Updates from November, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 23:18 on 2019-11-14 Permalink | Reply  

    Bixi chalked up a record number of trips in the 2019 season. I saw someone plowing through the snow on a Bixi Thursday evening, but I imagine the stands will soon begin to disappear.

    Jump bikes marked 30,000 users since their introduction this year.

     
    • Kate 23:17 on 2019-11-14 Permalink | Reply  

      Not a moment too soon, a new day centre has opened at Cabot Square. Resilience Montreal is in that onetime restaurant building we’ve discussed at Atwater and Ste-Catherine. CTV says it’s a wet shelter. There’s one catch: it’s only a one-year lease.

       
      • Michael Black 23:31 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

        What’s interesting is that David Chapman is involved. At some point he’d suddenly become “acting director” of the Open Door, without explanation, then a later story said he’d been terminated. The Open Door now has a new director.

        He didn’t start the shelter, but I had the impression he was behind the sculpting of it towards Inuit. Things like a soapstone carving room. When The Open Door moved, it seemed like an abandoning, though the did try to find somewhere closer.

        So now he’s back and that probably is a good thing. Realistically, this shelter is due to multiple grouos getting together.

        In other news, note the Resistance has a stamp as of last week, though after checking, no close relatives that I know of are in the photo. The stamp.booklet actual shows who is in the photo. But the MMF sent me a list of who was considered part of the provisiinal government, and there were six relatives, not the three I had noticed previously. But Red River was a small place and the families large, so it’s not hard to find relatives. Even Louis is related, though many steps and only through marriage.

        And on Wednesday it’s the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the occupation of Alcatraz, coming out of the doldrums of the fifties, the mpact still felt today.

    • Kate 23:12 on 2019-11-14 Permalink | Reply  

      Radio-Canada says that the city and its boroughs offer more than 6,000 free parking spots to their workers, including 2,300 at the STM (specifically those who start or end their shift when the metro’s not running).

       
      • jeather 23:32 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

        Seems reasonable that if your hours are outside of metro hours — about 6 am to midnight — you can get a parking spot.

      • mare 09:38 on 2019-11-15 Permalink

        I’m very much against that free parking, but a lot of city employees live in the sticks and can’t rely on public transport.
        Also, that free parking is considered a taxable benefit by Revenue Quebec and the CRA, so it’s not completely free.

        BTW, Does Radio Canada make their employees pay for their parking spots on that giant plot surrounding their tower? Or are their reporters already anticipating the new situation after the move?

      • jeather 15:56 on 2019-11-15 Permalink

        Their choice to live way out away from public transit, it’s a known cost to living far away from where you work. I don’t feel particularly sorry for people who choose more space for less money but resent that it comes with other costs.

        And yes, it’s a taxable benefit, but I don’t know if all these agencies include it on the T4 and R1 and, if they do, if they are really using the actual cost of a local spot or underpricing it.

    • Kate 14:12 on 2019-11-14 Permalink | Reply  

      The orange line is said to be resuming, but without stopping at Square Vicky.

      Aaaand, as of 4-ish, everything seems to be back to normal.

       
      • Kate 13:20 on 2019-11-14 Permalink | Reply  

        Thierry Henry has been named as new head coach of the Impact. Henry was a big star as a player, but hasn’t done much coaching, and he was sacked from coaching the Monaco team earlier this year. Maybe he’ll find his feet at Saputo stadium.

         
        • Jack 14:45 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

          If you are Irish you have a big problem with him, big.

        • YUL514 16:26 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

          Jack, it’s the referee the Irish should have a problem with from that match.

      • Kate 12:14 on 2019-11-14 Permalink | Reply  

        The return of the orange line (between Berri-UQAM and Lionel-Groulx) has now been revised to 3 p.m. TVA has pictures of the flooding at Square Victoria.

         
        • Kate 09:12 on 2019-11-14 Permalink | Reply  

          The ice rink at Ste-Catherine and Clark – originally a Coderre project, now to be completed for next winter – will be called Esplanade Tranquille after a bookshop that was at the site till 1975.

          Update: Other articles on the space mention that it will be a park in summertime.

           
          • Meezly 13:17 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            Sweet!

          • Patrick 14:05 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            It’s great that Henri Tranquille will be remembered this way. As a student, I knew the bookstore in its last years. Its glory had faded but it was still a kind of shrine. I wonder how many people in the future will think the name is an adjective and not the name of a person? Of course the ambiguity is also a bonus.

        • Kate 09:08 on 2019-11-14 Permalink | Reply  

          Taylor Noakes explains the existence of the REM on CityMetric, a project from New Statesman.

           
          • Ant6n 11:36 on 2019-11-15 Permalink

            It’s sort of weird how the PM of Quebec plus the cdpq, neither representing Montreal, were able to push through and implement this expensive and wonky project so quickly, whereas the government of Montreal, elected by the people with the purpose of implementing a transit infrastructure project, is completely powerless. Makes me wonder whether we have perhaps a governance issue.

          • Kate 13:30 on 2019-11-15 Permalink

            Oh, I’m certain we do, ant6n, but it’s an old and longstanding one and not susceptible to an easy fix.

        • Kate 08:51 on 2019-11-14 Permalink | Reply  

          The early start to snow season and the exceptional cold are breaking century-long records. Normal temperatures this time of year are 6°C daytime, –1°C overnight.

          The mayor says it’s not true that city hall ordered bike paths cleared before sidewalks, and if it’s happened in a few places it’s only because the snow machines happened to come along in that order.

           
          • Chris 10:07 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            We have lots of sidewalks. On both sides of nearly every street. We have comparatively only a handful of bike lanes. It wouldn’t make sense for 100% of sidewalks to be cleared before they start any bike lane. So of course some bike lanes will be cleared before some sidewalks.

          • Raymond Lutz 10:08 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            Global warming mon oeil! It’s a hoax… https://climatereanalyzer.org/wx/DailySummary/#t2anom

          • Tim S. 11:05 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            Chris, we have more sidewalks because 1) everybody needs the sidewalk to get out of their house/apartment/destination and 2) there are far more pedestrians than cyclists.
            Remember, without cleared sidewalks, there’s no way for a cyclist to get to the bike path, or from the bike path to their destination.

          • Kate 11:17 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            Tim S., I don’t think Chris was maintaining that we should have sidewalk-bikepath parity.

          • nau 12:11 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            It’s false that “without cleared sidewalks, there’s no way for a cyclist to get to the bike path”. One simply uses the road (where one is supposed to bike anyway), which on my street at least is always plowed well before the sidewalks.

          • Michael Black 12:24 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            The point is that “walking” is a basic. You can’t go far without walking even a little bit. That includes car drivers, because at some point they have to get out of their cars to do.something.

            I put walking in quotes because someone getting around in a wheelchair is closer to walking than driving. In fact, that makes sidewalks even more important, since a blocked sidewalk will be more trouble for someone using a wheelchair.

            Sidewalks shouldn’t come second to bike paths, especially since snowfall will lower the number if cyclists even more. This debate is silly, because way too often sidewalks get cleared after streets.

          • Blork 12:29 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            Oh, the fog of social media comments.

            Tim S. is incorrect when he says “Remember, without cleared sidewalks, there’s no way for a cyclist to get to the bike path, or from the bike path to their destination.” That is incorrect because anyone intrepid enough to be biking in winter is intrepid enough to slog through a few feet of uncleared sidewalk to get to the bike path. Uncleared sidewalks generally aren’t impassable — especially if you’re just crossing one to get to the street or bike path. They’re only inconvenient or somewhat impassible if you need to continue along the sidewalk instead of just crossing over it.

            nau is both correct and incorrect; correct in pointing out that Tim S. is incorrect, but incorrect in everything else because they seem to be missing the point (see my Tim S comment above).

            I should start a blog that does nothing other than deconstruct social media comments…

          • Kate 12:47 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            Blork, the sidewalks here often have high berms plowed up next to the road. Getting across them can be a real pain, involving stepping into a foot of snow or more. The first day of our snowfall, I was forced to step into a snowpile up to my knees as I boarded a bus.

          • jeather 13:42 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            Tuesday I was trying to get off a packed bus, and we all had to shove our ways to the front because the wall of snow at the back was so giant.

          • Tim S. 15:06 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            Sigh. I was simply trying to point out to cyclists that they too rely on sidewalks. Apparently I was wrong to try to find common ground.
            Blork: “Uncleared sidewalks generally aren’t impassable.” Blork, have you tried getting around this city with a small child or an older, or disabled, adult? I do, every day, and it’s turned me into a bit of a zealot for the importance of safe, cleared sidewalks.

          • Blork 15:22 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            Tim S (and Kate), you’re missing my point. I’m not talking about getting around the city with a small child or a disabled adult. I’m talking (and so were you) about the hardcore cyclists who would consider cycling the day after a snowstorm when the streets have not yet been fully cleared. People like that will not be slowed down by a one metre stretch of sidewalk that isn’t cleared, even if there’s a metre high berm in the way.

            I am ONLY disputing the assertion that an unplowed sidewalk would stop an intrepid cyclist from plunging through it to get to the street (or cycle path).

            The fact that unplowed sidewalks present a difficulty for regular pedestrians is not in dispute.

          • j2 09:35 on 2019-11-15 Permalink

            Snowfall is a flow variable which means that maybe the sidewalks were cleaned first but snowing continued.

            There was a picture that Kristian Gravenor (sp?) posted last year that was exactly that, plus one from NDG that contrasted the clear downtown bike path with a sidewalk covered in snow – from people clearing cars.

          • nau 09:46 on 2019-11-15 Permalink

            Tim S. Well, you wouldn’t need to look for common ground if you didn’t assume that the interests of cyclists and pedestrians are opposed. Nobody in the thread was advocating that bike paths be given snow clearance priority over sidewalks, and anecdotally, the cyclists in my neighbourhood are more likely to also walk around it than the people with cars, so I would think it odd if any significant number of cyclists (most of whom don’t bike in the winter anyway) could be found elsewhere demanding that.

        • Kate 08:47 on 2019-11-14 Permalink | Reply  

          Lime scooters have seen 200,000 trips since they started here in mid-August. The permit for the initial experiment expires this Friday but I can’t imagine many people have been using them this week, unless they take ’em inside.

           
          • Ephraim 09:51 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            In other news, just 2 of them have ever been parked properly. 😀

          • Chris 10:12 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            In other news, just 2 motorists have ever properly yielded at crosswalks. Better ban all cars, right? 🙂

          • Ephraim 10:29 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            So, do you see many cars parked on the sidewalk? Ad Absurdum gets answered with ad absurdum.

            The point is that Lime should take the bulls by the horns and ensure that they are parked properly for the longevity of their project. Never mind remind people to keep them off the sidewalk.

          • Kate 10:51 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            Ephraim, cars are parked half across the sidewalk in a lot of parts of town. I have to edge around parked cars on the sidewalk if I go out to lunch from where I work.

          • Ephraim 12:29 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            The only time I have seen cars parked on the sidewalk was in the Middle East, where it was allowed and common practice.
            Is the city ticketing them? Why the heck would anyone park on the sidewalk?

          • Blork 12:30 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            Ephraim, have you never been to France?

          • Michael Black 12:53 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            I don’t see it as often, but I remember a time in the nineties when it was pretty common to see cars parked partially on the sidewalk, ie one set of wheels up. It struck me at the time that after a certain point, people were doing it because they saw others doing it.

            Then there was the time I was walkabouting up Decarie and a line of cars were waiting on the sidewalk, near a gas station. I assumed they were waiting for the car wash. It was like I didn’t exist.

            Michael

          • Ephraim 13:35 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            @Blork – Yes, seen it in Europe, as well… but generally it’s specifically allowed. I’ve never seen people doing it habitually in Montreal. The police used to do it on Prince Arthur when they went for coffee… but it stopped after someone brought it up with the chief and mentioned how bad it would look a the commission, if someone sent them a picture of it.

          • mare 17:12 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            @Ephraim “someone”?

            (You’re well informed 😉 )

          • Ephraim 19:08 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            @mare – Yup… someone. It’s amazing how people forget that we all walk around with cameras these days… and a picture is just a social media post and an email post away from the Commission.

          • Chris 20:08 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            Ephraim, cars are very often parked illegally, including within 5 m of a crosswalk or intersection, which is illegal and hardly ever enforced. But I wasn’t comparing parking to parking, I was comparing rule breaking to rule breaking. Users of every mode of transport break rules, jaywalking pedestrians, salmoning cyclists, speeding motorists, etc. etc. It’s odd that you get your knickers in a knot about Lime users but not others.

        • Kate 08:40 on 2019-11-14 Permalink | Reply  

          The orange line is down between Berri-UQÀM and Lionel-Groulx this morning, only expected back at 9 a.m. noon.

          Water seepage at Square Victoria from a broken water main is the issue. No mention of a replacement bus, just advice to take the green line instead, which should be fun.

           
          • Blork 09:50 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            Unconfirmed, but some people are reporting it might be down until noon.

          • Spi 10:01 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            I wonder if it’s related to repairs being done on the main pipe near Atwater, that required rerouting water to smaller pipes.

          • Kate 10:17 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            At 9:15 now they’re saying noon.

            Spi, that’s a good point. I’ll see if it gets mentioned.

            Update: This La Presse item mentions a 12″ main near Square Victoria, which is a little ways from Viger.

            I suppose it’s possible this main was under extra strain while the other’s being fixed, but I have no idea if that’s plausible.

          • Spi 11:57 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            I remember in an interview the person responsible for waterworks at the city saying that they would be increasing the pressure in 3 smaller pipes to compensate for the closure of the large one, the interviewer went on to ask if that wouldn’t be risky in itself, if I remember correctly the official was reassuring that it was all perfectly safe.

          • Kate 12:06 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            I can hear somebody saying “Oops!”

            Yep, later details show that the work on the other main may be at fault.

          • Blork 13:41 on 2019-11-14 Permalink

            Now they’re saying 3:00PM

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