Train tracks started to collapse near the REM construction site by the Lachine Canal Thursday, after vibratory pile-driving on the site.
Updates from September, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Aaaand, your weekend driving notes. Also there’s the Marathon. And then there’s Friday’s parking day.
jeather
I really appreciate that you do this, btw, Kate.
Kate
Cheers, jeather.
jeather
Weird, these were not the actual closures.
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Kate
The Bird brand has rolled out several hundred powered scooters in our streets, to compete with Lime. Toula Drimonis wrote recently about how these companies simply release their vehicles into a city, making the public forces of order deal with the consequences.
Chris
This was of course the same with cars, companies built them, people bought them, used them on public roads, and the public dealt with their consequences.
One difference this time is that though you can buy your own scooter, it’s not actually legal to ride one! Only this legally forced duopoly is allowed. Imagine if you could only use cars from two City approved car companies.
I wonder if Bird will become a verb like in California. “I’ll meet you soon, I’ll bird there now.”
Michael Black
I joked in rehab that they should put some electric scooters on the floor to represent obstacles on the sidewalk. But on Wednesday we went around the block, and there was a green Lime scooter leaning against a car. Not as bad as lying sideways on the sidewalk, but it seemed so stupid it seemed like it might have been deliberate. That was in CDN next to Martin Luther King Park (previously Kent
And the day before), someone on a Lime scooter whizzed by, I didn’t notice a helmet), on the sidewalk, using the wheelchair ramp at the corner to get onto the sidewalk.
Considering I haven’t been out much since the end of March, this makes it seem like these things are common. Time will tell since I finally got out Wednesday evening, thiugh I won’t be going for long walks for a while.
Michael
jeather
I just saw two today in the dead centre of the sidewalk, blocking everything. I was wondering what they were.
Ephraim
$1.15 to start and $0.35 a minute and geofenced (as Lime should be). Lime is $1 to start and $0.30 a minute. I’m wondering why Bird would think that they are worth 16% more than Lime scooters.
Faiz Imam
Particularly since Lime has the advantage of the Uber app, which many thousands of people already have. Bird is starting from scratch.
I’ve known about bird for years because I follow this stuff, but how are most people suppose to be onboarded? The only way i can think of is them literally finding one on the street and following the instructions to get the app.
The higher price is not particularly impressive, especially with Bixi being so much cheaper.
Blork
I don’t think Lime is connected to Uber. Perhaps you’re thinking of Jump bikes (which is Uber) and their advantage over Bixi.
Blork
I stand corrected… apparently Uber and Lime have a deal, so you can rent your Lime through the Uber app.
Faiz Imam
Yup, Uber took a significant minority stake in Lime last year.
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Kate
The two massive glass boxes that constitute the new Université de Montréal campus are officially opening Friday. I tried to photograph them from the middle distance a couple of months ago and didn’t have much success, but you can see here in the Gazette photos, by a skilled photojournalist, that they’re not amenable to being photographed, as they’re so large and tend to half vanish into the sky no matter what you do.
Update: CBC shows us the new campus, and Le Devoir’s survey of the negative side of the whole thing, including an excerpt from an open letter from SMD which I mention in comments below.
Max
The place looks gruesome from the photos.
Chris
I biked around there maybe a month ago exploring, it is pretty brutal, almost entirely paved (with stones at least, not asphalt). Very little greenspace, it’s nothing like McGill’s campus for example.
CE
The place is terrible but I’ve definitely been enjoying my new bike ride from Parc Ex through Outremont! No underpasses and and I get to avoid riding on Parc for quite a while.
DeWolf
I’m not a fan of the glass boxes, and I think the footbridge is ugly (though undeniably useful). But the surrounding area will be quite nice when it’s filled in with the residential developments that are currently under construction. There’s a triangular plaza with a fountain that will eventually be fronted by retail. I’ve already seen kids playing in it at dusk. And even if it’s all hard paving, there are enough trees that it will be quite shady in a decade or so.
Faiz Imam
Oh hey, the head planner is Pierre St-Cyr, I know that guy. He’s one of the most influential leaders of the Canadian sustainable planning movement. He’s great, one of my major intellectual influences.
That Q&A is worth a read. the entire campus has only 100 parking spots, and the entire residential development adds only another 300. He lays out some really good points about why and how they are adding new streets, and how they try to integrate with the local immigrant community.
The Gentrification concerns are still legitimate, but maximizing the use that site was a massive opportunity. Building ~1000 new residences is a pretty great, as are those public gardens.
I’m still not clear why the design had to be so spartan and lacking on trees though. Perhaps its something that will grow into, and they are just not done yet?
Kate
how they try to integrate with the local immigrant community.
Faiz Imam, what colour is that Kool-Aid? I’ve just read a letter by someone who comments here, who lives in Park Ex, and who says the university has rejected attempts to “integrate” with the existing community in the neighbourhood. So I have my doubts about your starry-eyed view.
CE
If they were actually interested in integrating the project with Parc Ex, they would have moved the tracks to the south rather than the north (which would have had the added effect of making metro access better). Any mention of Parc-Ex and its “immigrant communities” is pure lip service and nothing more.
Faiz Imam
OK, i’ll take that comment back, I was speaking from pure ignorance on that point, basing all my information from the article.
See? that wasn’t too hard.
Kate
I’m not sure what you’re implying with your tone, Faiz Imam. Nobody was giving you a hard time.
Tim
I wonder if the people opposed to the Outremont parking law changes are singing a different tune now. If anything the changes need to be more restrictive so that locals won’t have to compete for parking with university employees and students..
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Kate
A car left in the middle of Walnut Street, an obscure spot in the Tanneries neighbourhood in St‑Henri, was put to the torch overnight, and burned hot enough to damage nearby parked vehicles.
Ephraim 15:04 on 2019-09-20 Permalink
We names that bridge in the photo “Pont Pauline Marois”. It goes no where, does nothing, was useful at one time, etc. etc. etc.
ant6n 20:28 on 2019-09-20 Permalink
That bridge is annoying. Basically this is a heritage site, that turning rail bridge and the Wellington tower there. So they put that concrete-ramp-bridge there in order not to touch that turning rail bridge. It would’ve been much better visually if they’d built a bridge next to the existing CN bridge across the Lachine canal, and then figured out the ramp situation (to get across the CN tracks and yards etc.) a bit further South.
This set up also makes a possible shared system between REM and heavy trains (ARTM, VIA) more difficult if they ever decided to fix the mess they’re creating now, because heavy rail trains would need a way to get off the REM tracks at that point, which is not really possible with the current layout.
This project is such a mess.
Faiz Imam 01:26 on 2019-09-21 Permalink
One other thing you may not be aware of, but the final location of the Bassin peel station is still not confirmed.
The initial plans were a station right by the Basin, but its being speculated that there will now be TWO stations. One further north between Dalhousie and Ottawa st, and another south of the Basin designed to integrate with whatever mega-project happens there, with or without a Baseball stadium.
This would be much better for ETS and residents of griffintown, but we shall see if that’s actually finalized.