The city says that Lafontaine Park must lose 132 trees over the next two years, because they’re not safe. There are more than 3000 trees in the park, according to the report cited, but some had their structure permanently damaged during the 1998 ice storm.
Updates from February, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The Gazette interviews the father of a teenager murdered 25 years ago in the West Island, as he prepares to attend the killer’s parole hearing in British Columbia. Gregory Bromby has been denied parole twice before but has been living in what Michael Manning calls “the Taj Mahal of prisons” on Vancouver Island.
Update: Parole denied.
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Kate
The Centre d’histoire takes a walk on Sherbrooke in 1910 with thoughts on the use of horses in town and the origins of one of the city’s most recognizable residential buildings.
Ephraim
That building is Maison Arthur-Dubuc https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maison_Arthur-Dubuc
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Kate
Patrick Lagacé writes about his love-hate feelings for Montreal, specifically reacting to the recent news about the net loss of 25,000 residents to off-island suburbs in 2017-18. It’s a short, relevant piece and I like his determination to stay in town despite the blandishments of the burbs – besides, as a city columnist it wouldn’t look great for him to be writing from Boucherville or Repentigny.
(Why does he give us two footnote references but no footnotes, though? Here’s the New Yorker piece he cites although it’s from 2007, not 2006.)
At the same time, Josh Freed in the Gazette talks about icy sidewalks and how other towns have heated ones. Why does Freed’s tone annoy me so much when Lagacé’s doesn’t? It’s this:
So why did we abandon our own plan? The city tried a pilot project in Old Montreal’s Place-Vauquelin and botched the job, so costs spiralled, as they do for everything in this town.
(Anyone want an overpriced Montreal composting plant?)
It’s that fatalistic sourness, which the Gazette has been fostering in the anglo population for years. I read a few Montreal-based Facebook groups (mostly looking for interesting bits for the blog) and so many old anglos have adopted this weary, negative tone they don’t even notice it any more. It sounds wise and world-weary but it isn’t, because it means people don’t vote, they don’t give a shit – this town is doomed so fuck it.
I counter this tone on the odd occasion when I think there’s any point. Also, part of the reason this blog exists is in resistance to that tone.
Kevin
I disagree.
Read Lagacé on the bumbling ineptness of francophone school boards and his realization they cannot be saved.
Freed is calling for Montreal to stop reinventing the wheel and just copy other jurisdictions.qatzelok
I agree with you here, Kate.
The Gazette’s “Maitre Chez Nous indeed!” tone got olde a long time ago.Kate
qatzelok, the Gazette’s view is nothing to do with that, in my view. In fact, if the paper had stood up for the anglo community long ago instead of withdrawing into a snide passive-aggressive self-pitying position about things, it would’ve deserved a lot more respect, and done better journalism as well.
Hamza
The thinking behind that snide, negative tone is simply – ‘everything is rotten. This is the government’s fault. Therefore – privatise everything.’
DeWolf
It’s a good column and it touches on how people underestimate the mental, physical and financial toll of commuting every day. What changes the equation, though, is that there is a growing amount of employment in the suburbs (not to mention self-employment) so that might change the equation.
Incidentally, if Lagacé’s suburban siren is Saint-Lambert, he really is a city boy. Of all the Montreal suburbs, that’s the one that most resembles a city neighbourhood. I’d rather live there than in many on-island areas. Same goes for Vieux-Longueuil.
Kate
DeWolf, you’re right. Parts of St-Lambert and Montreal West are interchangeable, architecturally, and Victoria is a nice little commercial street. I had relatives who lived near there a long time so I’m vaguely familiar with it. I don’t know Vieux-Longueuil – maybe I’ll take a walk in the summertime.
At some point on the blog, someone recommended another old part of the south shore as worth a look, but now I can’t find the place. I had a peek on Streetview and it looked nice, with old buildings and little cafés. Somewhere you can get to by bus from Bonaventure. Anyone?
Blork
Vieux La Prairie is very adorable, but tiny. However, it’s not well served by public transit. There’s the 340 bus from Terminus Longueuil, which takes about 15 minutes but it leaves you 1.7 kilometres from the pretty part. If you’re lucky you can transfer to the 29, which will take you just a few hundred metres from the pretty bit, but I don’t know how long you’d have to wait for the transfer.
You can also take the 321 from Place Bonaventure. Same drop-off point as the 29.
I’m not sure the payoff is worth the trip. Streetview:
Blork
Edit: the 321 has the same drop-off point as the 340. (So you can walk 1.7km or wait for the 29.)
Blork
Oh… and that 29? It’s an EXO bus that only runs on commuter rush hours. Not to be confused with the RTL 29, which is a regular service bus that runs through Vieux Longueuil.
Kate
Blork, thanks – that’s the place. On the map not so far from town, but complicated to get to without a car.
denpanosekai
Vieux La Prairie is beautiful and well worth the walk outside of the “core”. What about this old house?. Go for a virtual “drive” if nothing else. “Chez Bonbon” is also a stunning shop.
qatzelok
There are, in fact, a few parts of the South Shore that don’t make you want to tear out your eyeballs. But you have to drive to them. And with your eyes closed, to avoid nausea, that’s dangerous.
Kate
denpanosekai, almost all the houses on that street are equally quaint.
Faiz Imam
Very much a relic from a bygone era, unfortunately.
I used to work in La prairie, and it was always a bit of a shock to pass through that old district. The rest of town is the worst tendencies of suburbia, large commercial streets with strip malls and massive single family cul-de-sacs zones solely residentially.
Unlike other south shore cities(and other older suburbs) that have built up most of their farmland and now have no choice but to build inwards, La Prarie is still largely empty. And its following the trend of many exurban cities and running roughshod all other its greenfields.
At least Longeuil, Brossard and the like have interesting greyfield projects to draw some optimism from. The exurbs are nothing but depression.
Uatu
Oh yeah st. Lambert is a lot like MTL. West. I went to school in the area and ironically the kids that grew up there couldn’t wait to move out of the ‘burbs and into the big city and ended up mostly in… NDG 😛
Tim S.
@ Uatu: huh. That’s pretty much my life story in a sentence.
One of my main ambitions for the greater Montreal region has been to grow a lot more St Lamberts. I lived in Philadelphia for a while, and the whole metropolitan area is filled with small suburban towns built around commuter train stations, with cute walkable cores surrounded by suburban houses and even apartments – just like St Lambert. We have these commuter train lines, and at the moment the stations are surrounded by, well, nothing. The one out towards St Basile, for example, has a BMR near it, and that’s it. Build nice commuter towns out there, increase the train schedule to something reasonable, and you take a lot of the pressure off the Plateau, St Henri, etc, without increasing car traffic.Blork
Old Boucherville is quite pretty as well, although there is very little retail. This Streetview image lands on a sweet café called Le Saint-Laurent, which is one of the highlights:
https://goo.gl/maps/Wk6ygyHrroE2
It’s mostly just nice to walk around and see the old houses, some of which are tiny. It’s also nice a block away, on Marie-Victorin, which is along the river and has a nice little park with views of the Boucherville Islands.
Boucherville is easier to get to by bus than La Prairie. It’s also easy to get to by bicycle; the bike path that goes along the river is fully segregated from the highway (although you usually can see and hear the traffic). It goes along the water and if you look towards the river instead of the other way it can be quite pleasant, and you can usually see a variety of birdlife (egrets, ducks, geese, cormorants, chickadees, etc.) and other animals (goddamn marmots, foxes, etc.). The path had a major upgrade a year ago, so the bit between the Lafontaine tunnel and Old Boucherville is now very wide, a lot shorter than it was, and fully along the water. To go from the Pont Jacques Cartier to Old Boucherville is about a 12km ride that takes 35 minutes or so.
Blork
Here’s a YouTube video showing the new stretch of the bike path between Longueuil and Boucherville. As you can see, this stretch is close to the highway traffic (on the right) but the views to the left are quite nice.
This part also is very fenced in, unlike the rest of the run. It’s like that because of the proximity of the highway and to protect the shoreline. Also, some of it is actually built on a platform because there was not enough flat ground between the highway and the water.
The part shown in this video is about 2 km I think, and it replaces a highly convoluted route around the La Fontaine Tunnel cloverleaf that added at least another kilometer to the ride and required you to cross the busy service road in a couple of places. While the proximity of the traffic can be annoying it’s easy to ignore if you just choose to. Also, the rest of the 12km ride is way calmer than this (farther from the road, not fenced in, etc.)
denpanosekai
Thanks for sharing Blork. There’s an absurd amount of trees, coupled with extremely narrow streets and mostly well maintained houses which kind of blows me away. Gonna need to visit.
Chris 10:32 on 2019-02-25 Permalink
“must”? I feel they don’t try hard enough here to preserve old/sick trees. You never see them trying to prop them up or anything. Pity.
Kate 10:42 on 2019-02-25 Permalink
It’s insurance, Chris – got to be. It’s why they took down that splendid elm everyone remembers in Jarry Park. The city doesn’t want the insurance consequences if someone gets hit with a falling branch so they’re extra cautious.
Chris 11:16 on 2019-02-25 Permalink
Yeah, probably. But I still disagree. I think society should accept the occasional injury/death due to falling trees in exchange for all the benefits of trees. In the same way we accept the occasional injury/death due to icy sidewalks, automobile use, pollution, etc. etc.
Kate 22:01 on 2019-02-25 Permalink
Incidentally, I’m willing to give the city the benefit of the doubt about those trees. They did try to preserve trees after the ice storm and some of those trees may now be in a more weakened and fragile state than they otherwise would’ve been. In a forest a big branch might drop off, or the tree itself fall down, and that’s how it is. I don’t think the city can be quite as nonchalant about the branch falling on a person as you are, Chris: the bad PR, the complaints, the resulting loss of more trees if their condition were called into question, it’s not something they want to risk and I can see why.