CTV has a feature on streetcars past and present as the CAQ ponders bringing them back. But extending the blue line or reaching other under-served parts of town could mean someone having to get to work by taking a bus to a tram to the metro, and who wants to do that?
Updates from June, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The EMSB is almost out of time to comply with the government demand that it give up three schools to a different board or find another solution, although the government seems cold to proposals so far of sharing buildings.
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Kate
The city will be unveiling plans to face climate change on Monday, chiefly to cope with heavy cloudbursts without overwhelming the sewer system.
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Kate
The Grand Prix ended with a controversial decision in favour of Lewis Hamilton.
Roman
Here’s the video
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Kate
The Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes (BEI) is looking into a death in Côte-des-Neiges: a man apparently suicided in his parked car after his ex called the cops on him.
Uatu
Long story short: the cops were innocent. Case closed. The end. Signed, Sgt. Lt. Detective Frank Drebin…
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Kate
The Centre d’histoire piece this weekend shows us the launch of centralized ambulance services which didn’t happen here till 1959. (Hospitals had ambulances long before that, but they were individual services.)
The Gazette’s history feature this week looked back at Victor Goldbloom‘s first cabinet post, the McGarrigle sisters, and other bits of local history.
Radio-Canada archive items this week included a timely look at the history of the Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal, recently in the news after the CSDM pulled the plug on a longstanding agreement with the choir, also the history of Jean Coutu.
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Kate
The Gazette has a video feature showing the new items in Dorchester Square – not surprisingly, considering their office overlooks the spot.
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Kate
Montreal’s pool of reasonably affordable rentals has dried up this year, as reported here by CTV. Even the couple in the story, with $1,200 to spend monthly on rent, have trouble finding a place. La Presse has the same CP story in French.
Spi
Unfortunately because of how informal the Montreal rental market is if you’re looking at apartments on a listing service you’re already losing. Affordable/desirable apartments get leased transferred from one friend to the next never to be seen by the public.
I personally believe that contributes to the housing problems in this city.
Kate
How so? If I were to lose my place I’d use every means possible to find a new place I could afford. I wouldn’t feel myself morally bound to use a listing service.
Spi
Since rent increases are effectively capped to inflation and it’s near impossible for a landlord to refuse a lease transfer, if you had a unit that was at or below market rate being endless passed along from one tenant to the next while the market prices had jumped significantly, you’d just give up maintaining or renovating since you’re unlikely to make up that investment. This leads to neglect and degradation of the housing stock until such a time that someone is willing to buy the property and put in big money for “substantial” renovations (which inevitably means new rents at multiples of the previous one) providing them the opportunity to evict everyone. We saw several examples of that last year.
Although they aren’t supposed to, a change in tenant provides the landlord an opportunity to increase the rent closer to what the market rate is.
Also in a sense, If you don’t have a deep (or the right) network of friends and acquaintances some apartments will never be on your radar. Apartments that are well below market price, get passed along from one friend to and other sometimes for decades. I know of one situation where various people from one circle of friends have all lived in the same unit over the course a decade and now it’s occupied by a younger sibling, surely to repeat the cycle for another decade.
When you hear of people paying $600 for a 4 1/2 in Mile-End or less than $500 for a 3 1/2 adjacent to the metro, those are most of the time an example of this phenomenon.
Kate
Enforcing your supposed level playing field here would make housing costs rise sharply for everyone and create a new class of homeless.
Ian
“Although they aren’t supposed to, a change in tenant provides the landlord an opportunity to increase the rent closer to what the market rate is.”
Actually that’s in direct violation of the law, and a new tenant is within their legal rights to file a complaint with the Régie and have the rent permanently adjusted if they find out the landlord did this.
Whatever though, the point is moot – once AirBnBs are effectively illegal I am pretty certain we will see a sharp increase in rental stock. I know of 4 illegal AirBnBs on my block alone – that all used to be rental stock.
Spi
“Enforcing your supposed level playing field here would make housing costs rise sharply for everyone and create a new class of homeless.”
By capping the yearly rent increase we’ve created the exact circumstances that lead to drastic and sudden rent spikes. Instead of having yearly modest increases over time which allows renters and the market to adjust to new prices, we find ourselves with crazy spikes when it becomes possible for the landlord because they want to catch up to the market prices.
If your rent goes up 30-50% over a decade it sucks but you can plan for it and make changes to your spending when it comes at you at yearly increases of 5-8%. When you’re being evicted because they want to make major structural changes to your apartment and now you find yourself having to pay the same 30-50% overnight is how you end up with more homelessness.
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“Actually that’s in direct violation of the law, and a new tenant is within their legal rights to file a complaint with the Régie and have the rent permanently adjusted if they find out the landlord did this.
Whatever though, the point is moot – once AirBnBs are effectively illegal I am pretty certain we will see a sharp increase in rental stock. I know of 4 illegal AirBnBs on my block alone – that all used to be rental stock.”
Like I said, they’re not supposed to do it, but unless the new tenants knows the old tenant it’s hard for them to find out what the old rent was. There might very well be a large number of Airbnb’s returning to the rental market but they won’t be at what Montrealers consider “affordable” prices.
Rafael
“Have you ever had a case before the rental board for any reason?”
That’s a good question for a landlord to ask an applicant. If they’ve been kicked out, the landlord wants to know. If they’ve gone against a previous landlord, the landlord wants to know, as he’s headed for potential headaches.
If the tenant lies on the application, he violates any lease he signs.
So it’s nice to recommend tenants go after landlords but in practice it could come back to haunt them now that all such decisions are online.
steph
Anyone can search for régie du logement jugements at SOQUIJ http://citoyens.soquij.qc.ca/ .
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Kate
The Journal talked to a hotel concierge about some of the outré requests made by wealthy guests – although I’m certain there would be other kinds of inquiry not mentioned here. La Presse visited Peel Street’s festivities and noted that police look out for speeding this weekend, which they ought to – I took a long walk Saturday and there were guys gunning their motors and playing Gilles Villeneuve on unlikely blocks all over. Oh, and there’s a car race this weekend too! There was a qualifying round Saturday.
Ian
I’m in Mile-End, and I’ve been hearing police sirens and revving engines all weekend.
Etienne 06:52 on 2019-06-10 Permalink
Oh yess! That would be so nice!
I hope tram development picks back up in Montreal and we start seeing some rails soon. IMO trams gives such a nice appeal to urban life.
For a look of what *could* be possible look at this post:
http://www.metrodemontreal.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=102357
Ephraim 07:36 on 2019-06-10 Permalink
Light rail (or if you prefer, a tram) is so much more efficient than a bus. An articulated bus handles 115 people (47 seated) and a tram can handle up to 275 people… with just one driver. And it runs on electricity, which we have plenty of. Low floor to make them accessible the old and handicapped. And if you really wanted to, you can build shelters with automatic doors, so people can be shielded from the hot/cold while waiting.
Raymond Lutz 08:11 on 2019-06-10 Permalink
Yes, and tram are fun to drive! …stupid cars…
Ephraim 09:28 on 2019-06-10 Permalink
Another nice thing about trams is that you can leave the earth underneath and let the grass grow, other than at intersections, of course. But leaving it with earth and having grass does serve as a way of telling others that it’s not a place to drive.
Spi 10:12 on 2019-06-10 Permalink
The main problem with trams/light rail is that if it’s not entirely grade separated from the rest of the street then it’s one accident away from completely halting service on the entire line and they don’t offer the flexibility to detour like busses do.
qatzelok 11:35 on 2019-06-10 Permalink
Raymond Lutz, thanks for the pro-tram video! Lots of smiles.
Raymond Lutz 13:02 on 2019-06-10 Permalink
Bienvenue, qatzelok! Maybe I’ll use it for illustrating the Momentum Conservation Principle… 😎
Faiz Imam 17:50 on 2019-06-10 Permalink
Spi said what I came here to say. Buses are fine, Trams can be better. But as long as its in mixed traffic, its basically useless.
We don’t need full grade separation. Mixed intersections are fine, as long as they have proper signal priority, but we need to install them in proper Rights of ways to operate well.
The only project I know that has a good plan for that is in the South shore. There’s a really nice BRT project being planned for years now to go from Longueuil Metro to Terminus Panama in Brossard. The CAQ came in and asked it be extended to La prairie, which is fine.
The key there is that the avenue is gargantuan, so there’s plenty of space for dedicated rights of way. In contrast a street car on Sherbrooke is not going to accomplish much. (hence Pink line. At some point you have to bite the bullet and bring in the big guns)
Kate 18:25 on 2019-06-11 Permalink
So how do other cities with street-level trams manage?
Ian 19:47 on 2019-06-11 Permalink
I have seen many streetcar vs vehicle or pedestrian accidents in Toronto. Short version: streetcars always win. I once saw a little Toyota get kind of sucked up into the streetcar wheels on Spadina because the driver tried to cut off a streetcar like an idiot. Oops.