Updates from February, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 14:31 on 2019-02-18 Permalink | Reply  

    A minor loading dock fire caused the evacuation of part of Place Ville-Marie Monday morning. Three people were treated for smoke but it sounds like it was put out quickly.

     
    • Kate 09:14 on 2019-02-18 Permalink | Reply  

      East-end reps are demanding more studies into the effects of toxic industrial emissions.

       
      • Kate 09:08 on 2019-02-18 Permalink | Reply  

        The airport has long been notorious as a hotspot for car theft but police say they have halved the numbers by breaking up a gang doing the work.

         
        • Ephraim 15:16 on 2019-02-18 Permalink

          I assume they want kudos for doing their jobs… I want more questions into why this has taken more than a DECADE to actually do.

        • Bill Binns 10:36 on 2019-02-19 Permalink

          Funny we don’t ever hear the fire department boasting of putting out half of a fire.

      • Kate 08:11 on 2019-02-18 Permalink | Reply  

        It’s embarrassing to admit, but I only discovered the city’s snow removal map this weekend after a post on reddit. My only excuse is that I don’t own a car, so snow removal is a question of mild curiosity for me, rather than an urgent call to action.

         
        • Faiz Imam 12:00 on 2019-02-18 Permalink

          They also have smartphone apps! The android one is called info-neige. It works pretty well.

        • jeather 12:09 on 2019-02-18 Permalink

          The infoneige.ca site is also not bad. I didn’t know the city had its own map either, though having to zoom all the way in before you can see the details is pretty annoying. That said I would never trust the map totally, the orange signs have complete priority over the website, and historically the websites were often wrong.

        • Faiz Imam 14:34 on 2019-02-18 Permalink

          I don’t know if its true for all the fleet, but some data they already have privately is live accurate GPS locations of many vehicles. Its huge for logistics and planning of the removal operations.

          Other cities have made that information public, and it looks really cool. Check out Toronto’s site for example. you can literally see every plow and cleaner going around, as well as a live video:

          https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-transportation/road-maintenance/winter-maintenance/plowto/

          The way we contract out work to various private companies makes it complicated, but I’m hoping we can start sharing that sort of data as well.

        • Mr.Chinaski 14:34 on 2019-02-18 Permalink

          Infoneige.ca and the “déneigenement” city website are all using the same data, it’s all open-source now. Same with the info-neige app

        • Faiz Imam 14:37 on 2019-02-18 Permalink

          edit: correction about Toronto, they don’t have video. I was mixing that up with a different story.

        • denpanosekai 18:27 on 2019-02-18 Permalink

          This map (and the Android app) has such bad data. My street is listed as “chargement prevu” for Tuesday PM, but they did it on Saturday morning. I want to say it’s alright overall, but it’s nowhere near perfect…

        • Kate 07:57 on 2019-02-19 Permalink

          denpanosekai, I wonder if that varies from borough to borough. It’s been accurate for the streets in Villeray around my place.

        • Rebecca 08:45 on 2019-02-19 Permalink

          infoneige (the android app) is useless for me. It never correctly shows the regions planned to be cleared or where the crew is expected to be at a given time. It updates late at night, long after the crew has left and my street is cleared. The rumble of the trucks going by is a better indicator than this thing ever was. Makes me wonder if it’s just my burrow (Saint-Laurent) or if it’s the same for everywhere.

        • Ian 12:56 on 2019-02-19 Permalink

          I’ve been finding the app surprisingly accurate, but I’m in MIle-End.

      • Kate 08:09 on 2019-02-18 Permalink | Reply  

        It’s taken years, but the STM has finally started putting up new neighbourhood maps in metro stations.

        Another metro story Monday is that some women are afraid of Laval’s metro stations, especially after dark, because the environs are so deserted and there isn’t any security presence.

         
        • Patrick 16:55 on 2019-02-18 Permalink

          Now if they could only make the System Map on their website easier to load and use…

      • Kate 08:02 on 2019-02-18 Permalink | Reply  

        Ingrid Peritz has a look at the on-the-job French lessons being offered to working people – in this case, the owner of a dépanneur in Chinatown.

         
        • Bill Binns 11:33 on 2019-02-18 Permalink

          THIS – “The message addresses a basic truth in Montreal: Most people are bilingual and tend to switch to English if they sense that a newcomer is struggling in French.”

          There are about as many opportunities to practice bad French in Montreal as there are in Houston. I mostly gave up trying years ago. If I go to France for two weeks I can feel my French proficiency and confidence growing everyday. It’s nobody’s fault but it is a uniquely Montreal angle on language learning.

        • Jack Frost 20:52 on 2019-02-18 Permalink

          Quel propos détestable. Il vous faut aller en France pour gagner de la confiance? On entendait ça des expatriés rodhésiens de Westmount il y a 60 ans. La réalité est que vous êtes un monolingue complaisant et ignorant. Êtes-vous même allé en France? Pour dire quoi: ma chérie, c’est délicieeeesux, Oh la la! Beaujolaais nouveeeau. Take that on the chin, moron.

        • Jack Frost 21:21 on 2019-02-18 Permalink

          Please accept my apologies. I am such a bore. My enunciation suffers from a deceitful disease: the inability to speak in a formal manner. I live in the East, and I am the son of forgetful fathers and mothers. I speak French as if my mother tongue was invaded every day by the miasms of bastardy, the sole pride of my race. When I am looking further up in the mountains where the rich and famous live in peace, I open my beggars’ bag, search uneasily through the last letters from my father. Finally, the dictionary, my only sacred book, is at my disposal.
          It says: Take it on the chin. Please accept my mistake.
          From your subordinate, servile, almost mute, ignorant, a long-standing pauper.

          Jack Frost, haunted by Ti-Jean (Jack Kerouac martyrized by le petit Canada de Lowell).

        • david100 04:37 on 2019-02-19 Permalink

          ^ Tu rates complètement l’essentiel: si l’on entend le moindre indice d’un accent non-francophone, la tendance à Montréal est de répondre en anglais, c’est connu à 100% par tout le monde. Quand même. Donc, les anglophones qui s’intéressent à améliorer leur maîtrise du français trouvent souvent que sortir d’içi, soit ailleurs au Québec soit en France, a un effet positif en ce regarde. Rien de “détestable” là-dedans.

        • JaneyB 09:26 on 2019-02-19 Permalink

          When I first moved here, I simply responded in French to their English and told them I needed to practise. Of course, if it’s a busy time or place, that’s not the time to practise but otherwise, this method works just fine. Also, some Francos are practising their English and some people are so bilingual, they forget what they’re speaking.

          And then there’s the great site http://www.offqc.com for getting a hold on Quebec French. That man should be knighted.

        • simon harel 10:14 on 2019-02-19 Permalink

          Merci, chère Madame, pour votre sensibilité qui est l’espritr d’une vraie montréalaise.

        • Bill Binns 17:05 on 2019-02-19 Permalink

          I really was not complaining. I do not think anyone here has a responsibility to teach me French while they are doing their job. I would do exactly the same. Montreal is just one of a handful of places on the planet where a large percentage of the population is perfectly bilingual.

          Going to France (especially the Brittany countryside where my mother in law lives) is the linguistic equivalent of learning to swim by being thrown in a lake. If you want that Egg McMuffin you better figure out how to say “Omelette au fromage”. Quebec is basically the same once you are out of site of the PVM tower.

      • Kate 07:58 on 2019-02-18 Permalink | Reply  

        Daphnée Hacker-B. levels a solid point at the transport ministry: every government talks about encouraging car-sharing to reduce traffic, but none of them ever does anything to promote it.

         
        • Tim F 21:00 on 2019-02-18 Permalink

          Is this more carpooling than car-sharing?

        • Kate 09:59 on 2019-02-19 Permalink

          Is there a difference? I guess car-pooling is more the phrase.

      • Kate 07:55 on 2019-02-18 Permalink | Reply  

        The REM is putting together a focus group to help them make decisions on signage (or at least to pretend they’re consulting the public about it). With a link to the REM page where you can volunteer to participate.

         
        • Kate 07:50 on 2019-02-18 Permalink | Reply  

          More grade school students in Montreal doesn’t mean we need more crossing guards – at least, not in the view of the SPVM.

           
          • Chris 08:42 on 2019-02-18 Permalink

            Well, after all, the government is encouraging car-sharing to reduce traffic, so less traffic mean less danger for the kids.

        • Kate 07:49 on 2019-02-18 Permalink | Reply  

          A march was held Sunday in St-Henri to Lemay, the architectural firm that won a federal contract to design a new prison for migrants in Laval. CTV calls the building a holding facility but tells essentially the same story.

           
          • david100 04:42 on 2019-02-19 Permalink

            I think using the word “immigrants” to describe illegal aliens who are being detained and/or deported for serious violations of Canadian law is an insult to all the immigrants who somehow find a way not to victimize the people and laws of Canada. That said, this element should be housed separately because once they’ve served their sentences, it’s better to keep them with their own than continue to house them with the criminal scum. Letting them disappear into the general population is obviously out of the question, but keeping them in prison when they’ve served their terms, or they’ve been caught after having sneaked back into the country after a prior deportation or whatever, it seems a little disproportionate.

          • Kate 08:00 on 2019-02-19 Permalink

            david100, I wrote “migrants” to mostly intend people who arrive here irregularly, because as I understand it, that’s who the facility is for. It has been made to sound relatively benign: a place where families can be kept together while being processed, their refugee status checked out and so on. You’re talking about entirely different matters.

            Anyway, a lot of my ancestors arrived here in the 1840s in a disorganized and chaotic manner so I’m not about to get on my high horse about bureaucratic immigration procedures.

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