Updates from August, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 10:09 on 2019-08-31 Permalink | Reply  

    An app called Aeroplainte has made it easy to complain about airplane noise in Montreal so, not surprisingly, complaints are piling up.

    And yet, you’ll notice nobody is suggesting that we should have kept Mirabel open and gradually phased out the airport formerly known as Dorval. When you’re travelling or bringing people to or from the airport, you’re happy enough that you can get there in under an hour.

    I live under a flight path. I hardly notice it all winter when the windows are shut tight, so that for me, the sound of planes is also the sound of summer. Occasionally – late afternoon, mostly – the influx of planes is a bit noticeable, but no more than a bit.

    I think people need to chill, or – if they’re living where it’s intolerable – move. Planes aren’t going anywhere. I mean, they are going somewhere, but – well, you know what I mean.

     
    • DavidH 10:26 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

      Flight paths were modified this year for work being done at the airport. I think that has more to do with it. People need to speak up where it wasn’t a good solution. You don’t want the temporary fix to be considered a good idea for new approaches.

      People who own their houses can actually move as swiftly as you seem to imply. You don’t uproot a family and sell your house for a temporary flight plan supposed to last a few months.

    • nYULimby 19:24 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

      Does anyone know why they can’t have the flight path directly above the Met where it’s noisy anyway?

    • Kate 20:18 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

      Planes mostly used to come in more or less along a line with the Met, but in the last while it seems they’ve been crossing from (Montreal directions here) southeast to northwest. I see them coming roughly from the direction of Rosemont, then crossing overhead in Villeray into Ahuntsic.

    • Bert 21:44 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

      The reason that they fly over Rosemont and Ahuntsic is due to how instrument landings are typically handled. Primarily, there is a radio signal that goes out from the runway center line and planes are directed in a way that they will intercept and capture the the line. They then follow the line in at a slope that is also a property o the radio signal. So, draw a line through the main runways and you will see where the planes will fly.

      This is the most straightforward and safest way to do it. There are airports where maneuvers are required close in to the airport, but this increases risk of accident and missed approaches. It also requires special pilot training and some times certification.

    • Susana Machado 21:44 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

      I live in VSL, straight under the landing path. I hear the planes they don’t bother me one fraction of what the ***** drivers of cars and motorbikes that think Marcel-Laurin is a race track!! At least there are not planes between 3 and 4 am, when they come out in hordes!

    • Bert 22:00 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

      Also, this was discussed a while ago on this blog, but the sound levels from a plane are greatly different during takeoff and landing, as is the approach and departure flight profiles. During a landing the planes are more or less at idle or low throttle. They also fly at a lower altitude with a modest glide slope, on the order of 300-500 feet per minute. So a longer noise area but lower volume.

      On departure, engines are at more or less full throttle but when they get airborne the climb rate i on the order of 2000-2500 feet per minute. Once airborne, at low altitude engines will often be throttled back for noise abatement until a minimum altitude is reached. So a higher volume but a smaller noise area,

    • qatzelok 07:59 on 2019-09-01 Permalink

      “The noise is so loud sometimes that you can’t even hear the lawn-mowers.”

    • Kate 19:41 on 2019-09-01 Permalink

      Bert, thanks for the information about the radio beacons.

    • Anna 12:50 on 2021-01-11 Permalink

      Anyone here who has problems with noise from Mirabel, what postal code is on the flight path as of 2021?
      Anyone here who has problems with noise from Dorval, what postal code is on the flight path of 2021?

  • Kate 09:59 on 2019-08-31 Permalink | Reply  

    Good thoughtful Le Devoir piece celebrates the history of union organization in Montreal for Labour Day.

    The writer handwaves the history of the day, though. It was set up in the U.S. to counteract the original, more radical and internationalist tradition of May Day, and Canada fell into line.

     
    • Kate 09:37 on 2019-08-31 Permalink | Reply  

      The federal Liberals departed from tradition in Saint-Leonard-Saint-Michel by choosing a candidate who was not Italian-Canadian, but their choice, onetime imam Hassan Guillet, has already been sacked by the party for alleged antisemitic remarks made on social media.

      That riding has something of a jinx on it. It was held by Alfonso Gagliano from 1988-2002, when he was named in the Gomery report on the sponsorship scandal, then by Massimo Pacetti from 2002 to 2015, but he was dismissed after accusations of harassment. The most recent representative, Nicola Di Iorio, elected in 2015, announced he was quitting politics at the end of 2018, then showed up again, wavered on whether he was really quitting, and finally left in January. The riding has been vacant since then.

       
      • qatzelok 08:07 on 2019-09-01 Permalink

        It’s hard to believe that the Liberal’s originally chose a candidate who wasn’t 100% pro-Israel in the first place. Now, the Conservatives appear to be winning the “pro-Israel” race.

      • Raymond Lutz 10:46 on 2019-09-01 Permalink

        From the Global News article: “The [B’nai Brith Canada] organization said it has uncovered several since-deleted social media posts made under Guillet’s name, including one in 2016 that referenced Zionists controlling U.S. politics, an anti-Semitic trope, and another made in 2017 that praised the release of an Islamist cleric jailed in Israel for inciting violence.”

        wow, c’est du solide! Critiquer l’influence Israélienne sur les politiques domestiques est également ce qui a déclenché des accusations diffamantes d’anti-sémitisme contre Ilhan Omar… Pourtant elle a raison. https://www.thenation.com/article/ady-barkan-aipac-ilhan-omar/

      • Kate 11:40 on 2019-09-01 Permalink

        During an election a party has to control how things look more than anything. Even if we can agree that criticizing Israeli government policy is not equivalent to antisemitism, that’s neither here nor there for the optics of an election campaign. Anyone whose views can be called down in that way has to be out.

      • Raymond Lutz 15:18 on 2019-09-01 Permalink

        Maybe if people fought against any social organization, structure, set of interactions that articulates solely on _how things look_ rather than obediently complying to their aberrant premise, we wouldn’t be dans la merde jusqu’aux yeux. This is not antisemitism and shouldn’t end a political career (neither speeding tickets). Crimethink? Yes, and here’s your directions for room 101.

      • qatzelok 18:29 on 2019-09-01 Permalink

        The article mentions the “trope” that is Zionist control of our politics and media, in the same color ink as it mentions that a candidate was dismissed for not being pro-Zionist enough.

        Mainstream media is money-seeking, not truth-seeking. Same with mainstream politics.

      • Ian 19:26 on 2019-09-02 Permalink

        Zionist control of media is Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Pro-Israel sympathies in media that may be interpreted as supporting Zionism as a larger editorial slant are a very different thing. What you are saying, qatzi, is getting dangerously close to simply being anti-Jewish.

        These are subtle, yet extremely important distinctions.

    • Kate 09:02 on 2019-08-31 Permalink | Reply  

      La Presse says the arrival of electric scooters has been chaotic and that although the city had warned of severe controls, nobody has had anything but warnings so far.

       
      • Roman 09:43 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

        They are just a bunch of complainers.

        When horses arrived in NYC, they were chaotic. There was literally a horse poop apocalypse. Dead horses left laying around on streets. Manure was thick and covered everything.

        When cars arrived it was chaotic too. No regulations. Sharing space with horses. No signals or signs. Roads without markings.

        Yet we survived. Adapted. Made new rules and now we are ok.

      • DavidH 10:20 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

        Electric scooters are not bringing the type of paradigm shift cars brought. They are probably more on the level of the 90s rollerblading craze. No need to put up with so much crap for them. Less able-bodied will find some usefulness but for everyone else it’s a novelty for a summer or two.

      • Roman 14:18 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

        I like them. But I wish they were a bit cheaper. I live 15 minutes walk from the metro. It’s sometimes too far to walk and too short to take the bus.

        Scooters fit perfectly into that picture. I did use them in that context a couple of times already and found them to be very useful.

        I think if it can get mass adoption and people will start using metro more as a result it could be a huge win.

        I’m often too lazy to walk to the metro and take the car instead to the destination.

      • Faiz Imam 17:58 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

        What i’m wondering is what their plans for winter are? Because the risks of having them underfoot are dramatically higher once snow falls. They better do what bixi does and get the off the street, or else come up with a much better plan for parking them.

      • Kate 20:19 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

        There’s no possible way anyone will be able to ride a Lime scooter past the first real snow, anyway.

      • Ian 20:58 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

        Yeah, basic logic of snow aside, insurance liabilty would be huge – batteries don’t work so great in the cold either, of course there’s no way they are going to overwinter this product.

      • Ant6n 23:33 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

        @Roman I understand horses where quite a problem, not just in the beginning, but until the day they got replaced.

      • Faiz Imam 18:39 on 2019-09-01 Permalink

        Just looked it up, according to this article from last winter, Lime generally keeps business as usual and work through the winter. The battery life is less, but still usable, and the scooters function on cleared paths.

        https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/12/winter-electric-batteries-scooters-lime-bird-snow-ice/578821/

        I’ve read quite a bit about battery performance in winter, and its not that big a deal. But Snow is a huge problem, and snow will be much worse than in most cities Lime has operated in.

        According to this article, Lime collects and ships away scooters from wintery cities based on low demand, but they don’t fully shut down. They have even stayed active in cities like Denver, which get as much snow as we do.

        https://www.ft.com/content/26888854-fdfa-11e8-aebf-99e208d3e521

        So I have no idea what will happen. I’m just hoping the city stays on top of it.

      • Ian 13:17 on 2019-09-02 Permalink

        Well seeing as many of the city’s streets had 2 inches of ice on them last year from mid-winter right up until the spring thaw, anyone dumb enough to try to ride a scooter on that is more than welcome to, I suppose – but the liability is going to go through the roof.

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