The REM has bought the Deux-Montagnes line and the Mount Royal tunnel. La Presse’s André Dubuc says here – in a piece posted in the paper’s business section – that the REM paid only 73% of what they are “worth” – but should these resources even be valued in that way? I think they should have been considered as under public ownership, not as things that can be bought and sold.
Updates from July, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Two journalists from La Presse did a detailed look at the scope of cigarette butt trash around downtown, and it’s ugly. It doesn’t seem to matter whether there are disposal methods provided, smokers still throw them on the ground. With some figures.
PO
With the law that went into effect a few summers ago, a huge number of establishments removed their ashtrays from near their doors/entryways, presumably because the “distance from the door” rule suggested they wouldn’t need them anymore or would prevent compliance. Over the course of that summer the number of places to throw away a butt decreased dramatically, by my observation. A few places downtown, there was nowhere to throw away a butt within an entire block. That had to have played a role.
Kate
You may be right, PO. I suspect part of it might be that nobody wanted the filthy job of emptying them, either.
Have you ever watched smokers disposing of their cigarettes? There’s a characteristic gesture of disgust as they fling it on the ground. They know smoking is nasty, and once they’ve had their hit they just want to get rid of it. Too bad that makes it everyone else’s problem.
Faiz Imam
One more reason I don’t mind weed smokers. There is no waste.
JP
Well, weed stinks pretty bad. I don’t disagree with the right to smoke it, but I was at Westmount Park the other night to watch Shakespeare in the Park, and someone nearby was definitely smoking it. It’s definitely not pleasant, but I guess there isn’t anything you can do.
Ian
There’s no smoking of any kind allowed in Westmount Park, it’s been that way for years.
In any case, there are certainly far fewer smokers now than ever in Montreal. A couple of garbage bags every day sounds like a lot but consider the sheer volume of trash from the malls every single day in non-biodegradable garbage, dumpster after dumpster full. Not so say that cigarette butts aren’t unpleasant, but that we have bigger fish to fry and clutching your pearls over 2 garbage bags is a bit absurd.
Alex
That’s 2 garbage bags of stuff that isn’t easily seen, that can be easily carried around by water and wind into places it shouldn’t be like drains and the soil. Nicotine is poisonous to plants, wildlife and people so its kind of a problem when you think about it, its not really just about volume, more the type of garbage.
Ian
Oh, an invisible poison that gets everywhere? Like road tar leaching, or runoff from cement? The entire city is contaminated by virtue of its being a city. Let’s not pretend an end to cigarette butts is going to make it safe to drink out of puddles.
meezly
Society now expects dog owners to pick up after their dogs yet smokers can still leave their butts all over public spaces. Why is this still tolerated? People now carry their on reusable grocery bags, mugs and bottles, how hard is it for a smoker to carry portable, resealable ash trays? Toxic pollution aside, cigarette butts are a disgusting reminder of how lazy and entitled people can be.
Alex
@ian, All of those things are bad, but I see no problem trying to fix the things that can be fixed.
Ian Rogers
Yes, this is happening. It’s called almost nobody smokes anymore. I was pretty much the last of my dive bar friends to still smoke and even I quit over a year ago.
My complaint is the hand-wringing over what, in an urban setting like ours, is effectively a minor nuisance. Frankly I suspect that gum on the sidewalks is a bigger issue to the city.
This is just an easy alarm, the cheapest and laziest form of investigative journalism possible.
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Kate
This weekend and the two weekends following will see street fairs on Plaza St-Hubert now that the northern half of the major excavation and construction is, if not aesthetically completed, at least filled in, and the southern half, between St-Zotique and Bellechasse, not yet begun.
CE
I walked along the northern part of the Plaza yesterday during the sidewalk sale and it has an interesting feel. The mix of the neglected building facades with cheap and plentiful signs, lack of trees, down-scale businesses, and general bustle and music (along with lots of dust) really reminded me of some commercial streets on weekends in South America. I recommend going while it’s happening if only because it’s never going to look or feel like this again.
Kate
Thanks, CE. I’ll probably pop along there tomorrow.
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Kate
The crews working on the major roadworks around town won’t be downing tools for the construction holiday.
mare 13:49 on 2019-07-20 Permalink
I like the creative bookkeeping. That sell-and-lease-back construct is great to lower the total price and having twice the profit in case the yearly return on the REM isn’t 10%, because the collective taxpayers will pay for the lease and the company that owns the overpass will make a profit on top of that, and can ask what they want, which won’t be 73% of the value.
As anton wrote, that price is much less that 73% of its actual value. More like 17%…
http://www.cat-bus.com/2017/12/privatization-of-the-deux-montagnes-linehow-to-value-a-transit-line/#summary
qatzelok 21:02 on 2019-07-20 Permalink
They should have thrown in a few thousand more and bought Montreal’s water supply and sidewalks.
Mr.Chinaski 23:33 on 2019-07-20 Permalink
It’s like the house prices : supply and demand. What your house is worth for the city as the assessment roll, might not be reflected in the actual price of the house you sell/buy. In the case of the REM, nobody wanted to buy the tunnel and the line.
Ant6n 01:12 on 2019-07-21 Permalink
Uh no. They didn’t put the project to bid, they just gave it to the cdpq. So they exactly did not pay fair market value. And turns out, but even book value, which is already cooked to be really low. Funny you mention the assessment rolls, those tend to under represent the actual value by a lot – and the municipal valuation of the land of the Deux Montagnes line is already 240M, without the tunnel (so that’s already twice what cdpqinfea paid).
I invite you to read the link that mare posted, before attempting to explain capitalism to ppl…
Mr.Chinaski 11:53 on 2019-07-21 Permalink
Like I said, nobody wanted it except CDPQ Infra, no one cared except them. You can’t predict the worth of something if nobody wants it.
ant6n 12:49 on 2019-07-21 Permalink
You just repeat the same ‘alternative facts’ without informing yourself. Again, the project _wasn’t offered in a bidding process_. It was a backroom deal between the Liberal government and the CDPQ.
steph 15:04 on 2019-07-21 Permalink
How can you say “no one wanted it”? The tunnel never stopped being in use.
qatzelok 18:17 on 2019-07-21 Permalink
Backroom deals between pension funds and government “insiders” is what bankrupted Greece. So it’s definitely a warning sign.