We’re already getting into the season for street fairs. I’ve been updating my street fairs list for 2019 and the work is not complete, but I will be looking at it every now and then and adding details throughout the summer. If you have any information or corrections for me, please let me know. The basic information’s scattered across a wide range of websites, Facebook pages and other sources and risks being unreliable or out of date. (Anyone know when San Marziale is celebrated on St-Viateur this year?)
Updates from May, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Rather than talk to Valérie Plante about the pink line, Quebec is offering an 18-month, $5‑million study. Thanks, Monsieur Bonnardel. See you on the orange line next February.
Ginger Baker
Couldn’t $5 Million buy 10-20 new buses that could be run parallel to the eastern branch of the Orange Line?
ant6n
More like 7 buses
Chris
7 buses would be better than this study.
ant6n
But you also need to consider operating costs etc., so maybe those 5 Mil would mean only 4 buses you can operate over the next 5 years. The question is whether this study could help implement the Pink Line sooner. Maybe it’s a delay tactic more than anything?
Chris
1 bus would be better than this study. Of course it’s a delay tactic.
qatzelok
Handlers: “If you take a quick metro ride with the mayor and then publically offer money for some kind of study, transit users will sit quietly for another year while you extend all the highways.”
ant6n
Normally, you can’t build big infrastructure project without studying it …. unless you’re the CDPQ of course.
Kate
Granted, ant6n, but doing studies is a classic Quebec hedging move, like all the endless studies on the blue line extension for the last 30 years.
CE
Didn’t Plante set up an office to study the Pink Line as soon as she became mayor?
qatzelok
Also, is it a neutral entity like the ARMT that will be doing this study, or will it be a gang of hand–picked enablers who will shuttle money into well-connected pockets with whatever conclusions they reach?
Chris
Aren’t the CAQ free market types? How about a small price increase during peak hours and a small price decrease during off-peak? That could help to reduce the peak by incentivizing some people to change their travel times. NYC does this for example.
Kate
Chris, if you’re working 9 to 5, as so many people do, you have to travel at corresponding times, it’s not a choice. I doubt many folks go on a pleasure jaunt on the orange line at 8:15 a.m. on a weekday.
Chris
Kate, true enough. But surely you’re not saying that having peak/off-peak pricing can’t help because not everyone could adjust? Many people also have flexible schedules, and some could choose to travel sooner/later with an incentive.
If they won’t increase supply (of metro availability) and demand (for metro use) keeps increasing, then adjusting price could help. And it’s the kind of free market thing you’d think the CAQ could get behind. Instead, they seem to prefer to let the problem fester.
Marc
I have a flexible schedule and the overcrowded system is enough incentive to ride at off-peak times, there’s no need for a fare discount.
Marc
But of course that’s just my experience, I haven’t done a study like they probably did in NYC that proves it works. I know on the South Shore one of the boroughs offers free transit to seniors during off-peak hours, presumably based on evidence that it reduces the number of sardines at rush hour.
Kate
Marc, the main reason a senior would be on the metro at sardine time is because they’ve been given a medical appointment at that hour, or some other pressing reason. If someone is travelling to do some shopping, make a visit, etc., they’re unlikely to choose rush hour voluntarily already.
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Kate
The city is taking down 132 trees in Lafontaine Park, saying they’re hollowed out and pose a risk.
Ginger Baker
It’ll take 2 yrs to cut down 132 trees, and 6 yrs to plant 200?
What?
How could it possibly take this long?
Mr.Chinaski
Because the new trees will be planted in sync with new projected works that are to be done in the Park every year.
walkerp
I get that it is a gradual process to minimize the visual impact, but this does bring in mind the old joke about the city crew digging a hole and then filling it in again, one by one, because the person whose job it is to plant the trees was sick that day.
CE
Maybe growing up in the country makes me less sentimental about trees but I find people seem to get weirdly emotional about them. I’m not sure how cutting down some old, rotting trees is “carnage.” Even the language in the story is strange. 100-year-old trees are far from “ancient” and cutting down 4.3% of a large park’s trees is definitely nowhere near “clear cutting.”
Chris
CE: a hundred old tree is ancient when inside a city. The average city tree dies much younger.
Kate
In the case of Lafontaine, it’ll change the landscape. When a single large elm was taken down in Jarry Park last year it changed a familiar landscape for hundreds of people. Neither park is very heavily wooded – unlike Angrignon or Mount Royal, neither has an area that’s thickly wooded at all. So losing more than 100 mature trees is a big thing.
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Kate
The STM is going to test straps for the Azur ceiling bars which many – including myself and commenters here – have noted are out of reach for shorter folks. Then we’ll be straphangers for sure.
Martin
I don’t understand what is there to test ? Straps have been used in public transport since the 19th century!
Blork
I’m glad Martin isn’t in charge at the STM. New things ALWAYS need to be tested. You need to test the materials, the placement, the height, etc. Perhaps there’s a new design they’re considering. Since those cars were not originally designed to have hanging straps you need to make sure they don’t dangle in people’s faces or present some kind of unexpected hazard. Etc. etc. etc.
Mr.Chinaski
Everything today is about user perception and the feeling of being “listened to” by corporations and companies. This is all a well executed PR exercice. They could easily test this like all engineer stress test stuff, you don’t need users or the feeling of “being heard”.
Blork
Engineering stress testing and user testing are very different things. Stress testing just shows that the thing works as intended and as imagined by the designer. It’s not “real world” so it probably wouldn’t find flaws like: (1) when the train is really crowded, peoples’s elbows tend to knock into other passengers’s faces because of the way the straps are placed; (2) the straps are too low and they dangle in the faces of people who are sitting; (3) people keep bonking into the straps when they stand up from a seated positiona nd because the material is too stiff it knocks their glasses off; (4) there are too many straps near the doors and not enough in the middle of the car.
You need to do usability testing to find those quirky flaws.
Blork
… in case anybody’s wondering, I’ve worked in software development for more than 25 years (NOT as a software developer) and there are hundreds of occasions whereby a new release of software has gone through all the stress testing and QA you can imagine and then I get ahold of it to write the documentation and I find serious — even catastrophic — bugs within five minutes. Because I’m using the software like a user, unlike the testers and QA people, who are using scripts and narrowly-defined processes. Believe me, no testing tests like user testing!
Ian
Haha QA is the best! Not just testing for use case but non-standard use case… what happens to a form if I go back-next 5 times with my keyboard? Enter a number? A random string? Special characters? Copy-paste an image? In industrial design (especially safety design) you get to ask questions like “Can I fit my head in that? A child’s head? my foot?” Sadly I expect the real test case will be whether the STM keeps getting complaints and guessing what the solution might be if there’s any budget for it. I get the feeling their only real QA is form-based panel tests, which would explain why they thought open cars would reduce door crowding…
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Kate
The education minister was not impressed with the EMSB’s offer to hand over the Galileo centre, so the board is going to make further offers to avoid having the minister simply walk in and help himself to whatever he wants.
A Léger survey found that school boards are important to Quebec’s anglos. Organizationally, they’re about all we’ve got left.
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Kate
The satirical Journal de Mourréal has been ordered to pay $23,500 for trademark infringement to Pierre Karl Péladeau, whom we’re sure needs that money – every penny of profit the site ever made. That will teach satirists not to tread too closely on the bunions of the wealthy.
Ian
Wow. I already knew that many people are too stupid to recognize satire but this takes the cake. Conflating satire with “fake news” disinformation is a new low.
Jack
That judgement says a lot about power in this province.
steph
Shoot. I read about this earlier and hoped it was satire.
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Kate
Le Devoir’s critic doesn’t at all like the new building put up along the Main between the Monument-National and the Café Cléopâtre. Marie Massicotte says it has no character, and that the developer ignored an earlier promise and has not integrated the stone façades of the many buildings torn down to create it.
CE
Easily one of the worst buildings in the city. They should have just dumped those stones in a landfill.
Martin
Yes, the result is atrocious. I like that the street level of the new building on Saint-Laurent is open and will actively interact with the street (although in a kind of generic, almost sterile way compare to what used to be there), but the facades with the remaining stones look like pure architecture necrophilia to me.
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Kate
Activists in Point St Charles worked hard to turn an old industrial building into a benefice for the community, including a nonprofit grocery and places for kids to play, with plans for a daycare and a birthing centre, but the owner of the land, which till not long ago was an industrial site, plans to wall it in tightly with new condo buildings so that vehicles can’t even get close. They’re appealing to the mayor.
LJ
What a pity…its a beautiful space run by dedicated people who (exactly as Kate said) worked hard to get it up and running. My band plays there often (including tonight) and without easy road access moving equipment in and out will not be much fun,. Being walled in by condos will also ruin the atmosphere there, right now the building is surrounded by open space with a nice terrace.
walkerp
Fucking developers. So gross. It’s still a miracle that they were able to take over that space and turn it into something that benefits the community.
You know, this blog is filled with stories of developers doing shitty things. What I would like to start seeing is their actual names reported. I bet there is a pattern. I know a lot of the empty storefronts in Mile End are due to a single large developer whose name I forget. They need to be exposed to the light.
Mr.Chinaski
The entire south portion of PSC is in a major transformation and gentrification period. Everything is transformed into condos and prices have doubled easily in the past decade. It’s going to accelerate even more once there is a stadium nearby and the obvious REM station.
david100
Before people go bananas on how the evil developer plans to cover the parking lots with sorely needed housing, it’s worth considering that: En 2017, le Groupe Mach, propriétaire du terrain, a accepté de céder l’immeuble aux citoyens en plus de leur faire un don d’un million de dollars pour le projet. To me, this is win-win. Only thing needed (which could be coming) Is a covenant in the nee construction barring HOA actions for against Building 7 tenants for noise, use violations, etc.
david100
Also – walker, if your theory is that more people in a neighborhood makes commerce less viable, I think you should leave the theorizing to someone else.
Martin
Reading this article, I can’t seem to find anything objectionable about the condo project. The promoter already gave the Bâtiment 7 to the collectif, plus one million dollars for their project, and also changed the plan of its project to allow for a greater distance between the condos (which are only 3-storeys high) and the Bâtiment 7, and the city bought a section of the lot to allow for a passageway to the CPE. What more could they do? I’m sorry but I can’t take these people seriously when I read stuff like that: « Le collectif travaille aussi sur un projet pour ramener les chevaux en ville pour la livraison du pain. » They should concentrate their efforts to have a decent number of these condos affordable for the families.
walkerp
david100 but why do you hate freedom?
(since we are now just making shit up about what other people said in their post.)
To be specific, it’s not a question of being against more housing, it is the kind of housing and as usual this will most likely be box like condos that take up as much space as possible, as cheaply built as possible and sold in a price point to drive out economic (and thus cultural and racial) diversity. This is especially poignant in a neighbourhood like Pt St-Charles which pioneered many of the community projects and initiatives among the working class that contributed to some of Montreal and Canada’s strong (though weakening more and more) social system.
I don’t know the details of how that space was ceded, but it was a fight. The developers did not just hand over that building out of the kindness of their hearts.walkerp
Wow, I hadn’t fully realized what the developers intend to do. The article did indeed make it seem not that bad, but I didn’t realize they are planning to build directly in front of the building, between it and the actual street. It’s insane. If you ever spent one evening at Batiment 7 and thought it was okay to put a condo development in between it and the road, then you have no soul or empathy. These developers are not part of the community and they are clearly not interested in investing in it in any way other than that which gives them the greatest return on the dollar.
I know these problems are systemic (same with the media), but at some point as an individual, you have to take a look at the situation from a human perspective and just say no, we can make enough money without destroying what makes this place special. There are so many other ways to add housing and bring people to help a neighbourhood and community grow. Just doing their job, just maximizing profit. It was never a good excuse and even less so now, which is why I will continue to call them out for being evil.
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Kate
A time capsule will be embedded in the new bridge as it’s inaugurated. Interesting trivia: there’s one somewhere in the structure of the Jacques-Cartier too, but nobody knows where, although they do know what’s in it.
Update: A bit more detail on the capsule and its creation.
Mr.Chinaski
There is one under “Trois Disques” at Parc Jean-Drapeau!
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Kate
TVA talks to a man who’s been janitor at Berri-UQÀM for many years about his experiences.
Jack
Mr. Big now means something very different to me.
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