It’s estimated that it will take three years and as much as $400 million to remove the old Champlain bridge, a process set to begin a few months after the new bridge opens.
Updates from February, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
Kate
-
Kate
The Tribunal administratif du travail has ordered STM maintenance workers to stop pressure tactics. If done right, such tactics can be quite subtle and hard to prove, but in this case it sounds like the union succeeded in keeping a lot of buses off the road in a pretty obvious way.
-
Kate
The city is dealing with a shortage of truck drivers for snow clearing duty.
In addition, apparently the snow removal budget is all used up, but there will be more snow and it will be dealt with.
Kevin
Is my count off, or have we only had 3.5 removal operations this season?
Kate
You’re right, and the article suggests the city always underestimates the snowfall. This feels like an average winter to me – more ice than usual, but not more snow.
Ian
One weird thing about this winter is that I haven’t seen any chenillettes this year, just small front end loaders clearing the sidewalks – which are effective, but a bit wider… 4 fences on my block alone have been taken out by sidewalk clearing this year, and I lost the side mirror on my car.
-
Kate
CTV already has the road closures for the upcoming weekend.
-
Kate
The Quebec statistics institute says that Montreal lost a net 24,000 residents to other parts of Quebec in 2017-2018.
david100
As the artificial land shortage created by poor land use decisions further clears out the neighborhoods. Triplexes become duplexes or even single family residences, flats are converted to illegal hotels in the form of permanent airbnb units, Americans and other foreigners buy second homes they straight up let sit vacant half the year, and all the rest.
JONATHAN
David… I’m not sure your assessment is really accurate, but you’ve made your opinion known. I agree that poor land use decisions are made, but it’s due to a more systemic issue… Such as the way municipal revenues are collected and the lack of a comprehensive regional plan. Or lack of enforcemwnt of such a plan. Maybe this is what you’re referring to?
-
Kate
Valérie Plante wants Montreal to be exempt from laws banning pot-smoking outside, saying that the city’s large population of renters would mean a lot of folks could neither smoke indoors nor out.
In addition, the police chief says he simply doesn’t have the manpower to police all open spaces where someone might light up.
As well, François Legault is adamant on making Quebec’s law say you can’t legally smoke till 21.
Mark Côté
Montreal police were rather tolerant of smoking pot in public when it was totally illegal. I wonder how much time Legault and Carmant have spent outside in Montreal if they think the police will care more if it becomes a ticketable offiense.
Carmant’s response that tenants who aren’t allowed to smoke indoors should just consume edibles instead speaks volumes to how little they’ve thought about this whole affair. The biggest problems that states down south have faced after legalization is with edibles, since the effects come on much more slowly and last much longer. Having a brownie that’ll stay with you all night is no substitute for a joint in the evening.
This government is working as hard as possible to mitigate any of the positive things about legalization, which overall wasn’t handled particularly well to start with.
jeather
Smoking pot was essentially legal well before it was legal. Hell, even selling it was often ignored. I would be fine with some locations/parks being smoke free (all smoke) and some not, but “nowhere outside at all” is just unworkable.
Faiz Imam
The fact that Montreal’s police commissioner seems to be on the same page as Mayor Plante seems to me a good sign.
He’s the one setting the tone for the cops on the ground. We know from many other subjects and jurisdictions that if cop leadership doesn’t care about arrests being made, they tend not to be.
Ideally the law in the books says no public consumption, yet its totally unenforced in practice.
Its not ideal, and one common side effect is that the law will be arbitrarily used to punish people cops have a problem with (usually itinerants, visible minorities, younger people).
Really though, I cannot imagine them enforcing this strictly, its a complete waste of police resources.
Ian
So basically it’s going to end up being a harassment charge like before, i.e.; if the ops are looking to bust you for something and you happen to be smoking a joint…
Mark Côté
“Ideally the law in the books says no public consumption, yet its totally unenforced in practice.”
Strongly disagree. What is ideal about this exactly?
Faiz Imam
Yeah. “Ideally” isn’t the right word.
I meant that the best case scenario of this law going through is for it to be minimally enforced.
Bill Binns
I agree with the mayor in principle on this but still suspect she is just using this as an opportunity to be seen resisting the big bad CAQ. The Montreal Police have a very long history of selecting which laws they will agree to enforce. Unless the CAQ is ready to send provincial cops onto Montreal’s streets to enforce smoking laws, this is a non-issue.
-
Kate
A man was stabbed by a relative in a house in Ahuntsic overnight, and I mostly post this to refute one commenter’s suggestion we outlaw knives. Every kitchen is bristling with potentially deadly implements. If people get this angry at a relative, there’s not much society can do about it.
-
Kate
A man is contesting a ticket for walking on the street where the sidewalk was icy and unsafe. The man, who’s black, says he feels race was a factor, and indeed the police asking him where he was going seems like a giveaway. Why should anyone have to tell police where they’re going? And who hasn’t taken to the street occasionally this winter? Some days, the sidewalks on my block have been so bad that walking in the street and standing aside for cars has been safer. But I’m a white woman so police don’t see me.
Ephraim
Great, now we have “Walking while Black” as a police crime. We need one police commissioner with the damn balls to start doing something about errant cops. (I would say racist, but it isn’t simply race… they just can’t manage to uphold the law blindly.)
qatzelok
Anything out of the norm can be profiled. I’ve been profiled before because I was on a bicycle. Likewise, people get profiled because they’re walking in a dead neighborhood.
Anyone who’s not either driving a giant SUV, or walking a dog, can be thought of as “acting suspiciously” in our current culture of house-bound drivers with nowhere to go.
Blork
I heard this guy interviewed on CBC Radio this morning. The initial contact does have profiling overtones, but the resulting ticket not so much. The first problem was that the cops decided to ask him where he was going. In fact, this is just a typical “first contact” type of question from a cop who wants to check someone out, but the fact that he guy wasn’t really doing anything wrong makes it seem profile-ish.
But it went sideways when the guy replied “none of your business.” At that point he could have been the whitest guy on the face of the earth and he still would have gotten a ticket because a cop simply won’t back down from that, from anyone. In fact, the guy himself has admitted (repeatedly) that it was the wrong move, that it was a choice to escalate instead of de-escalate, and he said several times that he does not recommend responding like that.
All this to say, the original contact seems like profiling, but the resulting ticket does not. (That doesn’t make it right.)
BTW, if anyone comes at me with “don’t blame the victim” please STFU and re-read what I wrote. See if you can do it without prejudice.
Mark Côté
Maybe before someone replies to you, you could consider why they would. I’m trying to figure out the point of your comment… you admitted profiling was likely involved in this. We don’t know what would have happened if he had been completely polite while knowing he was likely stopped for being black. Maybe he would have gotten the ticket anyway. Maybe he’s gotten tickets before while saying everything he was supposed to, so maybe this time he didn’t care. All I can understand from your comment is “yeah he was profiled but he didn’t allow us to determine how far the profiling would have gone”. I’m not sure why that’s worth 4 paragraphs except to defend the current policing attitudes.
jeather
I don’t really see why I would want to tell a cop where I was going when I was outside not doing anything suspicious (and walking in the street when the sidewalks are icy is not at all suspicious). It’s clearly legal not to tell a cop that, because he wasn’t cited for it. And though I agree as a rule one should not escalate interactions, cops are the ones who are trained for things and who should not be so very sensitive about people being nice to them.
Blork
@Mark Côté, my comment is an analysis of the situation. Many people will say he got the ticket because he is black, but it seems to me (and this is just my analysis) that he got the ticket because he gave attitude to the cop, and it’s my opinion that ANYONE will get a ticket when they give attitude to a cop. I’m just trying to understand what actually happened instead of falling into the knee-jerk trap of sloughing off details and thereby jumping to conclusions. That does not exclude the possibility (or even probability) that the initial contact was profiling, and that should be called out. But the emphasis should be on why he was stopped, not on the fact he got a ticket.
@jeather, you’re right that you don’t technically *have* to tell the cop where you’re going. But the issue here is do you escalate or de-escalate? I suspect the cop doesn’t need a clear answer to his question; I think that was just the “first contact” line, which is designed to get you talking. It doesn’t really matter what you say. The cop wants to see if you’re drunk or stoned or elusive, etc. All you have to do is say “this way” or “over there.” You don’t have to actually say where you’re going. But if you give attitude, then the cops are going to escalate the situation, whether you’re black or white, male or female.
Ian
As in all things when dealing with cops it’s general best to act pleasant and a bit dumb. That’s not to say he wasn’t single out in the first place for walking while black, which is actually pretty likely.
jeather
I agree people should de-escalate. But cops, in particular, should not escalate a situation. I am not trained in how to deal with cops and their precious, easily-hurt feelings. (“I don’t need to tell you where I am going” is surely among the most mild things they hear.) Cops are trained in how to deal with civilians. You’re legally allowed to be walking while drunk or stoned, you’re legally allowed to be elusive about where you are going. Yes, you should be pleasant, but we expect far too much from civilians — especially black ones, especially black men — and far too little from cops.
Blork
I agree that cops shouldn’t escalate. But my comments (and my life decisions) are based on how things are, not how I feel they should be. If I go to leave the house one day in April and the temperature is an unseasonable -20C, am I going to think “it shouldn’t be this cold in April, so I’ll just wear this light jacket?” No, I’ll put on a parka because it’s cold whether it ought to be or not.
jeather
We can change the culture around what cops do, and part of that involves pushing back when they escalate situations needlessly instead of blaming anyone else.
Ephraim
My likely first response to “Where are you going?” would likely be “Excuse me?” or “Just trying to walk safely” and then if they pushed, a “Why?”
If it was me, I would call the station, speak to the captain and ask him what he thinks and if he really thinks this is a good use of time and resources of the police and see what he says, before I take it to the commission. Because I would take it to the commission.. and confession, it would be my second visit. I’ve also had a station captain in my home apologizing and begging me not to take an officer to the commission for discrimination against Anglos. There is nothing more productive that you can do to help reform the Montreal police than be known that you can and will go to the commission. (And there is a policeman who has a permanent record of that because of me.)
Kevin
I have smacked my hand on the hood of a police car and yelled at him to turn on his fucking headlights and to look where he is fucking going especially when he went through intersections (I was walking parallel to him and he was looking over his left shoulder as he advanced about 50 metres) Then yelled at him some more when he said he could give me a ticket for interfering with police duties.
I never got a ticket, but I am white and was yelling in French.
Blork
And that, dear readers, is white privilege. You would never get away with that as a person of colour.
Kate
White privilege is hard to notice because it’s the absence of something. It’s the absence, largely, of suspicion.
I am white, but I am not middle class. I wouldn’t claim to know how it feels to be “shopping while black” but I have been followed around stores by suspicious retail employees. I even told one retail worker “I seem to be making you nervous, so I’ll leave” once. The one time I went into Holt Renfrew, a saleswoman immediately moved from behind her counter and came over and walked me back out. Obviously, white trash like me would only be in there looking for something to steal.
So I have a faint taste of what it feels like to be told “you don’t belong here” and I can see why being asked “where are you going?” by a cop would have bite. The subtext is “you don’t belong here so I have a basis for asking you to explain yourself.” I have not forgotten the times I’ve been treated like this and it’s a drop in the bucket compared to how people of colour are treated every day.
Brett
It’s not white privilege. Just majority privilege. Try doing the same thing in Sevastopol or Port-au-Prince. Your skin colour won’t get you very far.
Kate
It’s white privilege here, in this context.
Tee Owe
Adding to Kate’s and other stories, I have experienced similar when I was younger and long-haired, back when this was ‘subversive’ (I’m white BTW). Actually had a cop treat me exactly like the guy here, was walking in the street (in Ottawa) because the sidewalk was icy, was told to get back on the sidewalk by a cop in a cruiser, I argued but no matter, but he didn’t make a deal out of it probably because he could see that if he got out of his car he’d be slipping and sliding too, so he just drove off. Privilege is relative.
Brett
Right, but it’s not specifically “white” privilege in this context. It’s just being a part of the majority that makes you non-threatening or just not worth the cops’ time. Using the term “white privilege” is to arbitrarily select a demographic trait that both parties share and applying undue importance to it while totally ignoring the more obvious explanation that it’s nothing more than two working class dudes having a small dispute. Sure, they share the same skin colour, but also the same language, accent, slang, gait, favourite TV shows and love of double-doubles from Tim Hortons.
It’s easy deconstruct the white privilege myth. Just dress up as an anglo Jew from Cote-St-Luc and hang out in Vanier in Quebec City for a couple days or whatever and see how far your skin colour gets you. You’ll quickly notice that it’s no match for just being a “local people”.
Kate
Brett, I don’t know why you’re dancing around this. Here, in Montreal, it’s white privilege, it’s nothing else. Yes, you can construct all kinds of stories in which someone is noticed as an outsider in a different setting, but there’s no escaping the statistically demonstrable proof that our police see black people through an automatic lens of heightened suspicion.
Bill Binns
“But I’m a white woman so police don’t see me.”
Hmm, maybe being a woman is the key here? This blue-eyed white skinned devil has several bullshit jaywalking tickets to his name. Either that or speaking English to Montreal cops is just as much a disadvantage as being black.
jeather
Do you really think that just because an anglo Jew might have more problems with cops in Quebec City than they would in CSL that means that racism doesn’t exist? Would a black working class person have no problems there? Come on. Racism isn’t the only problem in this world, and it shows up differently in different places, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Nor does the fact that some white people occasionally get tickets mean that they are equally oppressed.
Bill Binns
I think that at least *sometimes* visible minorities are mistreated by the cops or experience bad service in a restaurant or get traffic tickets or get turned down for jobs for reasons having nothing to do with racism. Many cops are assholes *to everyone*.
My wife and I are contesting a off leash dog ticket right now that was written by some random city employee that has nothing to do with dog enforcement. The dude jumped out of his car in traffic and followed my wife home on foot. He then looked up our address in some internal city database and called my wife at work to threaten her. All that’s missing from this story to elevate it to newspaper worthy is “and also I’m [INSERT PROTECTED CLASS HERE]”.
Kevin
While I was particularly ornery the day I hurled abuse at a cop I would never had done so in English, because then I’d have wound up with a ticket or worse.
Brett is hung up on a quirk of language and so is missing the point. People who say they’re not racist because Islam isn’t a race use the same misguided tactic.
We, collectively, are lazy about our language and use terms like white privilege and racism when we should just use the catchall term prejudice.
But we don’t do that, just like we talk about hoverboards and drones even though they don’t hover and they’re not automated…Mark Côté
Every time I hear “can we just talk about prejudice” I think “does that person *honestly* think that whites and people of colour have more-or-less the same lived experience?”.
Kevin
@Mark Coté
Save it for the enemy.
-
Kate
The Journal sifted through the BAnQ archives and found a series of snowclearing images of the past that demonstrate Montreal’s winter has always been a pain in the ass.
-
Kate
We’re expecting more snow and/or freezing rain to start Wednesday night into Thursday.
-
Kate
Two pedestrians were crashed into by vehicles and badly hurt in a parking lot in St-Laurent on Tuesday morning.
-
Kate
Will the REM take pressure off the orange line? It seems nobody knows yet, and it could just as easily add more passengers to the line at rush hour.
Joey
«Quand on a une ligne diagonale, les gens savent moins où elle va. Elle a donc moins de potentiel de rabattement. Je crois qu’une ligne qui serait plus traditionnelle fonctionnerait davantage», a-t-il fait valoir, notant que le réseau routier le métropole représente un quadrillage où une ligne de métro diagonale pourrait difficilement s’intégrer.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Alex L
Peu importe son axe, je crois que tout le monde s’entend pour dire qu’on a besoin d’une nouvelle ligne de métro pour désengorger la ligne orange. On dirait que Québec regorge d’idées pour éviter le sujet…
Jonathan
I think that the ‘people will be confused about where the line goes’ has to be the silliest excuse not to build a diagonal line.
People are adaptable.
Daniel
It’s insane this wasn’t researched beforehand. I’m almost certain enough of the Mascouche users will switch at Sauvé with bad consequences for people South of Jean-Talon.
I was also of the understanding that the REM won’t be covered by a standard STM pass (I could be wrong). If so, most users are going to continue with the Blue Line to get Downtown rather than pay a surcharge.
Spi
@daniel the final pricing for the fares hasn’t been done but it will maintain the current zone structure. Meaning you have access to all the modes of transportation available to you for the zone you paid for.
Daniel
The Metro doesn’t really operate on zones though, only the commuter lines. Are you saying you’ll need a pass which covers the big trains?
DeWolf
Montreal’s entire transit fare structure will be revised later this year (see link below).
I believe the idea is to simplify and unify fares across the metropolitan area. Presumably (hopefully?) this will mean you will be able to load an Opus with cash value so you don’t need to buy separate tickets each time you go to Laval, Longueuil, or you take the commuter train/REM.
It’s kind of absurd that Montreal has maintained a ticket-based fare system even with Opus, which has the potential to allow for much more flexible ways of paying for transit. In many other cities, you load cash value onto your card and it is deducted each trip, with automatic discounts and rebates depending on how many trips you take, which connections you make, etc. This is what makes the smart card “smart” in the first place.
Daniel
Thanks for the link! I wasn’t aware this was happening, and it makes a lot of sense to use the opportunity to overhaul the fare structure. I wonder though if Opus will need an upgrade too in order to handle a more complex fare system? I guess that’s a discussion for another thread.
Faiz Imam
There’s a reason opus cards expire every few years. The newer versions have upgrades the initial model from a decade ago did not.
Hopefully they are following global standards and are up to date, if so its only a question of upgrading the machines (even there, I’m hoping a software/server upgrade is all that’s needed, and not replacing the machines.)
They have also been testing using Credit cards and cell phones directly to pay for fares. I am also hoping those tests work well enough that it’ll be built in to the new system.
This new fare system has a massive impact on how much people will use various sorts of transit. While its 100% that there will be losers as well as winners, I hope overall it does its job of promoting greater use of the system.
-
Kate
The New York Times has an article in French about the culture shock for the French coming to live in Quebec, mostly in Montreal.
david100
I read the english version. Man, it’s cruel but I get a particular satisfaction whenever I read about the misfortunes and various travails of the french. I’d not want to do a wave of deportations, but it gives me pleasure to see them face the reality that they’re economic migrant scum, and looked down upon by a large number of Montrealers and people from Quebec more generally.
Kate
david100, that’s an offensive comment. I may delete it shortly but, either way, longtime commenter though you are, you’re on warning.
david100
Yeah, I don’t mind if you delete. It was maybe too arch to just write out, but I was definitely joking. Literally, some of my best friends are French. But yeah, delete.
david100
Ie. the joke is that the French have a specific attitude like the people in Quebec are sort of lower, and it’s always really funny to razz them about the disjunction between their attitudes and the fact of their being in Montreal for economic purposes.
Kate
I don’t know which French you’re meeting, david100. The French folks I’ve encountered – coworkers, neighbours, people serving in stores – have all been great. I’ve come away with a strong sense that this wave of immigrants is a major plus for Quebec, and certainly for Montreal, where I imagine most of them choose to settle. If some Quebec francophones feel sheepish about their use of the language vis-à-vis their French acquaintances, I’m inclined to suspect it’s their problem, and not the French being snobby. (I’ve seen similar attitudes in North American anglos when they encounter people from England.)
-
Kate
My Villeray neighbourhood smells of smoke Tuesday morning and I think it must be drifting down from this major fire in Laval.
mare
Ha, the upstairs neighbours wrote me an email this morning accusing us of smoking in our apartment. I sent her the link to this page to prove it wasn’t us. Not often that a blog post can solve a neighbour’s dispute, so thanks!
She obviously hadn’t gone outside yet (-20°C), but when I just did the smoke smell was still strong, and we live 2 km south from Vileray.
-
Kate
The STM has extended what it calls a final offer to its maintenance union.
steph 20:43 on 2019-02-20 Permalink
Is it in that bad of shape? I thought with trucks causing the most damage to roads & bridges, that leaving the old bridge only open to smaller cars would let us keep using it for many more years.
Tim S 21:10 on 2019-02-20 Permalink
I’m no engineer, but I figure the fact that the Harper government, with no hopes of winning many votes in greater Montreal and a determination to balance the budget, finally agreed to spend billions to build the new bridge demonstrates that the old one is completely done.
Tim F 21:32 on 2019-02-20 Permalink
Yeah no, it’s rotted inside out apparently. There was no effective drainage on the thing until the 80s so all the salt put on it in the winter from the early 60s till then just soaked into the concrete, corroding the rebar. It needs to be dismantled safely.
Uatu 11:40 on 2019-02-21 Permalink
Yeah it isn’t worth the expense of maintenance and it’s a crappy design in that you can’t just remove and replace damaged segments since everything is all attached. Better to have it dismantled and be done with it.
Faiz Imam 14:35 on 2019-02-21 Permalink
From what I understand, without major traffic it totally could be kept around for non-motorized traffic or the odd emergency vehicle. But honestly what’s the point?
It’s almost completely redundant since the new bridge has a very nice pedestrian/bike path built into it. Plus it wastes a ton of space for the onramps at Brossard and iles des soeur that could be redeveloped.
The major issue is one of liability. you still have to maintain it and keep in an an acceptable shape, since there’s so much traffic passing underneath. If you have a small bridge line the pivoting wellington rail bridge, you can keep it around as a heritage site and spare the expense of demolition, but Champlain is much to massive to neglect in that manner.
Blork 18:03 on 2019-02-21 Permalink
Exactly; what’s the point? Even with reduced traffic it would still cost a fortune to maintain, and for what? Better to just be rid of it, which will be cheaper in the long run.
Kate 10:35 on 2019-02-22 Permalink
I saw a recent piece I can’t now locate about how the old bridge is bad for the river ecosystem and should be removed before it leaches any more crap into the water. I’ll link it if I find it again.