Updates from March, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 22:31 on 2020-03-01 Permalink | Reply  

    A single coyote ranging around the north end of the island seems to have been the origin of hundreds of calls to the city early last year, but it didn’t look healthy and sightings stopped in June. Another coyote collared with a GPS device was noted travelling all the way from Repentigny to Vaudreuil-Dorion over ten days last month. Researchers plan to continue studying how these animals interact with the urban setting.

     
    • Kate 22:20 on 2020-03-01 Permalink | Reply  

      Fifty protesters briefly held a mostly symbolic blockade of the CP line that divides the Plateau from Rosemont-La Petite Patrie as part of Nuit Blanche, but SPVM police moved them off the tracks. They then held a march down the Main.

      In Kahnawake, the Mohawks on the barricade say they’re going to have a good look at the tentative agreement between the Canadian government and the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs before deciding what to do next.

       
      • Kate 22:09 on 2020-03-01 Permalink | Reply  

        People from Montreal’s Indian community gathered at Parc metro on Sunday to protest how the Indian government has handled sectarian violence in New Delhi.

         
        • Kate 11:57 on 2020-03-01 Permalink | Reply  

          A four-alarm apartment building fire in NDG on Saturday night threw 50 people into the street. It’s one of those solid old apartment buildings that looked like it was there for the ages, too.

           
          • Ephraim 12:19 on 2020-03-01 Permalink

            And do we have a sprinkler requirement for new buildings, townhouses, houses in Montreal?

          • dwgs 12:31 on 2020-03-01 Permalink

            It`s right around the corner from me, there was extensive damage but it looks like the building is salvageable. It definitely predates sprinkler systems, it`s probably from the `30s or so. I drove past on the way to the Stingers game a little after 730 last night and there was just an ambulance on site. About a half dozen citizens were on the sidewalk and the EMTs were going into the building with the fire extinguisher from the ambulance. My son and I figured it was a small stovetop issue or something minor. When we came home a little after ten there were more firetrucks than I have ever seen in one place, two ladder trucks spraying it down and streets were closed for blocks. All was quiet around 330 am when I passed by again on the way to drop the other kid at the airport.

          • Ephraim 13:15 on 2020-03-01 Permalink

            dwgs – My comment is about the fact that we STILL build without sprinklers unless it’s over a certain size. We require them for seniors homes, but we should require them on almost all new builds. Some cities already do require them.

          • dwgs 09:01 on 2020-03-02 Permalink

            I walked by yesterday and there is surprisingly little visible damage, one or two boarded up windows and some water damage but overall it looks pretty good.

        • Kate 11:49 on 2020-03-01 Permalink | Reply  

          Radio-Canada has a text-and-audio piece on the history of the city’s major bridges.

          This week, Radio-Canada also looked back to origins of education of the deaf in Montreal.

          Sunday is also the 145th anniversary of the first indoor hockey game, held at the Victoria Rink.

          The Centre d’histoire looks at the radical evolution of Dorchester Boulevard jumping from 1881 till today.

          Kristian Gravenor wrote recently about a prominent Montreal dentist who was a Nazi spy.

           
          • Kate 10:52 on 2020-03-01 Permalink | Reply  

            Radio-Canada thinks all signs point to yes for the extension of the orange line to Bois-Franc.

             
            • TransitBuff 11:15 on 2020-03-01 Permalink

              No brainer. Tunnel’s been there forever and new garage now, too.

            • Tim F 23:27 on 2020-03-01 Permalink

              Where was this three years ago when they announced the REM and the closure of the Mont Royal tunnel in the process? Still, better late than never, I suppose…

            • Francesco 10:58 on 2020-03-02 Permalink

              It’s bad enough to have piecemeal transit development, but all of it in Montreal always seems reactive instead of proactive. The Orange Line Bois-Franc extension has always made sense, but even the bullish REM talk didn’t stimulate any strong push to go ahead; instead, it’s the steady stream of dump trucks into and out of the unstoppable Royalmount project (and the City’s desire to get shovels in the ground at Hippodrome before their mandate is up) that has spurred this talk of a sudden need for the extension. In other cases, decisions are left to successive governments or deferred because of election cycles — the Dorval REM extension (that all parties agree on but nobody wants to underwrite) was suggested at the earliest meetings in 2016. When momentum had finally built last summer, Fed Transport Minister Marc Garneau said nothing would be decided until “after the election.” I’m assuming the ball is in the Feds’ court because while transit is in the provincial purview, this add-on would connect the airport to VIA infra.

              Critics scoff at the Pink Line for its high costs and relative grandiosity, but take a quick look at Paris and its Île-de-France region (~12.5M in 12,000 square kilometres, or roughly three times the size and population of Greater Montreal): some 20 tunnel boring machines are working simultaneously on a €35Bn metro expansion in ÎdF — remember all the fanfare the one single, narrow-gauge TBM “Alice” has received before it starts to dig REM’s tunnel under the airport? I’m sure rail fans on here have all the facts and figures, but the amount of metro and rail in place and under construction in Paris boggles the mind of a born-and-bred Montrealer. But we continue to dither.

            • Kate 13:24 on 2020-03-02 Permalink

              Seems no government has the iron nerve to make big plans. The orange line extension (two stations) probably appeals to them because it can be done within a budget they can face, some of the digging has already been done, and the route is eminently logical – even more so than the blue line to Anjou, which has been in discussion for more than 30 years.

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