Updates from August, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 19:50 on 2019-08-16 Permalink | Reply  

    A patient on a Montreal-bound plane earlier this month was confirmed to have come down with measles and there’s also an outbreak in the Hasidic community in Boisbriand. Time for that measles shot if you haven’t had it.

     
    • Ephraim 16:19 on 2019-08-17 Permalink

      Anyone born before 1970 is considered immune… but I went and got a booster a few weeks ago, anyway. Costs $5 at the travel clinic, I was there anyway.

    • Kate 18:57 on 2019-08-17 Permalink

      Yes, my nurse practitioner said I wouldn’t need the MMR, but I did get the Tdap when I told her I hadn’t had a tetanus shot in a long time.

      Are you going away, Ephraim?

  • Kate 10:08 on 2019-08-16 Permalink | Reply  

    A reader pointed out this Globe & Mail piece on how the coming of the REM is encouraging construction “outside the downtown core” – i.e., sprawl. No downside is considered in this piece.

     
    • Raymond Lutz 10:55 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      Seeing the mentioned article: we’re living in a world of bad CGI illustrations, selling us what doesn’t exist (and manufacturing consent). Remind me of the idyllic images of Soylent Green finale when the old man is dying…

    • Tim 11:10 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      The article mentions an office tower that has direct pedestrian access to the REM. This doesn’t seem like sprawl to me. If anything the tower will hopefully have lots of people using the REM in the opposite direction in the morning, which seems like a good thing. It’s not feasible for all people and all businesses to set up shop downtown.

    • Blork 11:34 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      Note this flag at the top of the article: “Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec/Handout.”

    • ant6n 11:59 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      Calling the REM a Handout to the CDPQ is pretty accurate.

      I’d say development near REM stations isn’t super urban, the occasional high-rise notwithstanding, because all those REM stations are on highways, and they don’t make for very urban surroundings. And some of those far-away stations that are basically just parking lots at the end of the developed area of Montreal will definitely induce sprawl.

      Meanwhile, there’s actually plenty of space (e.g. in brow-fields) left on the island, most of it without decent transit connections (and the REM is actively preventing improving transit to some of those areas…)

      The REM is an incredibly mixed bag with many missed opportunities and a lot of really bad planning, sprawl is a definite concern that can’t just be brushed away with ‘but that rendering showed an office tower’.

    • Clee 12:53 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      High cost of owning a house encourages sprawl, not the transportation.

    • Jonathan 13:49 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      I wish we would use TOD more appropriately. When I hear people mentioning Transit-Oriented-Development, they are actually very often referring to Transit Adjacent Development. Just connecting a development to a station that is on the other side of a highway is TAD… It’s an afterthought… and hardly oriented toward creating a symbiotic relationship with the transit infrastructure.

      Those of you with a background in urban planning will know exactly what I’m talking about.

    • Faiz Imam 14:36 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      I went to one of the Solar Uniquartier real estate meetings, read the plans in detail. I’m in no position to buy anything, but I wanted to satisfy my curiosity.

      it has one large parking structure, but what they’ve done is place it along the highway to act as a buffer. Once you’re in the development, there is zero evidence that there is a highway nearby. The vast majority of users will only see it when they pass over the bridge to the station. The highway is not a relevant factor to the lived experience of anyone in that area.

      The amount of parking is quite large, but if you calculate it per residence and per unit area of office space and retail, its actually quite low and lower than most suburbs. My understanding is that it will probably use the system of having paid parking, with credits given if you buy something.

      I also met with the planners behind Mississagua’s downtown21 plan a few years ago. We did a walking tour of Square one and they gave us a idea of the values behind their thinking and what was coming in the decade ahead. The issue they face is the no1 priority for most people is parking. nothing but parking. But they’ve been able to design guidelines to make the urban fabric and street front experience much higher quality, so that establishes a certain baseline. The land values are so high that there is almost no surface lots anymore, all new buildings have underground parking (a lot of it). This unfortunately adds cost.

      Which is the common factor among all these projects. They are all huge luxury focused projects that have very little concept of social mixing.

      But one of my hopes is that the capital shifted here is money that does not go to gentrification of the urban core.

    • Raymond Lutz 15:02 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      “Once you’re in the development, there is zero evidence that there is a highway nearby.” And what about atmospheric pollution? You know, like, high level of PM2.5 ?

      http://mtlcityweblog.com/?s=pm2.5

    • ant6n 15:29 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      The “values” of the Devimco “Solar Uniquartier” involves building a sterile fake village bordering two highways, and isn’t there a bunch of parking and like golf courses around? Even if it actually were a place that kind of simulates urbanity while you’re stuck there there, it doesn’t actual create an overall urban area … you know like the actual city. I don’t understand the love for these sterile fake cities (just look at page 3 of this brochure and puke at this shit), while we’re letting the actual city languish.

    • Kevin 15:47 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      @ant6n
      What is a brow-field?

    • Faiz Imam 17:48 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      First of all my use of “values” was about Mississauga planners. I made no comment about devimco.

      Also, as seen on the top of pg 3 of your link, the golf course is gone and a large new development is going in its place. As the region is in an official PMAD TOD zone higher densities were required in its place. The role of the PMAD in defining density was explicitly told to me by Brossard planners.

      Most of the golf course is now a new elementary school and a massive new park, with low density single family housing mixed in. Then an entire block on the side towards the rail station is much higher density block apartments. An annoying loophole to get a certain average density, for sure.

      The only surface parking in the area is in adjacent office parks build under previous planning regimes. Also there is a gargantuan IKEA warehouse that is now abandoned, and is expected to be developed into another high density extension i’m sure you’ll hate.

      Like… you might call it sterile and fake, but to me it looks like contemporary design. Looks like any other modern architecture and seems pleasant enough. Regardless, the first phase is already done and open, an accountant friend of mine already works there. And all the units for sale are apparently sold out. So it will be packed and lively enough by sheer numbers.

      kevin: brownfields are lands that have already been developed but are low quality or unwanted. For example a abandoned factory or stripmalls. Grey feilds are when you build on large parking lots. What we don’t want is greenfield development, which is building on pristine scrub, farmland or other undevelopped land.

    • Kate 18:03 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      Kevin: I think he typo’d for brownfield.

    • JP 18:10 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      I very much prefer the city to what the suburbs have to offer. However, A LOT of people do like these sorts of developments. Just because we don’t get it, doesn’t mean there isn’t a market out there for it. Not everyone views things with the same lenses.

      And, sure the high cost of owning a house encourages sprawl, but the price of owning a house will always be higher in the city than in the suburbs. It’s ultimately nicer to live in the city. I love living in the city and am willing to pay the premium. If the suburbs were actually nicer than the city, houses there would be more expensive.

      I also know people who feel the need to have big houses. They’d be willing to go to the middle of nowhere for a palace. People are shallow and like to show off…

    • Blork 18:33 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      @JP: “It’s ultimately nicer to live in the city.”

      But that too is a matter of opinion. Many people don’t care at all about the things that for others makes city living enjoyable. Things like having lots of people around, good selection of shops and restaurants nearby and handy, bars and whatnot…

      Many people just like to go home after work, where they spend quiet evenings or entertain friends in their big back yards. They generally buy all their groceries at Costco and Provigo — stores that tend to be better in the ‘burbs than in the city. They don’t give AF about specialty shops and restaurants and bars (and on the rare occasions when they do go out for dinner, the restaurants in their ‘burb are just fine for their tastes).

      Many of these people hate crowds and lineups. They don’t like living in small spaces, and they don’t like noise coming from neighbours, especially neighbours they don’t know.

      And when they want to do something “cultural,” be it see a performance or an art show or whatever, it’s no big thing to go into town or simply stay in town after work.

      Add all that up and for them, living in the city is like living in Hell.

      I’m not saying that’s how I prefer to live (although the older I get the more of some of that I find appealing). I’m just saying that this idea that suburban people are all somehow socially retarded or are sellouts is a very blinkered point of view. (Not directing this at you specifically — just generally.)

    • Ian 21:52 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      “If the suburbs were actually nicer than the city, houses there would be more expensive.”
      That’s not how real estate or land prices work.

    • ant6n 23:44 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      The issue isn’t some judgment whether you like this sort of sterile development or not, the issue is that you can’t walk 100m without hitting a highway or some a strip mall. The fake “urbanism” is contained solely within the single development by this single company. A real city stretches out for many hundreds of meters virtually all of it walkable, and only in this way can you accumulate a reasonable density overall – and reasonably large number of people near each other.

      In the end this one development won’t feed that REM station, it’s catchment area will mostly be all sorts of much more suburban developments further afield, which is what the sprawl is that is being warning about.

      And it’s not an issue whether we should hate or despise or not people who live in this sprawl, it’s that as a policy, the public should avoid building infrastructure that encourages sprawl, and instead invest in the city. There are all sorts of rational reasons for that; I’m concerned more with having some chance to get anywhere near Paris agreement targets, rather than whether some people actually aspire to unsustainable suburban lifestyles that should definitely not be encouraged by public policy.

    • Faiz Imam 00:17 on 2019-08-17 Permalink

      Note, this REM station has zero commuter parking, it will rely on local users, as well as many buses that will terminate there.

      Of course, on the other side of the highway is the infamous dix30. One of the quirks of this station is that there is a pedestrian overpass over the highway that literally exits onto the dumpsters behind the cinema. Many people have joked about how useless that seems.

      The answer of course is that the cinema was build in a previous age, and that at some point it will be demolished and a new high density urban area will take its place to best take advantage of the transit link.

      An aspect of this is already visible in the block to the north, which is much higher density and built with a rail link in mind.

      This is the key to my thoughts behind this. The current landuse is extraordinarily unsubstantial. None of it matters, none of it will exist for long, all of it it will be subsumed into a new project that will have little to nothing to do with how the current land is laid out.

      What you see as stripmalls and suburbs I see as brownfields just waiting to be massively built up.

      In terms of climate goals and sustainability, I’d point out that the population of greater Montreal is nearly 4 million. Of that less than 1 million live in the urban core. There is plenty of densification in the city happening, but Even dramatic densification will not make room for everyone.

      I’m of the opinion that the lifestyle being offered in these TOD’s are dramatically more sustainable than classical suburbia, and similar to the city, and is a great way to reduce the sprawl that is still expanding as we speak.

    • JP 00:28 on 2019-08-17 Permalink

      @Blork I agree with everything you said. It’s what I was trying to get at in my first paragraph until my biases creeped in.

      @ant6n Those are very valid criticisms of these developments and I appreciate the explanations.

      This specifically struck a chord with me: “A real city stretches out for many hundreds of meters virtually all of it walkable, and only in this way can you accumulate a reasonable density overall – and reasonably large number of people near each other. ”

      I like that I can walk from the Loyola Campus in NDG all the way to the village (and beyond) or, as someone living in Ahuntsic, walk all the way down to the plateau or even downtown (some blocks might not be pleasant, but it’s fairly doable). I don’t live that far from Laval or the West Island, but it’s barely safe or pleasant to walk all the way there and to and fro various points within. I know some might question why anyone would want to walk those distances, but I enjoy walking and do it quite a bit.

    • Kate 09:52 on 2019-08-17 Permalink

      Anyone who’s had to trudge the long, inhuman blocks of Anjou or St‑Laurent, or even of the Royalmount area, or any of the other parts of industrial Montreal (and if you’ve never had to go to an interview or a job in any of these areas, you’re fortunate) knows exactly what walkable vs. unwalkable is like, especially in bad weather or blazingly hot days.

    • Uatu 11:57 on 2019-08-17 Permalink

      Yep. Everything should be within walking distance with lots of greenery to mitigate heat and noise. Also the area is too dependent on the REM and public transit which means if there’s a power failure or ice storm etc. you’re screwed….

  • Kate 09:27 on 2019-08-16 Permalink | Reply  

    Via a tweet from Tu Thanh Ha, an NPR story about the rediscovery of a lost album by John Coltrane via a movie made by Montrealer Gilles Groulx, a non-prolific but influential NFB director who died in 1994. It was recorded for his 1964 feature film Le chat dans le sac, which can be watched online here.

     
    • Michael Black 12:52 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      The release date is September 27, just four weeks before my birthday.

      This is very interesting news. I don’t buy every Coltrane album, but the local angle is incentive to get this. Unlike some other jazz musicians, I got Coltrane’s music from the first album I bought, Live at The Village Vanguard, only 20 years ago.

      Michael

  • Kate 07:54 on 2019-08-16 Permalink | Reply  

    The city is funding a rooming house in the east end to offer living spaces to folks who need them. This is exactly the kind of thing we need more of, especially as rents soar all over town.

     
    • DeWolf 11:17 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      It brings to mind this “info-comic” about the decline of boarding houses and other flexible types of housing after WWII:

      https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/02/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-american-sro/553946/

    • Bill Binns 13:15 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      I have lived directly next door to one for three years. They don’t make great neighbors. It’s a lot like living next to a $30.00 a night motel. I’m lucky to have a decent relationship with the guy who runs the place and that most of the units are rented by somewhat stable tenants. However, about 3 of the rooms seem to be in constant rotation and it’s a never ending parade of prostitutes, drug dealers, people who were just released from jail and the deeply crazy.

      The cops are there often. Windows have been kicked in. Furniture has been thrown out of windows and because they all share one bathroom, the men will simply piss in the alley whenever they want. I currently have the house closed up and the AC on even though it’s nice out so I don’t have to listen to a dopesick tenant retch in her room all day (really ALL DAY).

      Worst of all is summertime “Balconville” when the tenants will sit on the back fire escape from 10:00AM to midnight drinking beer and having a fine old time. Somehow, the beer never ever runs out.

    • Ephraim 13:33 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      Bill…. but you get the extra benefit of street theatre. 🙂

      I too lived near one that was well run. At least once a summer someone would put on their music so loud as to disturb everyone… I would blast back music in Arabic and we would be done for the year, having taken the hint. Every once in a while you would have loud arguments and the such. The owner had no tolerance for it… he didn’t warn them, he kicked them out… sometime so swiftly that you would see their stuff flying. He had a long list of people who wanted a place, he didn’t need the trouble.

    • Bill Binns 13:44 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      @Ephraim – I used to see people getting forcefully tossed out at 6 in the morning but I’m not sure how legal that is. Obviously, you can toss people out of a hotel and you cannot toss people out of an apartment. Not sure where rooming houses fit into that. I think there was a story going around a month or so ago about a bunch of rooming house tenants in town suing the owner for evicting them (via some activist organization of course).

    • Ephraim 17:50 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      Bill, rules are different and I assume it was in the contract. They didn’t pay monthly, they paid weekly. Rooming houses aren’t allowed to have a stove, for example. Room houses tenants don’t really have a lease, since they don’t pay monthly. No guarantee in EITHER direction… you can leave any time you want and stop paying… I can kick you out for violating the rules… we are both NOT protected by not having a lease.

    • MarcG 12:24 on 2019-08-17 Permalink

      @Bill Did you know that the rooming house was next door when you moved in? Why don’t you move?

  • Kate 07:41 on 2019-08-16 Permalink | Reply  

    The Vélo Festif wants to replace calèches in Old Montreal, but isn’t getting any interest from city hall. Curiously, I had a link a month ago to a Journal story about people not liking the Vélo festif, but that story is gone from their site and nobody else has it. I’m still curious how the thing is still running after being declared not street legal in 2015.

     
    • Chris 09:04 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      Aren’t those trucks with nothing but a screen for showing advertisements illegal too? They’ve been driving around for longer, and not stopped. Uber flouts the law, AirBnB flouts the law. The law does not seem to apply to businesses, only to us schmucks.

    • Kate 09:07 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      Indeed, it often feels like this is so, Chris.

    • ottawaowl 12:27 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      I LIKE the Vélos festifs! More Un-Vélo-une-ville bike-taxis should also replace the calèches in Old Montreal. Even better would be FREE Ottawa-style homemade bike-taxis.

    • Jonathan 14:04 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      But yet cyclists get 10’s of thousands of tickets for not stopping properly at a stop sign.

    • Blork 14:20 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      “10’s of thousands of tickets” for stop sign violations? Seriously? FFS.

    • Jonathan 14:41 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      I’m not sure where that disbelief is aimed at, Blork. Recent news showed that for the last several years more than 10,000 tickets were given to cyclists, and that the majority of them were handed out for failing to stop at a stop sign.

      8,890 in 2014, 9,326 in 2015, 11,785 in 2016, 12,644 in 2017, and 12,285 in 2018. That’s 54,930 in 5 years. If the majority of those were for stop violations as have been reported, then you can most probably assume that there were at least 27,466 tickets given out to cyclists in the last five years for stop violations.

    • Blork 14:47 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      OK. I stand corrected. I didn’t realize the numbers were that high and that most were for stop signs.

    • Kevin 15:49 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      Running red lights and stop signs, followed by wearing headphones/earphones, then not respecting road signs.

    • Chris 18:10 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      I wonder how many of those were really “running” the red/stop vs doing an Idaho stop. Cyclists know they are vulnerable, hardly any blindly race through intersections without being able to see first.

    • Michael Black 18:23 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?

      Going through a stop sign probably makes cyclists sloppy, but means little if nobody is around.

      But, do they go through the stop sign if there is traffic or pedestrians in the way?

      If I’m crossing the street and a cyclist pushes through, either swerving around me or expecting me to jump out of the way, that’s not an “Idaho stop”, that’s a traffic violation. It’s no different from a car driver taking chances as if I’m not in his way.

      I’ve never been hit by a car either, but it is that very expectation that I don’t count that I object to many drivers. I would point out that they often act the same way towards cyclists.

      So this doesn’t even get to the issue if safety, it’s about consideration.

      Michael

    • Dhomas 21:25 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      If you want to read that missing story, you can find it here:
      https://web.archive.org/web/20190716160620/https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2019/07/15/velo-festif

      Not much of a story, really.

    • Ian 21:59 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      One way to think is that if there are a gazillion tickets given out to cyclists, cops must be targeting cyclists. Another way to look at it is that if there are so many tickets maybe some cyclist are actually not only breaking laws but riding recklessly.

      The truth may be somewhere inbetween, but I just spent a week in Toronto and I can tell you for a bona fide fact that east or west end, bicyclists, motorists, and pedestrians in Toronto really follow the rules of the road a lot more. In Toronto you would never dare to jaywalk in front of a cop or not stop at a crosswalk regardless of whether you’re on a bike or in a car. You will get a ticket and a stern talking to. We need to do that here, too.

    • Ian 22:15 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

      Also @Chris I know I’ve said this before an you consistently ignore it but in some neighbourhoods with high bike volume like Mile End cyclists really do blow through stop signs and crosswalks, much like how high pedetrian volume neighbourhoods like ste Catherine pedestrians get cocky about jut crossing however they feel like it, or on high car traffic streets like Laurier motorists (including cabbies and delivery trucks) ignore crosswalks. People in this city drive, ride, and walk like a bunch of a**holes, I’m happy to see the cops giving out tickets.

      @Michael Black
      “If I’m crossing the street and a cyclist pushes through, either swerving around me or expecting me to jump out of the way, that’s not an “Idaho stop”, that’s a traffic violation. It’s no different from a car driver taking chances as if I’m not in his way.”
      Well put. I have actually had this happen to me many times especially on Saint Viateur. Someone is going to get a hockey stick in his spokes one of these days. This is no better than when drivers do the same thing at crosswalks on Laurier.

    • dwgs 08:58 on 2019-08-17 Permalink

      Ian, I suspect that large numbers of those tickets are handed out in targeted operations. I regularly see the cops set up near an intersection on the de Maisonneuve bike path (usually in Westmount). They hang out behind a tree or a large sign or such and pull over cyclists three or four at a time and write them up. This year they are only doing red lights and no longer seem to be doing the stop signs.

    • Chris 09:05 on 2019-08-17 Permalink

      Michael, agreed. And that’s exactly the thing I was wondering: how many of those tickets are idiots near-missing a pedestrian, vs just not stopping and putting their foot on the floor? The latter being an easy/lazy thing cops can do, like dwgs describes. Surely we can all agree those are very different things, though both technically the same violation of a stop sign.

      Ian, I’m not sure we disagree as much as you seem to think. Yes, _some_ cyclists do blow through, of course. We probably disagree on the fraction though. Or perhaps the exact meaning of “blow through”? But the disagreement could be settled by measurement. I’ll see if I can find any studies that have measured. Try sitting on the corner of say Clark and Fairmount (near you IIRC) and watch cyclists’ eyes. They look before crossing, because they know they’re dead if they don’t. Now, this is an independent decision of whether they decide to yield to others. There, indeed, they often fail to yield to pedestrians, which is a shame.

    • Ian 19:02 on 2019-08-17 Permalink

      so what? the cyclists actually breaking the law – one can only hope they learn from the experience & follow the road laws more conscientiously. I don’t see anyone complaining here when the cops do the same with blind corners drivers tend to speed on.

      I’d prefer if cops actually ticketed everyone regularly instead of this kind of approach, as now everyone know that the cops are ticketing for specific infractions in specific locations so ignore pretty much everything else as usual.

    • Chris 22:08 on 2019-08-17 Permalink

      And I’d prefer if cops actually ticketed proportional to the dangerousness of the infraction. So for motorists: speeding, ignoring crosswalks, etc. For cyclists, not having lights, not yielding to pedestrians, actually blowing through stops, etc. For pedestrians, well, hardly anything.

      Lazily filling ticket quotas by nabbing Idaho Stoppers (that slow and yield) is not on my list. (Not saying that is or isn’t what our police are doing.)

    • Tim S. 16:40 on 2019-08-18 Permalink

      I know it’s a little late to post on this thread, but I just want to point out that the occasional police operation on de Maisonneuve in Westmount that dwgs mentioned and Chris described as “easy/lazy” is something that I specifically pushed for when I lived in the area. Every day I had to cross the bike path to get my child to daycare, and very, very few of the cyclists every yielded to us at stop signs. It was actually the topic of my very first post on the weblog. So I actually resent the “easy/lazy” description, as quite a lot of citizen effort went, and still goes, into making sure that the police occasionally do their job. It’s still an unpleasant area for pedestrians, but my life is a lot less stressful now that I don’t have to directly cross that particular bike path with a child.

    • Ian 17:27 on 2019-08-18 Permalink

      Exactly, I live in a neighbourhood like that too and it drives me nuts that people do what they want outside of the targeted stops.

      “I’d prefer if cops actually ticketed proportional to the dangerousness of the infraction” No, that is not what laws are for. You either enforce them, or they are ignored. It doesn’t matter what you think is a proportionately important infraction, it matters that it’s on the books and if it’s not enforced there’s no point in having it or any other law.

    • Gab 12:08 on 2019-08-27 Permalink

      Hey Kate. If you really want answers to your questions, you can contact Vélo Festif directly. Forums et media always cause more confusion than straight answers.
      https://velofestifmtl.com/contact/

      Btw Chris, you are talking about something else.

      Anyway. The article about “people not liking vélo festif” was removed because the Journal de Montreal used a copyrighted picture on their article without consent. And they didn’t bother taking their own. That being said, this “article” was very misleading. The journalist found a 2 month old post on the “dans le traffic” Facebook group (a group where people complain about anything about Montreal). The post was from someone who actually liked those bikes and was sharing a video for this reason. Out of about 20 comments, something like 5 where unhappy people. Most people were defending velo festif. Then, the journalist did a brief article saying that people where not liking velo festif and that he was looking for people to email him about this. The title said that velo festif was making people unhappy. It’s like finding 3 people who doesn’t like chocolate and make an article about that, titled “Chocolate is bad for you”.

      About the article in 2005. This article is also misleading. Velo Festif isn’t a big corporation like Uber. If it was illegal, it would be off the road by now. The truth is that it is not simple as the article is saying. Now it would be a long explanation, but you can do your own legal research that will conclude that the vehicle can be on the road with exceptions. But obviously, small businesses face the law like you do.

  • Kate 07:31 on 2019-08-16 Permalink | Reply  

    CDN-NDG borough has bought a building in Le Triangle that might become a school or a community centre. The area has hundreds of school-age kids but no school nearby.

     
    • Kate 07:21 on 2019-08-16 Permalink | Reply  

      Electric Bixi bikes will soon be deployed, costing a little more than a regular Bixi but not as much as a Jump. It seems the e-bikes they had last year were only a pilot project.

      Also, another brand of electric scooter is on its way here. Soon, nobody will have to go anywhere in town by means of the antiquated method called walking.

       
      • Bill Binns 13:31 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

        It may become impossible to walk if you want to.

      • Ephraim 13:34 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

        Yeah, not falling off of one of the scooters…. had enough time with a cane, thanks.

      • Chris 18:16 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

        Bill, are you just being hyperbolic, or…? Maybe you fear scooters taking over sidewalks? I don’t think that’s likely. It could have happened with cyclists, but hasn’t. Sure, there are cyclists that sometimes take the sidewalk, but what fraction of sidewalk users would you say they represent? 1%? 10%? It will be the same with scooters. A few on sidewalks, but not many. The City could further make this unlikely by reallocating road space away from cars, and towards other users. i.e.: take away road lanes and make them for scooters.

      • Ian 22:03 on 2019-08-16 Permalink

        Scooters on sidewalks are pretty easy to accidentally kick over. Just like accidentally standing in front of bikes until they are forced to dismount.

        @Chris Yes yes, horrible cars blah blah… here’s an idea, let’s make everyone who\s not a pedestrian get off the damn sidewalk. You go on about car culture, but let’s observe the self-involved narcissism at play with anyone but pedestrians on sidewalks and call it for what it is instead of pulling irrelevant hypotheticals out of your ear.

      • Chris 09:25 on 2019-08-17 Permalink

        Ian, yikes, why the grump? “accidentally kick over” another human being eh? How nice of you. That’s assault, and a criminal offence.

        Where did I advocate that scooters should be on sidewalks? Nowhere of course. Non-pedestians should not be on sidewalks. (With rare exceptions, as acknowledged in the Highway Code, section 492.1).

        What ‘irrelevant hypotheticals’? I’m (still) honestly asking Bill why he thinks ebikes and scooters will make it “impossible to walk if you want to”. I can’t think of any other reason other than worry that sidewalks will be taken over.

      • Ian 19:07 on 2019-08-17 Permalink

        I’m sure it would be ticketed just as vigorously as idiots riding on the sidewalk.

        You bring up how the city could prevent people from riding on sidewalks by taking away road space from cars. That is irrelevant. We already have laws in place that are not being consistently enforced or people wouldn’t be riding on sidewalks… why are you falling over yourself to create opportunities for people not to break the law by punishing others? This is one great example of why I call bullsh*t on your claim that you do not have an inherent bias against cars, despite your insistence that you are only opposed to “car culture”.

      • Chris 22:01 on 2019-08-17 Permalink

        It’s not irrelevant: the topic is scooters. The idea of reallocating space for scooters is relevant to a discussion about scooters. Maybe you don’t favour it, but that doesn’t make it off-topic or irrelevant.

        There are laws in place against motorists speeding too, but they are of course not fully obeyed. As such, physical modifications are made to increase compliance, ex: road narrowing, speed bumps, posts, more tightly-painted lanes, etc. Likewise physical changes to space allocation could decrease the need for cyclists/scooters to feel they need to be on the sidewalk to be safe. When roads are wide, motorists will speed; when streets are deadly, cyclists will take the sidewalk. Laws alone won’t fix that.

        I’m not sure why you can’t just politely disagree, instead of the “blah blah” and “calling bullshit” condescension. 🙁

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