pic shows the area surrounding Square Phillips. It’s a total gut. Cost for Place des Montréalaises and Square Viger are around 30 million $. Price skyrockets when you start adding up engineer price (structural, civil, mechanical for the fountain + water feature) and the mitigation costs for a downtown public space.
Kate
CharlesQ, Mr Chinaski, I never thanked you for those links but I’m doing that now.
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Kate
A man was killed December 2 at the bar Le Belmont on St-Laurent, and police are looking for any pictures or video shot there that night – not necessarily of the incident. Details in the item.
Afterthought: I don’t remember seeing this homicide reported at the time, nor is it on Kevin’s homicide map. Odd.
Kevin
I wrote about it at the time but neglected to put it on my map, probably because the victim only died many hours after he was shot.
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/montreal-shooting-leaves-one-dead-one-injured-two-arrested-1.4202002Kate
No criticism meant, Kevin. I figured if the police hadn’t numbered it you mightn’t have had a report.
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Kate
A woman was killed Tuesday morning when mowed down by a garbage truck in the Mile End. CTV’s version says a dump truck, which sounds more likely during snow clearance, but the photo on the CBC link definitely shows a garbage truck. (CTV later updated.)
walkerp
i saw Parc closed off by police cars this morning and the 80 being re-routed. Really horrible. That is the same alley (though different exit) where my cat was killed last fall. Also, it’s not garbage day today. Perhaps it was a commercial pickup. Trying to understand how he could have come out of there and not seen the woman. Really sad.
Blork
The article says the truck hit the woman as it turned north onto Parc. That means one of two things: it means the woman was jaywalking across Parc (highly unlikely) or she was on the sidewalk close to the truck and as it turned, the side of the truck swung into her.
I think that second option is more likely and is entirely plausible. Likely the woman wasn’t able to step back or out of the way in time, possibly because of the snow and ice. Perhaps she tried to step back and fell. (All speculation at this point.)
SMD
Second option, according to JdM:
« La victime marchait tout bonnement sur le trottoir lorsqu’elle a été surprise par le camion à ordures qui sortait d’une ruelle et qui tentait de s’engager sur l’avenue du Parc. Le chauffeur du poids lourd n’aurait pas aperçu la septuagénaire, dont le décès a été constaté sur les lieux de l’accident. »
Ian
That’s pretty rough but also sounds like a legit accident. I know that particular alley and it’s kind of a blind exit especially with snow, you really have to check the alleys in this neighbourhood before walking past them.
I find it strange that CTV says “Park Ave.” instead of avenue du Parc. I mean, I say “Park Avenue”, but I live here, and picked it up from residents older than me. You’d think for the sake fo factuality they would use the official toponymy. On the subject I noticed neither article says “the” Mile End.
Kate
walkerp: Sorry to hear about your cat. Unfortunately this death is one in a long string of cyclist and pedestrian deaths caused by the blind spots around large trucks.
Kevin
@Ian
We argue this at work all the time. My stance is that the official nomenclature is in French, but I am not writing in French, I’m writing in English, and so will use English terminology. That means periods instead of hyphens, English spelling for place names, and never under any circumstances writing Pins Avenue or avenue des Pins.Flip it on its head: would you expect francophone media to discuss “The White House” instead of “La Maison-Blanche”? Or insist upon Yonge Street instead of rue Yonge?
At one point bilingual names were officially sanctioned, or at least acknowledged, by the Montreal’s administration. If you look at maps you will frequently see English street names and neighbourhood names, such as Point Saint Charles, Mountain Street, and Park Avenue.
Ian
These are all good points, Kevin – I just find it curious that CBC follows official toponymy whereas CTV chooses to use the older ethnic minority names. You can still see the stickers on older signs where they changed the position of avenue from the beginning to end of the sign and as far as I can figure there were some streets named in the French manner and some in the English, and it all just depended on what the ethnic mix of that street was at the time of naming.There are still a few older street signs on Fairmount that were clearly “Fairmount avenue” originally – but Laurier was always “avenue Laurier” (at least after they changed it from Saint-Louis I guess).
That said there has been a slow change toward using preferred local toponymy regardless of reporting language in international media – Beijing instead of Peking, Mumbai instead of Bombay… but nobody other than the Russians says Moskva. I’ve always found the changing of international names to local linguistic conventions interesting and kind of arbitrary.
FWIW I generally use the French versions of street names but I still call “du Parc” Park avenue… when in Rome, I guess.Joey
I’m fairly sure that’s not a thru alley, in the sense that it’s blocked at one end (close to Jeanne-Mance). You can only access it by going in headfirst (and then I guess backing out?) or by entering the alley at the southern end of that block, closer to Villeneuve (a thru alley), driving north and heading west once you join it. It’s useful for folks who have parking spots along the north-south alley that connects it to the thru alley closer to Villeneuve, but I’m surprised a garbage truck would be exiting the alley. Maybe the restaurant that borders the alley has its garbage bins in the back (l’Oeufrier). I’m actually kind of stumped as to how the truck would have gotten into the alley in the first place.
A few years ago Ferrandez promised to put speed bumps at the end of all Plateau alleys after a child was killed, struck by a car. I asked Alex Norris about that a while back (maybe a year or 18 months) and he said it was coming along, but wasn’t yet done. The other east-west alley on that block has speed bumps close to the sidewalk but not quite right at the edge. I wonder if it might be worthwhile for the city to install convex safety mirrors on the adjacent buildings so that drivers have a fuller view of the sidewalk.
Anyway, I have a vague memory of Ferrandez promising to resign if the number of pedestrian or cyclist deaths didn’t decrease in the borough, but I can’t find anything online. Anyone have a similar recollection? I wonder what the tally is…
Kevin
@Ian
I suspect Rad Can dictates to the few blokes in the building what terminology they may use. 😉Blork
@Joey, it is a through alley. Or it least it was the last time Google went by:
https://goo.gl/maps/Fmg5ecEKsspJoey
@Blork there’s been a planter there for a while now (18 months? More?).
Tim S.
I’ve seen mirrors used very effectively around alleys and driveways in other places. It’s helpful for both pedestrians and drivers. I wonder why we don’t do it in Montreal. I suppose they might get tagged, but if you put them up high enough, or cover them with some kind of clingfilm it might help.
mare
There was one in my alley but it was removed. All poles are owned by people (washing lines) or HydroQuebec, Bell and Videotron and they don’t allow anything third party. They even cut the clematis in my caré d’arbre.
George I
I was there, unfortunately. The truck was coming out nose first. It is not a through alley. It is blocked at the other end. The only way in is via the alley running parallel to Mount Royal (near Petro Canada) – That is a through alley. Or, most likely, the truck backed into the alley before the accident. I can’t imaging a truck that size negotiating the narrow alley any other way. You can barely manage with a car.
mare
An alley near my house is the back entrance and loading area for a small IGA. I’ve witnessed many times, in awe, how huge semis back up into the alley without having even needing to go back and forth. I’ve also witnessed pedestrians continue their passage on the sidewalk very close in front or behind the often still moving truck. “I have right of way” is sometimes not the right way to act. Drivers are usually very careful though, but I’ve seen their faces having “what the fuck?” expressions.
I have no idea if this happened here, just reporting what I’ve seen in my hood, more than once. And garbage trucks tend to drive much more aggressively, and faster. Constantly being bugged by stupid other road users is not good for your consideration towards those other road users.
I’m also surprised that one small-ish store gets some days 10 to 20 deliveries. Apart from the IGA truck (and sometimes two of them, that each just unload a few pallets of their load), they get deliveries from many different beer trucks, more than one bread truck, the Chips truck, the Coke truck, the Pepsi truck, the cheese curd truck (really!), and many others. It’s very inefficient, puts many large trucks in residential areas and increases the chances of collisions with cyclists and pedestrians. And their are a few more grocery stores within a 400 metre radius and many depanneurs, pharmacies, SAQs as well. All with big trucks delivering goods, all day long.
Tim S.
When they built a condo/grocery store on de Maisonneuve and Greene in Westmount, one of the conditions seems to have been that the grocery store hire a flag person to guide trucks across the bike path and sidewalk and down their loading dock. It’s great – they’re really good at directing traffic, fair at letting pedestrians and cyclists go through before the trucks begin backing up, helpful to the truck drivers. It makes a potentially very dangerous situation actually pleasant and neighbourhoody. All for what, 15$ an hour?
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Kate
The Institut de recherche et d’informations socio-économiques says the city should be doing more to protect its stock of rental housing under the current hot real estate market.
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Kate
The Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste complains that the city is lollygagging over displaying the Quebec flag everywhere, all the time.
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Kate
The Gazette has more on top UdeM urbanist Raphaël Fischler’s opposition to the Royalmount project. Fischler has some very strong points here about the potential lasting damage to the urban fabric.
Daniel
“The same developer built the Quartier DIX30 shopping complex in Brossard and was involved in plans for a similar $1.3-billion project in Griffintown in the mid-2000s, much of which was later scrapped.”
We dodged the bullet there, didn’t we!
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Kate
Catholic priest Brian Boucher, who was found guilty in one set of sex charges two weeks ago, has admitted to having additional victims. He’ll be sentenced in March.
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Kate
Montreal East mayor Robert Coutu plans a pointless run for the Conservatives in this fall’s federal election. I guess it could be worse. He could’ve signed up with Maxime Bernier.
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Kate
Mathias Marchal visits Hydro-Quebec’s secret control room – somewhere in Montreal – it wouldn’t be in the actual Hydro building on René-Lévesque, now would it? – where the flow of the more than 40,000 megawatts Quebec can pull on a cold day is orchestrated.
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Kate
The Gazette reports on how last week’s Code Orange went at the Children’s Hospital, when the Lasalle hospital had a monoxide leak.
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Kate
The STM doesn’t plan to follow the city’s traffic authority in abandoning Twitter. In fact, it plans to strengthen its use of the service.
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