City hall opposition is supporting boat owners who tie up in Lachine marina, forgetting that a lot of these folks live off-island and won’t even be voting here. Projet wants to turn the marina, which benefits only a relatively small number of people, into a waterside park for all.
Updates from August, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The Chamber of Commerce wants a reduction in commercial taxes downtown. It’s not like we can’t see why, but this isn’t really a great time for city hall to pass up normal revenue. They also want the city to leave economic development to other levels of government, and suspend the requirement for social housing to be included in new developments.
Another thing discussed here is Cadillac Fairview’s plan for a “centre-ville de l’est de Montréal” to be built up around Galeries d’Anjou (and competing with the STM’s desire for a parking lot for the new blue line terminus)? If people talk about our old downtown doing badly, I’d counter with the competition from Dix30 plus the impending Royalmount project and now this new monster.
Ephraim
Important rule. Never listen to the Chamber of Commerce, they always have alternative agendas that they don’t disclose. And what percentage of businesses are actually a member? We need a group to represent all the commercial merchants, equally, not just those that pay in and have heavy pockets.
I thought that Galeries d’Anjou was fighting the city because it doesn’t want the terminus to be where the city wants it. Right where the McDonald’s is, on the corner of St-Zotique
Kate
Ephraim, as I understand it, the STM wants not just room for a station, but a huge parking lot. And this is conflicting with a plan (which wasn’t mentioned till recently) to build the area up with a lot of condo towers and other stuff.
Now, having observed how this stuff works, I think it likely those fancy plans have only existed since the city started making expropriations, so Cadillac Fairview can say “hey, you’re not just taking away a piece of a mall parking lot, you’re taking away land that’s MUCH more valuable – potentially – so you have to pay us a lot more money!” Which could keep lawyers tied in knots for many expensive years.
Ephraim
They actually are taking a corner that has businesses on it. Look at http://www.stm.info/sites/default/files/media/Travaux/Ligne_bleue/19817_37_plans_infrastructures_anjou.pdf and you will see, there is a Wendy’s, an Academie, 3 Brasseurs, McDonald’s, Madison’s and RONA and it’s parking lot in that corner.
But I stand by my mistrust of the Chambre de Commerce, they are the people who ripped off the city with “buying” the parking meters, run Tourisme Montreal and of course set up Bixi and ran it into the ground intentionally paying the people at the top unsustainable salaries and leaving the city holding the bag.
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Kate
A study by SHERPA examines reasons why Montreal’s poorer and more ethnic communities have been hit harder than average by Covid, and these should come as no surprise: they include poverty, having high-risk physical jobs that can’t be phoned in, and not speaking or understanding French or English well. Another Canada-wide study is also examining data linking racism and Covid-19 outcomes.
In May, François Legault said Quebec would collect data on the race and economic status of Covid patients, but by July, he had changed his mind.
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Kate
With people less afraid of Covid, city emergency
awards are getting crazy busy again.PatrickC
“awards”: was that a Freudian slip–wishing frontline workers got more recognition? 🙂
Kate
Oh dear. I blame the cat.
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Kate
If I were advising Mayor Plante on getting re-elected, I would tell her to pull out all the bike paths, because so many people hate them, specifically in this case merchants along St‑Denis, who’ve written a letter complaining about the “active transport” lane going in between St-Joseph and Bélanger – not, I would’ve thought, the most commercial stretch of the street.
As things are going, the next city administration is going to be floridly pro-car. By 2023, I am willing to bet, green spaces will have been paved over to make more parking lots. I am not kidding. I’ll direct you back to this post here in three years’ time.
It’s amazing to me how much people hate Plante. Things like traffic disruptions for the REM are being blamed on her and any street repairs with cones, drivers always seeming to forget the repairs are being done for them. I decided just now to open Facebook and see if I could find any examples of Plante-hatred, and the first thing I see is a graphic showing cones and the words ARRETÉ LA QUELQUN… PLANTE STUNE FOLLE [sic]. (Not from a friend, it’s on one of the groups I follow specifically to scout stories for the blog.)
I never saw anything close to the vicious hatred for Tremblay or Coderre that is coming out for Valérie Plante. If she wants to be re-elected, she has to pay attention and try to soothe these people and give them what they want – as much as she can, because, as I say, much of what people are complaining about is coming from the transport ministry or REM construction, and a lot of the rest is because WE’RE IN A PANDEMIC, and if people are not shopping, eating or drinking downtown it’s because they’re currently not working downtown, not because Valérie Plante isn’t personally offering valet parking services.
JoeNotCharles
If she wants to be re-elected, she needs to be born a man.
Blork
People love to go after anyone who is “different,” especially if they can combine it with something that seems like a legitimate reason to complain. I think a lot of what passes for overt racism or sexism or homophobia can ultimately be traced back to primarily neophobia. For example, I’m thinking of kids picking on the only black kid in class; random run-of-the-mill black kid might not suffer that problem, but if he’s got something else going on, like he has thick glasses or is a bit of a nerd, then he’s a target. It isn’t explicitly racism (or at least not exclusively racism, because they wouldn’t have gone after the non-dorky black kid). Would they have gone after the same dorky kid if he were white? Some would, but being black (or gay, or short, or fat) is that extra “different” thing that pushes them over the edge and then they attack.
In Plante’s case, the difference is obvious, and it’s gender. But if she had been politically neutral and had not brought in any changes, then people probably wouldn’t have gone after her. It’s that mix of “different” (gender) and perceived “legitimate” political issues that tip things. If she instead were a black male, you’d see the same thing. If she were a white male, you’d see all the griping about cones and things but you wouldn’t get the same level of hate. It would be just another standard mayor (male) doing unpopular things.
Chris
>It’s amazing to me how much people hate Plante … I decided just now to open Facebook
Hmmm, social media is not a representative sample of people. Are you sure you’re not just seeing your bubble?
david102
Blork – I think your evaluation on neophobia is correct, but the gender thing is just demonstrably false. Exhibit 1. Luc Ferrandez. Exhibit 2. Counterfactual where it’s Bergeron presiding over the city. No difference in outrage.
It would be nice if we could link the backlash against PM to the current American auto-da-fé moment that has, of course, been embraced here. And sure, people might be a very little bit more likely to think that a woman would do green stuff, or culture stuff, or be a little less business focused, whatever.
But the problem is just like you say – Plante is very slowly and conservatively applying a long overdue program of very gradual change to make driving less convenient. And these moves – and anything that resemble them, her doing or not – just irritate many many people.
Plus, rent is skyrocketing (artificial land shortage), there’s a big pandemic thing that’s making people more agitated, the economy is dog shit, and everyone in power is spending money like crazy – all of which compound the anti-Plante feeling, as she’s just who happens to be there right now.
walkerp
Why are you assuming she is so unpopular? Do we have any current polls?
I think we are seeing an amplified minority and that there are a lot of quiet people who are mostly okay with the Plante administration.
Also, as we skew anglophone here, we see much more of the angryphone voice, which venns up nicely with the anti-car assholes (and the big lobbyists and advertisers behind them).
This is the same thing you see with Trudeau and yet he keeps winning, despite major actual fuck ups.
Mr.Chinaski
Kate stop saying she’s unpopular, this is pure media-bias. Commerce-owners? Probably. Citizens? Nope. Let’s remember this result from not even a year ago:
Plateau Mont-Royal 2019 by-election –> Projet Montreal : 67%
SIXTY SEVEN PERCENT!
Jonathan
I agree with Walkerp and Chinaski. It’s more media bias than anything. I don’t think a few merchants who have the audacity (caucasity?) to write a letter represent public sentiment. They are just misinformed idiots, in my *humble* opinion. Nevermind the research that comes out time and time again (last week on London) that bicycle infrastructure improves the overall economics of a street.
I would like to see a poll.
DeWolf
Luc Ferrandez was constantly excoriated in the news and on social media and yet he was consistently reelected with large majorities – and Ferrandez is an unapologetic asshole, whereas Plante goes out of her way to be upbeat and friendly. When you see the same names over and over in these stories (hi Francesco Miele!) it’s usually an indication of a concerted media campaign rather than a grassroots uprising.
I don’t know if Plante will be re-elected. But it’s way too early to tell. She still has 25% of her term left to finish and a year in politics is an eternity. By the time the election is held, the REV will have been in place for a year, it will likely be a success (given the experience of just about every other city that has built something similar) and the economy will be improving, so the situation could well be very different.
Tim S.
One thing to consider is that Plante/Project at least have a constituency behind them. I was up on Mont Royal a few weeks ago and came across one of those expensive 375th anniversary granite rocks, and it reminded me how much effort Coderre put into things that no one wanted.
MarcG
@walkerp: Do you mean anti-bike or pro-car instead of anti-car assholes?
DeWolf
That’s a good point, Tim. If PM scrapped the REV at this point there would be a huge backlash from people who voted for exactly this sort of thing.
Another thought: almost every major piece of bike infrastructure in North America has been greeted by the same kind of hysterical overreaction we are seeing here. When Vancouver took away two lanes of traffic on the Burrard Bridge to make a protected bike path, people predicted traffic chaos. That didn’t happen. The introduction of Citibike (ie Bixi) to New York was greeted by all sorts of catastrophizing. It’s now a huge success. And remember when the de Maisonneuve bike path was built in 2007? How many column inches did the Gazette devote to slamming it? Now it’s too popular for its own good and de Maisonneuve is a much livelier street than before.
In other words, ride out the opposition because these types of infrastructural investments are known to bear fruit.
walkerp
Whoops meant pro-car asshole. I`m one of those anti-car assholes! 🙂
mare
Another data point: Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, took much more extreme anti-car measures before Covid and changed the center of Paris in a bicycle friendly area.
Despite getting *a lot* of flack in the media for that, she was recently re-elected with a rather large difference.
Sarah
What are all these bike paths achieving in the grand scheme of things? Have there been any studies revealing how this is beneficial for the greater good?
Interesting article here: https://financialpost.com/opinion/lawrence-solomon-ban-the-bike-how-cities-made-a-huge-mistake-in-promoting-cyclingWe live in a city were it’s snowy and frigid most of the year. All the money used to create the lanes and maintain them including snow clearing for few cyclists who use them year round.
The traffic bottlenecks by removing lanes is ridiculous (let’s not even talk about all the parking she’s removed and the simultaneous construction projects EVERYWHERE).
While it makes sense to have bike lanes near universities, downtown, etc., I’ve seen boulevards transformed to accomodate a handful of cyclists throughout the day. It’s utterly nonsensical.
I have never witnessed so much road rage in this city before.
All those cars idling and causing even more pollution.
And motorists are supposed to keep paying while cyclists aren’t even required to have a license?This doesn’t make any sense and people are sick of it! This lady needs to go and she will in the next election. And I, along with many will be glad to see the back of her.
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Kate
It will soon be an option to pay your STM bus fare with your phone. I’ll have to use up the remaining tickets on my Opus first, which could take awhile, since I’ve been averaging one bus ride every couple of weeks since March.
DeWolf
These phone tickets cost $3.50 which means they’re significantly more expensive than using your Opus, which costs $2.90 per trip if you’ve bought a batch of 10 tickets.
Kate
DeWolf, I made the same point later in the day without having read this comment, but thank you.
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Kate
Quebec has declined to take advantage of the federal Covid notification app – unless things get bad.
Dhomas
When is the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago. When is the second best time? Right now. The Quebec government has the opportunity to deploy the app before things get bad but they’re going to wait, for what exactly? “It doesn’t protect the most vulnerable”: those who can’t afford (recent) smartphones. That will not change if they deploy it later. It just makes no sense. I don’t understand why they don’t just do it now.
I never thought I’d agree with Doug Ford, but he’s right: “Just do it. It protects everyone. It’s not a big deal.”Derek
My read on this is that Quebec is buying time to build their own app. Why use something that’s already available when you can build your own?
dwgs
*insert gif of person slamming head against desk on infinite loop*
Kate
Here’s Blork’s thoughts on this again from a couple of weeks ago.
Ian
Really this can’t come as a surprise to anyone. This is the way Quebec asserts its national identity, and it has been thus for many decades.
dmdiem
I saw Star Trek when I was a kid and thought, “Yes. This is the future I want. Where everyone put aside their petty differences to explore this wonder filled universe in the spirit of peace and cooperation.”
Now it dawns on me why there were no Quebecers on the Enterprise… they’re all back on earth trying to build their own god damn Starfleet.
Sigh… enjoy the universe, everyone else.
mare
In order for this app to be useful it needs to be used by >70% of the people. If it is promoted now, it might slowly gain traction.
On the other hand, almost all Quebeckers really trust authoity, so if the Quebec government says that everyone should install this tomorrow, everyone will.
I was kind of surprised when wearing a mask went from ‘recommended’ to ‘required’ and suddenly everyone was masked in the grocery store, while beforehand 50% of the shoppers were mask-less.JoeNotCharles
I installed the app myself to find out why it won’t work in Quebec, and it turns out to be not as bad as it sounds:
Canada’s “COVID Alert” app is just a minor modification to the open source “COVID Shield” (https://www.covidshield.app) which says:
COVID Shield is not currently available for download or use.
COVID Shield is provided as a reference for your local public health authority to build their own app. If you are interested in using COVID Shield, please contact your local government representative and ask what they are doing about exposure notification for COVID-19.
So all Quebec needs to do to “make its own app” is replace the “Canada” splash screen with one that says “Quebec” and swap the order of the “English” and “French” buttons. (Or remove “English” altogether.) Alberta has its own app too, which is exactly that – it looks the same as the Canada one, but with an “Alberta” splash screen, no language selector (it’s probably English only but in theory it could just be based on your phone’s language setting) and has an extra “Privacy Policy” screen you have to accept.
I believe that even if Quebec publishes their own app there’ll be nothing stopping people in Quebec from using the national COVID Alert app instead. It all uses the same backend.
The thing that’s missing right now is that when Quebec health authorities notify someone they have COVID, there’s no way to enter that data into the app. So you can install the app right now, and it will keep a list of all the phones with the app you’ve gone near, but if any of those phone’s owners are diagnosed, you won’t actually be notified. The patient needs to get a code to enter into the app to register that they have a diagnosis (this prevents people from causing a panic by clicking “I have COVID!” and causing fake notifications). Literally the only thing missing to use the app here is that health authorities need to give out those codes when they make a diagnosis.
JoeNotCharles
Hah, I see a bunch of people posted the same thing about how the app works in the earlier thread. And I thought I was providing a service.
One thing from the earlier thread, someone said: “Apparently neither Apple nor Google will allow more than one app per country for contact tracing so there isn’t much of an option for Quebec to make its own, it is either use the Canadian one or nothing.”
That can’t be true, since there’s a Canada app and an Alberta app already.
Dhomas
@JoeNotCharles the Alberta app has been replaced by the Federal government app:
Also, I’m not sure it was using the same Google/Apple developed tracing system since it needed to be in the foreground to work and appeared to be a battery hog.
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Kate
Le Devoir visits the tent camp on Notre-Dame East, which the city has decided must be removed by the end of the month. One resident lists the hassles he’s faced in regular shelters, and I’m reminded that the shelters do kick everyone out in the daytime – not unreasonably so, since they need to clean – leaving a population with no resources unsupported until they’re allowed back in.
Once again, the necessity of providing real permanent homes for this population is raised, but we saw last week that only 1,109 units of social housing were built in Quebec over the last year, even though the CAQ government had promised to build 15,000 during its term.
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Kate
In a clear case of closing the barn door, some people think there are too many condo towers on Nuns’ Island, which is a mere 3.74 square kilometres in size. What a pain, if you’ve bought a condo with a view, to find another condo tower going up next door!
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Kate
The city is considering keeping as many as 9,000 of its workers permanently on work-from-home to save money on office rents and related expenses.
I’ve been wondering about one aspect of having government work from home. Monday, I had to talk to Revenu Québec about a tax matter, and ended up in quite a chatty conversation with one of their people. Like many folks, he was working from home, and was quite relaxed and cheerful. My issue was simple and straightforward, but I was wondering how well any government can guarantee confidentiality if their people are discussing private affairs in a home setting.
JaneyB
Same happy mood with my banking. In general, I’m not a fan of the whole computerization of tax and banking. It just looks like one big target to me. My guess is that confidentiality will be a bit imperfect but surveillance will be extremely accurate. So, if your info gets out, the people who accessed your file will leave a perfect digital trail. Still…mess.
Kevin
Doctors have been at home, talking to patients, for months. Privacy isn’t that hard to obtain.
I am more concerned about city workers staying at home because of their effect on the economy. Having Montreal employees not working in Montreal sends a strong signal to other employers to keep people away, and the city cannot afford that.
Ephraim
We asked the government about provisional. The person specified to look at the law and read case c and case e. What did case e say? Look at case c. For some, it still hasn’t taken the edge off and to give you a simple answer.
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Kate
A man was shot in his car in a Rivière-des-Prairies parking lot Monday evening. He isn’t expected to die. According to reports, he is known to police.
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Kate
The building at St-Denis and Mont-Royal that used to house the Rapido restaurant was demolished without a permit, only the shell of the stone façade left standing. This happened early in the summer but is only being formally reported now: the owner had a permit to enlarge the building, not gut it.
Ian
Wow, that’s quite a contravention – I was surprised to see the building suddenly reduced to a facade after so many years of standing empty.
Alex
When we had to get a permit for the replacement of the bricks on the front of our apartment (which ended up costing us double because the city forced us to re-add a corniche that was taken off the building in the 70s) the person from the construction site mentioned that for people with a lot of money, its easier and cheaper to just do the work and pay the fine than to get a permit to do the work that you want. The system seems a bit broken
Ephraim
Plus the city employees will cite regulations that don’t exist, because that is how they were taught. We challenged… they couldn’t find the regulation.
Alex
When I asked if we could challenge it, the guy said ‘well you can, but it will come to me and I am going to say no’
Kate
Alex, the second half of the linked article talks about a situation very much like yours, in which the owner of a Plateau residential building was forced to make repairs in a specific, expensive style, even though it was something that couldn’t be seen from the street.
david32
It’s a good project, building out over that surface parking lot in the low rise historic style that anti-growth people: https://mtlurb.com/topic/17071-4494-rue-saint-denis-rapidoboite-noire-%E2%80%93-3-etages/
david32
anti-growth people and bureaucrats on the plateau demand, no matter how much it drives up costs and rents.
Blork
Hmmm. While I don’t approve of them just going ahead and demolishing outside of the permit’s permit (so to speak), this one seems like a tempest in a teapot. The building dates from 1940 (not that long ago) and is not architecturally interesting. However, I can understand the desire to maintain the style and scale of original building, given the location and all (it would be very ugly and out of place to put in a 20-storey tower there).
In terms of “facadism” this is an example where it’s OK, because the building that’s replacing the old one is generally of the same style and scale as the original, and uses the original’s facade. So the effect on the intersection is minimal, and the resulting building will be new and presumably built to code and should last a long time.
This is quite different from the type of facadism where an historic building is replaced by a much larger structure that uses a bit of the orignal’s facade to try to fit in at street level. That’s a whole different thing.
Here’s the proposed final result. Frankly, a bit boring, but at least it blends in:
https://studiomma.ca/en/projects/multi-family-residential/cornerstone/Joey
You mean it’s not the official mission of the Plateau permit department to triple your construction costs all the while forcing you to use inappropriate building materials because *maybe* that’s what they did 100 years ago?* Bonus points to the technologist bureaucrat who gets to overrule architects and structural engineers.
*NB this commitment to the past does not apply to baseball diamonds
Max
It’s very strange to see the facade held up with what looks like regular scaffolding. All other facade-preservation jobs I’ve seen have gotten a much beefier support structure.
Blork
Max, if you look closely you can see there is some kind of bracing on both sides of the structure. Still doesn’t seem like much though.
Ian
I suspect they only left up that wall so this technically counts as a renovation, not a new construction. If it mysteriously falls down part way through, oh well.
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Kate
The ARTM is demanding deep cuts in transit through the whole urban area – Montreal, but also Laval, Longueuil and cuts to Exo service. (You’ll notice the REM is not mentioned. I suppose it isn’t subject to the ARTM.) The STM and the STL (Laval) have already said no, and they’re right to do so.
Denis Coderre cut back STM bus services in 2014. Till that year ridership had been growing, but afterwards it fell off amid a chorus of complaints. If public transit becomes too sparse to be convenient, it’s bound to nudge people into buying their own cars, and if there’s anything we do not need on this island, it’s a trend that supports more individual vehicles.
Michael Black
More important, there are people who don’t drive and people who can’t afford to drive.
If public transit is reduced, then it will be way more inconvenient for them than for people who can buy a car.
Kate
That’s also true, Michael Black. But the people who have no choice but to take transit will necessarily go on using it, adapting themselves around its limitations. The problem is that once a user stops using the system, they may do so forever. Some of the people being nudged in this way are young, and if they get a car now, that’s a possible 50 to 60 years of car use, after one too many cold waits on a street corner for a bus that doesn’t come.
There are a lot of people who feel they’re too good for the bus. We don’t want to add to their number.
Bill Binns
I will soon reach the 20th anniversary of selling the last automobile I owned and let me be clear…. I am too good for the bus.
Last year the STM had an event where you could take a tour around town on an antique (early 70’s) Montreal bus. My wife and I went and I was shocked by how much better the old bus was in pretty much every conceivable way to what we have now. Why on Earth did we ever do away with the classic bus layout of two rows of forward facing seats that hold two people each?? Even if you have to lose the first couple of benches to provide a spot for wheelchair bound Elijah (who is totally going to show up some day), it’s still a vastly superior layout. You are guaranteed to be mashed up against no more than one person. You can actually see where the bus is and where it’s going rather than being forced to stare into the dead soulless eyes of the passenger sitting opposite you. Get this… the seats had 4 inches of padding AND springs and felt like Lazy Boy recliners compared to the hard plastic seats with a little bit of felt glued to them we currently luxuriate in (assuming you are one of the lucky few that is allowed to sit at all on a Montreal bus). I mean, if you were an evil person looking for ways to make the bus experience worse, what more could be done? Maybe they could turn the heat on in the summer and remove the windows in winter.
Hopefully, one of the positives that may come out of the whole Covid mess is the realization that you cannot safely pack human beings into a container like farm animals being sent to slaughter.
MarcG
Those padded seats always had rips in them and the springs would break. The new seats seem much less likely to have those problems, or harbour bedbugs. A lot of people, myself included, actually prefer a firm seat, as well. And people with wheelchairs use the buses (just because you haven’t seen it yourself doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist; why is that such a problem for conservatives to understand?).
Blork
Aside from the “conservatives” crack (where TF did that come from?) I agree with MarcG. The hard seats might be less comfortable, but they are easier to maintain and less likely to spread bedbugs.
That said, I will now take this chance to rail once again on the overall discomfort of the goddamn Nova buses. I don’t know if it’s because of the low center of gravity or something else, but those are the jerkiest buses I have ever been on. When the driver pulls away from a stop there’s a jerk, and when the bus comes to a stop it jerks. While driving, any accelleration or decelleration always comes with jerks. It’s like being in a small Toyota with a driver who doesn’t know how to use the clutch. WTF IS WITH ALL THE JERKS!!!? (I mean the physical motion jerks; the other kind of jerks just come with the territory.)
I used to have great “sea legs.” I took great pleasure in riding the Metro while standing and not holding on to anything. What a sailor! But as I got older (and gained a significant neuropathy in my legs) that went away and I will 100% fall down if I try stand in the Metro now without holding something. Nova bus? I have to hold on to TWO things if I’m standing on a Nova bus. While it’s driving along I only need to hold one, but any slowing down or speeding up is so jerky it will literally knock me over if I’m not holding on with both hands. The older buses were not like that!
MarcG
It came from the fact that Bill, who is obviously a right-leaning conservative person, said that because he had never seen someone in a wheelchair using a bus that it never happened, in the same way that other people with similar views say that Covid-19 doesn’t exist because they don’t know anyone who’s had it, or climate change isn’t real because it’s cold sometimes. I saw it as all part of the same difficulty with a certain type of logic from the same type of person and decided to point it out.
PatrickC
In addition to the disabled, let’s not forget parents with strollers, shoppers with grocery hand carts, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some other categories of people who need a wide corridor in the bus.
Kate
When I was a kid you couldn’t board the bus with a stroller or a handcart. I think it’s chiefly because wheelchairs had to be allowed that the other items began to be accepted on board.
Bill Binns: I’ve ridden the bus enough that I’ve seen wheelchair users come aboard from time to time. Seldom if ever in winter, because by and large, wheelchair users can’t get around on snow and ice, but otherwise, yes. I will email the STM and ask if they have any figures on wheelchair usage on standard buses.
MarcG: A tendency to hang onto received ideas in the face of actual evidence. Yep.
Blork
The thing is, the old fashioned configuration that Bill talks about is fine for longer runs, like between cities or even long commuter runs on express buses. But for buses chugging along the city streets where people are getting on and off every block or so, it’s not good at all. Too much shuffling around and squeezing through just to get a seat or to get up and get out.
Kate
Blork, I can’t tell whether it’s the Nova bus at fault, or driver training. The last time I was on the 55 bus the driver was accelerating and braking so hard, turning the bus in to the stops so abruptly, that everyone was slewing around. I thought of taking down the time and the bus number and sending in a complaint, and now I think I should’ve done.
Mr.Chinaski 08:30 on 2020-08-26 Permalink
it was clear when the Marina people bought a Lobbyist that they would transform this into a political battle. Lachine is one of those borough in 2017 that had a lot of candidates. It wasn’t just Plante vs Coderre, you also had Dauphin and VCM. So there is a political re-alignment that is starting for next year with such battles.
It’s also a generational situation, all those pro-Marina people, look at them, they are mostly out-of-towners middle-class families or upper-middle-class boomers. They do not represent the young people at all, just look at the age range and demographics of people using SUP’s and Kayaks…
Blork 09:07 on 2020-08-26 Permalink
I have no skin in this game and I don’t give AF about boats or marinas, but it must be noted that the marina is immediately next to an existing gigantic waterside park for all (Parc René-Lévesque). So right now both populations are being served, but if you remove the marina then only one population is being served.
I supposed it looks a bit like if you had a basketball court next to a botanical garden and some people wanted to turn the basketball court into another botanical garden because they don’t like people playing basketball. “But botanical gardens are for all!” (The only difference is the wealth angle, so call this what it is: pitchforks against the wealthy — something I’m not against when it comes to the very wealthy, but most of the boat owners I know are just middle class.)
Chris 09:21 on 2020-08-26 Permalink
Does Montreal even have any other marinas besides this one? We’re an island, it’s pretty normal that some people would have some boats. It’s not like we’re talking super yachts here, many boats are not *that* expensive.
walkerp 09:27 on 2020-08-26 Permalink
More like if you had a private basketball court that only a limited amount of members was allowed to use.
Mr.Chinaski 09:31 on 2020-08-26 Permalink
Blork, not all green space and parks are created for the same reasons. This is a transformation of an existing ramshackle site that is in the need of extensive rehabilitation (either as a Marina or a park). Parc René-Lévesque doesn’t serve the matter in which they want to transform the marina. Neither is the Promenade Pere Marquette.
It’s like saying we don’t need Parc Jeanne-Mance because gosh darnit, we have the Mont-Royal on the next street!
DeWolf 09:57 on 2020-08-26 Permalink
I really do wonder how this is going to play out for Ensemble Montréal. They may see some quick political gain here, but it could also backfire when people understand they’re basically lobbying for the city to pay millions of dollars to maintain and renovate a private club on public land. And it’s not like most of the boat owners can vote here anyway.
Then again, we’re living in 2020, when people’s heads explode in rage at the thought of the city building a new public park, children riding their bikes in protected lanes or the mayor drawing a comic book in her spare time. Maybe at this time next year we’ll see the rise of some kind of Rob Ford type candidate who will personally bulldoze all the bike lanes, kind of like how Denis Coderre took a sledgehammer to that mailbox.
Kate 11:29 on 2020-08-26 Permalink
Chris, there are a ton of marinas and yacht clubs all around the island. I got this map to auto-display on Google and I’m not sure this is all of them. Also, in addition, there are several slips in the West Island where you can park and put in a boat:
John B 13:01 on 2020-08-26 Permalink
Most of the marinas in that map are off-island, (although the old port isn’t on the map). I believe Verdun doesn’t take anything much bigger than a 14″ fishing boat. That leaves on-island boat owners pretty stuck, especially if they live in the eastern 60% of the island.
I feel like we should be working to make the river more accessible, and with the currents in the river part of that is motorboats. Restrict it to island residents, (or even better, Montreal residents), charge enough so it’s not a money pit, and call it a day.
Kate 14:03 on 2020-08-26 Permalink
John B, as I said, there may be more than shown on the map. I started digging and found two in Pointe-Claire, several in Beaconsfield and Baie-d’Urfé, at least one in tiny Senneville, and Ste-Anne’s waterfront seems to be made of marinas. I stopped listing them then and screenshotted a map.
Admittedly, the situation reflects the relative wealth of the West Island; the eastern end includes the working port and various industrial accesses like the piers around Lantic Sugar, it’s obviously not so leisured. It would be nice if more people could feel connected to the river, but it seems to me that riverside parks offer a little more connection to more people than a marina. I realize you don’t have to be fabulously wealthy to have a boat, but you do need to have some extra disposable – for buying it, storing it, keeping it in good repair and moving it around.
Ian 16:57 on 2020-08-26 Permalink
I looooove how people here are making out like having a boat is just for rich people so public land shouldn’t be used to support their hobby… while meanwhile lycra warriors on 12k bikes get entire roads closed off for their use. Some of those competitive bikes actually go for substantially more than an 18′ powerboat, go check out prices on kijiji like I just did if you don’t believe me.
At least nobody had to tell boaters to stay out of the cemeteries because they were being a nuisance, haha
Kate 19:48 on 2020-08-26 Permalink
Ian, how often do racing cyclists get roads closed off? There’s the Grand Prix Cycliste one day in summertime, but that was cancelled this year. Am I missing something?
Ian 21:14 on 2020-08-26 Permalink
I was referring to the road closure going up the mountain that all the PM bikes-first kerfuffle largely stemmed from – even now it is closed off on Sunday mornings until noon to cars.
I get the value of bike paths around town, lots of people commute or even ride for fun – but let’s be honest here, there is typically a very specific type of well-heeled, exquisitely equipped bicyclist that goes up the mountain. The same ones that got barred from the cemeteries.
My point here is that a very small handful of sport cyclists are being catered to with this kind of thing – I don’t see why boaters are being picked on as some kind of elite rich people hobbyists if we accept that the Tour de France wannabe lobby group with their $10, 000 ++ bikes is totally valid & we should reconfigure our roads to their needs.
Max 21:56 on 2020-08-26 Permalink
The Senneville Yacht Club’s notable for its clubhouse.
https://i2.wp.com/cvsyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/capitainerie1-e1446163503870.jpg?fit=1267%2C486
Designed by Victor Prus, architect of metro Bonaventure, metro Mont-Royal, the first iteration of the Palais des Congres, and a Senneville resident at the time of his passing a couple of years back.
Kate 22:02 on 2020-08-26 Permalink
Wow, Max. Looks like a mini Expo 67 pavilion.
Max 22:19 on 2020-08-26 Permalink
I posted to reddit about him after he passed away, along with a list of his works and a gallery of metro Bonaventure construction pics I plucked out of the Archives de Montreal. Check it out. I thought his passing was a giant loss to the city that wasn’t properly appreciated at the time.
https://www.reddit.com/r/montreal/comments/5xxic2/metro_construction_bonaventure_16_pics_sad_news/