The Car2go company is withdrawing from North America, including their operations here.
Updates from December, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Recently elected Plateau borough mayor Luc Rabouin has been put in charge of economic and commercial development at city hall.
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Kate
The SPVM has created a safe trading zone outside its station on Ste-Catherine near Bishop, where people can meet to hand off items bought online. After two incidents noted this year – both near Jarry metro station in the daytime – in which people were attacked while trying to deliver a phone to a buyer, I guess it became obvious we need places where this kind of thing can be carried out safely. The SPVM plans to create more of them.
Blork
Oh my, that’s convenient for me, given I work on that block. (No more hustling over to McGill or whatever; now I can justify doing the dropoff steps from where I work.)
There’s nothing in the article that says if the area is marked, and I didn’t see anything when I walked by there a minute ago.
Spi
I suposse they’ll install extra cameras and the general area around the super special police parking will be the “safe trading zone”
Bert
I wonder if the police are open to verify the serial number of whatever is being sold / traded at the same time.
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Kate
Compare and contrast: CBC and CTV report on groups hoping to bring an appeal of the Loi sur la laïcité de l’État (Bill 21) to Canada’s Supreme Court. At the same time CBC has a long report on how Mathieu Bock-Côté and friends want to build on the law and strengthen it as well as the language laws to enforce a single culture in Quebec.
Jack
Really good article by Simon Nakonechny of the CBC.
What amazes me is the fact that that event could only attract less than a 100 people.
Yet because of Quebecor’s platforms, what they decide and promote becomes almost consensual in French media and therefore consciousness.
Bock Cotes real strength is not his arguments, they are lame and easy to push back, but the fact he and his small band can repeat them over and over in the Journal, 24 hres, TVA and LCN.
His power is his ability to conflate his narrow conservative nationalist vision into a conceit that he speaks for a large segment of society. Read the article , look at what this marginal group is obsessing about, pick up a Journal or watch La Joute and like magic these issues become actual.
One thing that becomes more and more obvious about this group is that short and long term their real goal is simple, ethnic supremacy.Chris
Jack, with regards to 21, that’s part of the story, but not all of it.
Guess what, some people sincerely and thoughtfully hold a view different that you! That does not automatically mean they are the victim of a vast media conspiracy.
What about brown women from Muslim countries that escaped theocracy and support 21? Are they just Quebecor zombies? Are they ethnic supremacists?
(I also think it’s a mistake to assume that the support for 21 that currently exists will automatically translate into support for the expansions Nakonechny describes.)
Jack
Thanks for your reply. I agree that some people can have different opinions and look at this law from the perspective of their upbringing in Tunisia, Algeria and Iran, I get that.
This is Quebec in 2019 and the motives and rationale for this law were built in the fear mongering of the “accommodations reasonable debate”… period. Chris their is no Islamist theocracy that is about to demand our daughters wear a scarf , no sharia law, no Pork ban in sugar shacks etc.
This law was built to tell people, who do not like the site of people who are different amongst them, that they have power. This law makes them feel better, stronger, they can tell people what they can or can not wear to be full citizens. This law targets the most marginal members of our society to make political hay in areas where these people do not even exist.
The most muscular discussions I ever had on this topic were with my cousins , who fully supported all and everything about this legislation. They were born, raised and live….in La Tuque.
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Kate
Faced with a bedbug infestation, the Grande Bibliothèque put in a lot of hard chairs some time ago, but it’s now adding armchairs that repel insects. There’s more in the piece about the measures being taken to rid the library of the pests.
(Countdown to someone having a bad reaction to the insect repellent…)
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Kate
Neighbourhoods with porches are seeing a surge of porch pirates using cars to sweep around residential areas and steal packages left outside front doors.
Blork
The extent of that problem is remarkable. The NY Times recently reported that 90,000 packages go missing in that city EVERY DAY, most of which are stolen. FFS!
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/02/nyregion/online-shopping-package-theft.htmldenpanosekai
Two alternatives: get it delivered to work, or to your post office when available (amazon, walmart and a few others). Otherwise stay home or let your neighbors know.
Max
You’re overlooking the obvious one, denpanosekai: just buy less crap.
MarcG
Even if you’re at home the delivery people never ring the bell anyway.
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Kate
Users of the three YMCA branches set to close at the end of the year are trying to find ways to save them but with little hope of getting things organized in time.
The Gazette focuses in on the Guy-Favreau Y and its particular situation vis-à-vis the federal government and the Chinese community.
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Kate
The mayor is annoyed, and I think rightly so, that city hall opposition voted against giving out tickets to vehicles parked in snow removal zones.
dwgs
point 1 – the mayor is right, the opposition are being dicks about this
point 2 – how did Perez and co. manage to carry the vote? Did some PM people vote with them or did they have substantial numbers missing from council?Kate
Point 2: apparently they needed a 2/3 vote, not certain why.
qatzelok
I guess people who watch TV shows about corruption and pettiness of the elite admire this kind of small-minded trolling whatever democratic process we still have.
That’s one of the reasons I don’t watch TV.
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Kate
Two anglo high schools in Pointe Claire will be merged into one although it’s unclear why they would choose to maintain the name of a saint for the institution.
jeather
It’s a secular saint. As you know, Christianity isn’t a religion.
Jack
Whats a secular saint?
jeather
All the saints that our very secular schools with very secular teachers are named after.
Jack
OK needed second coffee, got it.
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Kate
Police investigation confirms the deaths last week in Pointe-aux-Trembles were three murders followed by a suicide. This brief piece says the investigation will continue, but I can’t quite see what’s left to elucidate.
Tim F 20:33 on 2019-12-18 Permalink
Communauto FTW!
Sean 22:32 on 2019-12-18 Permalink
Those Smart cars were so fun to drive though…
Bryan 23:32 on 2019-12-18 Permalink
I was so sad to see this announcement today. I almost always found an available car2go much closer to me than a Communauto Flex car. It makes me wonder if Communauto Flex cars will become all but impossible to find after Car2go is gone.
Dhomas 07:14 on 2019-12-19 Permalink
The signup was sooooo much easier for Car2go than it is for Communauto. I just needed to give my driver’s license and credit card and I was on my way. I started to sign up for Communauto, but it was complicated and I needed to send in insurance documents, outside of an app. I just gave up and went to Car2go instead.
j2 09:04 on 2019-12-19 Permalink
That sucks. Car2go was a better experience even if I did get screwed digging out a car stuck on ice Christmas Day.
Communauto feels like it was done by the STM and Opus: awkward, non-intuitive and state of the art – fifteen years ago.
Jonathan 10:26 on 2019-12-19 Permalink
My experience with Communauto is all around positive. The process is all electronic now for signing up so long as you have a Quebec license. The file is sent automatically to them.
I used to use Car2go, but found they really weren’t as innovative in their pricing like Communauto was. Communauto will calculate prices based on the lowest between flex rates and subscription rates (the traditional rental plans)… and they have the unlimited plan where i pay $50 a month and the first 30 minutes is free. Compared to Car2go where I had to ‘purchase’ time beforehand or risk paying a high per-minute fee (a sort of ‘calculate the higher price’ scenario which is exactly the opposite of Communautos).
I just hope that rather than increasing Communauto prices, that this allows for a rapid expansion of the service.
Blork 10:51 on 2019-12-19 Permalink
I used Communauto many years ago when I lived on the Plateau and needed to use a car maybe once or twice a month. I recall the signup back then was Byzantine, but once I got through it the rest worked well.
Then a few years ago I though it would be useful to have a membership even though I live on the south shore and I own a car. The thinking is that I am usually without a car when I’m in the city, so sometimes it would be nice to be able to just grab one if I suddenly need to quickly get from point A to point B or whatever … thinking this might happen just two or three times a year, so I didn’t want anything that was expensive to sign up for.
Wow. Communauto was mind-boggling. I all these options that all sounded the same but different, different pricing models that did not seem to make much sense, and of course the model that suited my rare use scenario was the most expensive. Then Car2Go popped up with a free signup that took no time at all. Ding! Winner.
Turns out I only used it maybe two times in the three years I was a member, so I’m glad the signup was free!
Daniel 12:44 on 2019-12-19 Permalink
Oof. This feels like a real blow to a lot of people, myself included. Car2go was never perfect, but it made possible some short trips that would have taken several times as long with buses or required more walking than was possible, sometimes at a price that was competitive with public transit.
I’ve ponied up for Communauto now. I’ve never been particularly impressed with them, but it’s better than nothing and better than owning a car for us. We’ll see if they use this inflection point to grow and become more appealing, or to just circle the drain before folding as well.
DeWolf 12:57 on 2019-12-19 Permalink
I used Car2Go more often in the past until I realized just how much cheaper Communauto Flex is. It can be almost half the price for the same trip. Car2Go’s major flaw was that it wasn’t all that much cheaper than taking a taxi, although it was a good option for getting to the airport.
I also wonder about Vancouver, where Car2Go was quite a bit cheaper and much more abundant than in Montreal. The impact there will be pretty significant as a ton of people seemed to use the service.
Blork 13:32 on 2019-12-19 Permalink
An observation: I wonder if Uber cut into Car2Go use? After all, the price is about the same and you don’t have to worry about finding a place to park the car at your destination. I hadn’t even thought about that until I found myself in exactly that situation a couple of months ago in Seattle. I was in one part of town and wanted to quickly go to another part of town. Figuring out the public transit method was just too complicated since I was an out-of-towner. So I checked and there were a few Car2Go cars within a couple of blocks, so hey, but then I realized I’d have to park the car when I got to the destination (Pioneer Square) and that’s right downtown where parking is at a premium, and then my brain went *boink* and I realized we could just take an Uber, so that’s what we did. Quick, easy, app-driven. Done.
(And BTW, for people who still don’t understand the appeal of Uber, that’s a big part of it; the app works the same way no matter what city you’re in. No downloading of apps for local taxi companies and trying to figure them out, etc. And I’m writing this as someone who generally isn’t a fan of Uber…)