The headline here talks about a temporary agricultural project to be built at Blue Bonnets, but details are scanty, besides the mention of a few beehives and raised beds at the moment, and the timeline of any such project left unmentioned.
Updates from August, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Some history pieces for a quiet Sunday. (At least it is, around here. Early summer it’s all power tools as people resume projects left unfinished over the winter, and come September they’ll start up again as they realize summer won’t last forever. But for now it’s great. We don’t have lawns and hedges in Villeray.)
The Journal looks at the highs and lows of the long reign of Jean Drapeau, twenty years after his death. Radio-Canada also has a piece about Drapeau.
Radio-Canada notes the 300th anniversary of the windmill in Pointe-aux-Trembles. There were once 240 mills in Quebec and only 18 remain. Text and audio.
The Gazette’s “through our eyes” is a daily feature, this week looking at the first airmail arrival in 1939, a perfect game pitched by the Expos’ Dennis Martinez in 1991, and other incidents.
In the Gazette, Marian Scott also writes about the 150-year history of the SPCA.
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Kate
Lime electric scooters are due to launch Monday. I was interested to read that three riders of the little vehicles have been killed on roads in Paris in the last four months.
Baru
oh wow, i just rode these in paris a couple of weeks ago. embarrassed to say i really enjoyed the experience. I tried to avoid it since it just reminded me of those dorks on segways in the old port. i could see lime being a huge hit in mtl.
Faiz Imam
Saw this picture from Nashville of designated scooter storage in parking spaces.
https://twitter.com/g_meslin/status/1157064790562476032
There is a lot of things that could work to integrate these vehicles with less chaos and disruption.but up front I suspect we’ll have plenty of stories of conflict.
Chris
Baru, why embarrassed?
Strange how a handful of deaths are used to argue for banning these things. Automobiles kill way way way more people, but if one advocates for even partial automobile bans, one is thoroughly disparaged.
Kate
The main thing that makes me sad about these powered vehicles is here we are talking about making more inhabitable cities, about people needing to be more active, we finally get Bixi working well, we get a few pedestrianized streets, and then along come some “disruptors” and put motorized vehicles back in the mix that make it easier again for people to putt-putt along instead of pedalling or walking.
Since it seems to need to be said: I don’t begrudge powered assistance to anyone who needs it, but I dislike seeing these things portrayed as progressive and as an unmixed blessing. We all know they’ll be used on bike paths and sidewalks, we all know people will use them who don’t need them. Yes, they’re better than having someone use a car. But they’re also potentially a blight. Let’s watch.
dwgs
I was in Nashville this spring. When you are out of the downtown core the scooter parking is generally pretty good but when you’re strolling around the core you have to keep one eye on the sidewalk to make sure you’re not going to trip over one that has been dumped. Mind you downtown Nashville is pretty crazy to begin with.
Chris
Kate, it’s been about a century since automobiles have displaced cycling. With effort, we could probably get ourselves up to Amsterdam or Copenhagen levels, or maybe a bit beyond, say 40% mode share levels. But what about the other 60%? You’re just never going to convince most people to use active transport. I wish it weren’t so, but it is. If we can get some of them to use less-polluting motorized transport like these scooters, then great. Maybe it can help uncrowd the metro.
These things shouldn’t be on sidewalks, I certainly agree there. (99% of the time anyway.)
And, yeah, before Ephraim says… of course not everyone is capable of biking, or scootering, and they need to be considered too of course. I’ll also point out that not everyone is capable of driving a car either! It’s not an argument against having cars, bikes, or scooters.
Ephraim
Chris, wasn’t going to say it. Besides, I live in a pedestrian area of the city. We walk.
Chris
Relatedly, on another site I read, just saw this study saying ebikers actually get quite a bit of exercise: https://electrek.co/2019/08/11/electric-bike-riders-more-exercise-than-cyclists/
Marco
I was just in LA and these scooters are all over the place. There are piles of them on the sidewalk in busy areas. Get used to scenes like this: https://assets.change.org/photos/0/mg/ro/KsmGRoKOhwYQcmp-800×450-noPad.jpg?1559155846
Blork
Chris, you’ve said “it’s been about a century since automobiles have displaced cycling” and I’ve called you out on it before, and I’ll do it again.
Automobiles did not replace cycling. 100 years ago, nobody cycled in the city aside from a few people in parks and out in the countryside. The streets were full of horse shit, cobblestones, and tram tracks, and were very uncyclable. Plus, the bicycles of 100 years ago were heavy and hard to ride. Cycling then was just a recreational activity undertaken by a few oddballs.
Cars did not replace bicycles FFS. Cars replaced horses and trams, not bicycles.
Chris
First, i said displace, not replace.
Commuter cycling was a thing since the beginning of cycling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cycling#Commuting
Cars certainly displaced horses and trams too! And walking and public transit too.
Point is Kate’s lament for active transport is a century late. The automobile was the great disruptor. We’ve had active transport options for a century, most people just don’t want to.
Raymond Lutz
Paris? In the twitter thread submitted by Faiz, one can read:”After four deaths in the last three months, Atlanta’s mayor has banned use of dockless shareable scooters/bikes from 9:00pm – 4:00am, and has revoked the planning dept’s authority to permit more of them.”
Chris
Imagine 4 gun deaths and them banning guns. Or 4 car deaths and them banning cars. What’s the real reason they ban these scooters?
Michael Black
My experience with Copenhagen is 55 years old. But I’ve wondered if they have more cycling because of WWII. Things were tough in Europe then, shortages of everything, so whatever level cycling was at, they likely depended in bikes because gas and cars weren’t so available. In 1965 I thought WWII was well in the past, but Europe was still recovering, which perhaps kept bikes in use.
Of course, things may have developed differently in Eurooe anyway. Denser cities, less parking places, maybe less income, so bicycles had a different chance.
Michael
Kate
Michael, I’m not sure about the WWII-bike link. Wartime would’ve made bicycle manufacture difficult, no?
I can tell you that in the Netherlands cycling was always fairly popular – it’s a flat country, nobody needed special gearing to get around – but it only really surged after protests in the 1970s in response to a spike in pedestrian deaths in traffic. Some data here. There isn’t anything about history in the corresponding article on cycling in Denmark.
Tim S.
I suppose one thing about the deaths – one here, two there – is that they’re extra deaths. Yes, cars kill people, but there’s a fair amount of effort going into reducing those deaths – the activism of people like Chris included. Maybe not enough effort, but still some. And now there’s a whole new way for people to die! And injure others into the bargain. I think it’s fair to say citizens should decide if the cost/benefits are worth it, and not a bunch of businesspeople in California.
Blork
@Chris, I challenge you to find an historical photo (1875 to 1920) that shows even a single bicycle on a downtown Montreal street. Your revisionist history implies there should be copious photos showing vast clusters of cycling commuters from that era, but I doubt you can find a photo that shows even one.
dwgs
Consider your sources Chris ” According to the website Bike to Work, this practice continued in the United States until the 1920s, when biking experienced a sharp drop, in part due to the growth of suburbs and the popularity of the car.”
Not sure that an obscure website (a search for the website returns iffy results and several different domains) should be cited as authoritative.Michael Black
It’s relative. “People have always commuted by bicycle” is probably a true statement, though maybe not back to when bikes were new. I can remember seeing people almost fifty years ago commuting along Sherbrooke Street, dressed more for work than exercise.
But that dkesn’t mean it was common.
People also rode in winter, bicycles were used for delivery from corner stores, there was a bike boom in the seventies.
But it was relative, dwarfed by what came later. But the foundatjon has been there a !ong time. Nobody tried to get bike paths in the seventies to get people to give up cars, it was because they wanted to be safe and bike paths seemed like a solution.
And it’s those decades of activism that got us to today, not because millennials want to ride bikes. The infrastructure is now decades old.
Michael
Kate
Blork, William Notman’s studio took a lot of photos of Montrealers on penny-farthings and such, but they’re studio shots, so arguably the subjects could’ve been dilettantes. However, what about this article?
I’ve read that in many places it was cyclists who first pressed for roads to be paved, not motorists.
Blork
Kate, that article does show lots of bicycles, but most are either (a) not particularly urban settings, or (b) more recent than 1920. I only see one that shows bicycles on the street within the 1875-1920 timeframe. (“Une voiture, un cheval, une charrette et trois bicyclettes sur la rue, vers 1909.”)
I’m using that timeframe because of Chris’ assertion that cars replaced/displaced bikes about 100 years ago. If that were true, you’d see lots and lots of bicycles in the various urban photos from MORE THAN 100 years ago (i.e., before they were replaced or displaced by cars).
I’m not saying bicycles didn’t exist then; I’m just saying they weren’t around in great numbers such that the rise of cars resulted from people getting off their bikes and into cars.
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Kate
There were two reports last week from Employment and Social Development Canada saying that some refugees who come here end up on the street. Some politicians will capitalize on this information for political ends, but the Old Brewery Mission says it actually is a problem and they need more federal help to solve it.
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Kate
You know when the silly season is peaking: a story about the Montreal bagel will crop up.
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Kate
Some odd things have been found in restaurant food, although considering that humans prepare food, cut themselves, put on band-aids, and occasionally have to use sub-par equipment, the finding of nuts, bolts and bandages is not too surprising. But I think I’ll make my own supper tonight.
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Kate
If you’d ever wondered about the history of the Lachine Canal you can now discover its history in a walking tour or in a kayak. I was told stories about the canal from my childhood, some of them quite morbid, so although I enjoyed walking along it when I was working down in the Hank, I’ll let others hear the more sanitized versions.
Max
Some Concordia students and Parks Canada put together an hour-long audio tour, along with a nice 50-page booklet back in 2013.
http://postindustrialmontreal.ca/audiowalks/canal-2013
The mp3’s been languishing unlistened on my phone for years now so I can’t actually vouch for it, but it appears promising.
You’ll need to setup a free account to get at these PDF articles from The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology, but it’s well worth the effort for anyone seriously interested in the history of the canal.
https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=lachine+canal&filter=
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Kate
Tourism numbers are looking good this season.
Chris
Perhaps thanks, in part, to Airbnb making to easier and cheaper?
Ephraim
Chris – Nope. AirBnB has nothing to do with it at all. I can tell you also that the mix this year is different than other years, with less Europeans coming in August than normal. AirBnB has almost no effect on the tourism numbers, other than to lower GDP and increase taxes because they help people with tax evasion that you and I have to make up with our taxes.
BTW… before you consider doing AirBnB in Montreal, remember that Montreal is big in the porn industry… and the sets are often AirBnB rentals 🙂
Chris
“AirBnB has nothing to do with it at all.” Saying so doesn’t make it so. Has anyone studied it? You have anything to back up the claim?
Joey
Since Airbnb “has almost no effect on tourism numbers,” what aspect of the economy does it affect so significantly as to lower our GDP? Thought experiment: abolish all short-term tourism rentals in Montreal overnight. Does tourism go up, down or stay the same? Do restaurant and concert revenues increase or decrease? Do hotel prices go up or down?
The critique of airbnb that Ephraim posts five days a week on this blog is valid and persuasive, but the idea that Airbnb has no impact on tourism is ludicrous.
Ephraim
The statistics say it’s so. They look at hotel numbers, AirBnB numbers essentially don’t exist because they don’t give out a count of people. The statistics are based on Tourisme Montreal numbers. Of course those aren’t right either, since only about 40% of hotels and less than 10% of the other accommodations give them any numbers. But statistics basically say that part of statistical numbers should correlated, but that’s an assumption. Many of the hotels have turned their back on Tourisme Montreal. They also use statistics from AdMtl, which of course doesn’t really have a way to know WHY people are coming and of course doesn’t include rail or car. And of course, you can’t really get car unless you could count, because how do you know who drives through, who stays, etc. For the most part, it looks at people in hotel rooms, nothing more.
They lower GDP because the income is generally not declared on income tax and income tax is not paid. (Also GST/QST are not paid.)
Chris
Ephraim, if “AirBnB numbers essentially don’t exist” then how can you conclude that “AirBnB has nothing to do with it at all”? Which “statistics say it’s so”? Can you share a link?
I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m saying you’re not convincing. 🙂
Ephraim
Chris, look at tourist statistics for Montreal. AirBnB sometimes, for political gain, will release their numbers when they are trying to make a point. But otherwise, they don’t participate. They will cite how much they have paid in the 3.5% tax. Of course we have no way to correlate that with tourists, though it’s supposed to go to tourism. We know they are reporting the money as a lump sum, so they can hide the sources. But I’m not sure if they have to report it regionally, so each region gets it’s fair share of the 3.5%.
The source of tourism numbers in Quebec has always been AdMtl and Tourisme Montreal. Not that I’m saying that these are good sources. For one thing, people often lie a borders saying they are here for tourism, when they can be here to work, stay or study, but don’t want to deal with the hassle of the border guard or getting a work visa. For another, at an Airport doesn’t really tell you where they are going, because they could fly into Montreal to go to Vermont, for example.
But the statistics just don’t have AirBnB in them…. well, slightly, in that they would appear in the Admtl stats. But I’ve seen these statistics and my own business for a long time. I can tell a good year from a bad year by looking at my receipts. Last year the Europeans came much earlier than normal. This year, they didn’t. It’s hard to tell about September/October when you deal with older travellers and then leaf travellers, just yet. Also booking patterns differ wildly between the groups. But that is something that you learn in the business. I also didn’t deal with as many AirBnB rescues this year… the crying phone calls looking for a place to stay.
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Kate
Some arcane calculation by Maclean’s has declared Montreal Canada’s 296th best community.
ProposMontreal
I like the fact that the Gazette is getting mad that someone else is bashing Montreal then them.
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Kate
Friday evening the Alouettes’ match against Saskatchewan was cut short by the thunderstorm, leaving the Als down 17-10 in a game that hadn’t completed its third quarter. The rain lasted so long that the partial game was adjudged a final score, a thing that has apparently never happened before in the CFL, although I presume it’s in the rule book.
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Kate
Mathias Marchal, always a voice of reason, estimates here that if the city succeeds in getting the land it wants for the big West Island park, it will get close to its target of 10% green space, but still not quite make it. He’s got the numbers.
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Kate
Masson Street will be getting a new pedestrianized space between 5th and 6th Avenue. Like the one on de Castelnau, it’s visually anchored by a big church. If nothing else, those random old incursions into the commercial space do help, visually, to break up a pattern.
Patrick
Good idea. Rue Masson is already a pleasant street to walk and stop for coffee, and this will make it even nicer.
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Kate
Rosemont borough is going to stop putting in fake turf on sports fields, because it doesn’t help with heat island effects at all.
In other park sports news, Sud-Ouest has closed a baseball diamond after stray balls landed on terrasses of nearby restaurants. There’s talk here of the city eventually putting up some kind of net that would allow the field to reopen.
Chris
That fake turf stinks when it’s sunny too.
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Kate
Two people were shot, not fatally, overnight at Clark* and Sherbrooke during a brawl.
There’s a little more detail in this Journal piece, where it says one of the victims is a woman who was hit by a stray bullet, and was probably not involved in the fight.
*Note to TVA: Clarke is in Westmount. Clark is downtown.
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Kate
I thought the fences along l’Acadie that separate TMR from Park Ex were the island’s only example of geographical apartheid, but there’s also one separating Pierrefonds and Kirkland. How bizarre.
EmilyG
I wonder about Dorval Island. You can’t get there by walking or car, and I’ve heard that only people who live there are allowed to go there.
EmilyG
Also, I’m wondering if the Pierrefonds/Kirkland gate has to do with the fact that Kirkland is a city, and PIerrefonds is part of Montreal.
Kate
Dorval Island has an effective moat. I too have heard that if you try to land there, you will be headed off. Also nobody lives there in the winter except one caretaker.
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