Daily Hive has some photos and descriptions of the reopened Biodome.
Updates from September, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Quite dramatic photos from the Journal of an empty industrial building in the Sud-Ouest that burned down in the early hours of Wednesday.
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Kate
Three police inspectors – two SPVM and one SQ – are looking for millions of dollars in compensation. The Montreal cops have experienced years-long paid suspensions following inconclusive investigations, their careers basically in limbo. The SQ guy was also given a total sinecure, paid but given no tasks to do. Unspoken here is that the forces may well have their reasons for wanting these men sidelined, but that’s just an impression.
Ephraim
Costa Labos is the cop who allegedly hushed up the case of Patrick Guay and Pierre-Luc Furlotte who are being criminally charged. While he wasn’t criminally charged, he was never cleared. We, the citizens have been paying him a salary for 3 years to stay home and now he wants compensation? The SPVM should bring him back and make him a damn filing clerk, because he’s not trustworthy at all. He was never cleared.
In fact, I mentioned him about 2 days ago…. below.
Kate
Yes, I replied to that comment… below : )
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Kate
If the public is frustrated with the construction of bike paths, how will they respond when Quebec decides to build reserved lanes on roads all over town? Quebec is also considering widening certain autoroutes so’s to add additional lanes.
Ian
If they have reserved lanes as well as bike paths that should be interesting. If they do that on Bellechasse there’s no lane left for cars 😀
Ephraim
BTW, they are installing a bike lane across St-Denis and yet they haven’t moved the Circuit Electrique’s charging stations. I wonder if the city is responsible to pay for their relocation in the contract with Hydro Quebec. Anyone know? I wonder what’s going to happen when someone plugs in and the cable runs across the bike lane.
Joey
Ephraim, those stations are usually deactivated when the parking space in front of them is removed. Lots of the stations in my neighborhood were inaccessible when the city set up the lineup areas around pharmacies and supermarkets in the spring. Here’s hoping those stations are moved as the electric charging infrastructure is fragile enough as it is…
Ephraim
A friend tells me that they are still marked as “live” until someone complains, so apparently, the city isn’t notifying CE. And of course, it means that there isn’t enough infrastructure for charging cars. He wasn’t happy… he’s finding less and less places to charge.
Ian
There are photos of this same thing all over town. As I have said before, for a party predicate on urban planning, PM is kind of shite at urban planning, Their intentions are good but their research and implementation are often awful. It’s so pathetically sophomoric.
walkerp
Is it not the bureaucracy already in place that does the urban planning? Did the previous administration do a better job? I question your constantly going after Projet Montreal. This is a mainstay of project development across Quebec: bad planning, corruption, no communication between agencies.
Laying it all on the feet of Projet Montreal seems simplistic and emotional to me. I imagine they are also quite frustrated with the way some things are implemented, but do not have the clout to improve.
Ian
That’s a total cop-out, the entire point of Projet Montreal is that they are good at urban planning.
To figure out whether there are electric car charging stations on a bike path seems like a pretty easy thing to figure out, it’s not like coordinating underground utility networks – you can literally see them as you walk down the street.
To say that all of Quebec is corrupt and incompetent seems like a hand-wavey, evasive apologia – if your political platform is that you are actually not that., it’s not unreasonable to expect follow-through.
Jonathan
As someone who has an urban planning academic background, I find Projet Montreal is doing a great job. You have to remember that the planners actually planning are functionaries who are in place before and after a political party is in power. The politicians can only do so much as to set policies and standards, but the bulk of the work is done by the city staff.
I’m pretty sure they know very well there are electric charging stations and in time they will be relocated. This is the message I got when I attended one of the local consultation sessions on the REV.
Ian
I’m pretty sure that I can see the charging stations just by using my eyes. PM doesn’t have a mere abstract academic background, they have been in power for years now in my borough, long before Plante even ran for mayor. I would have thought they would have learned a thing or two from the experience of debacles like Clark Street but apparently not.
I get it that PM are “just” functionaries, not actually bolting in the temporary traffic dividers or painting the bike lanes or even organizing those crews, but if you really think they have no influence over implementation plans that’s just ridiculous. They have access to some of the best urban planning minds that exist in Quebec. Excuses like ” politicians can only do so much as to set policies and standards” is like blaming the guys on the back of garbage trucks for garbage collection implementation.
You can see that there are charging stations extending across the paths just by looking, and this as happened all over town – again, it’s not rocket science.
Jonathan
What i am saying is that PM is not the functionaries. The urban planners are. There is a whole culture and politics in a city office such as the city planning department.
I don’t doubt the city functionaries ‘see’ the charging stations. It’s just that those are installed by hydro Quebec and they will get around to moving them some time. Things can’t just come to a halt because there are some charging stations en route. I understand they are a big priority for you, Ian, and I hope for your sake they get moved to a place convenient enough for you to charge your electric vehicle while it’s stored on-street.
I think you are giving politicians more credit for getting things done (whether or not you agree on the latter) than they deserve.
Ian
The fact that we agree that the charging infrastructure is a joke in neighbourhoods without driveways aside, you seem to be going through a lot of acrobatic contortions to try to figure out how this couldn’t possibly be Projet’s fault. Let’s be super real here, I have latched on to this one thing as a very specific example of planning failures – of which there are many.
I assure you that if this planning blitz was a success they would take full credit for it – they should also take blame for its failings.
Yann
The $8000 subsidy for one electric car is more than a cyclist pays for en entire lifetime of biking… out of his own pocket. BS cars don’t deserve road hegemony.
Ian
I guess you haven’t seen the pricetag on those bikes the lycra warriors that got Remembrance shut down ride, eh?
FWIW you can get a used electric car for substantially less than the cost of a Tour de France bike.
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Kate
Valérie Plante would be wise to read François Cardinal on Wednesday as he asks whether she’s lost touch with what the city needs. He acknowledges that the pedestrianization of streets like Wellington and Mont-Royal has been beneficial and popular, but thinks she’s gone too far in continuing to build the REV active transport system now – and he thinks she’s not paying enough attention to a traumatized city.
Here’s the Chapleau cartoon Cardinal mentions, published Tuesday.
Update: A response to Cardinal’s column defends Valérie Plante.
Tim S,
He talks about “le citadin moyen” and “Montréalais” but one thing about this crisis is it seems many of us have retreated into our neighbourhoods, and if there’s one thing Project has done pretty successfully, I think, is neighbourhood- level stuff, and I suspect many voters won’t punish them for it. A few people here have mentioned that downtown will have to become a neighbourhood like anywhere else (Vancouver’s West end has come up), and that might be a problem for people, like city beat journalists, who identify ‘downtown’ with Montreal, but on an electoral scale I don’t see people across the island being that motivated by the St-Denis bike path or the empty Quartier des Spectacles. Also, the mayor is elected by popular vote, so being popular in dense neighbourhoods that are getting the most benefit out of these measures is quite an advantage. A lot will depend on how good the Project councillors are at getting their local supporters out. We’ll see, I guess.
ross
Totally agree with you Tim.
DeWolf
What kind of mayor would arbitrarily suspend an infrastructure project that was an integral part of her electoral platform, has been in planning for three years, was officially announced more than a year ago, and is already half built – just because some very loud people on social media can’t deal with the emotional trauma of the pandemic?
The REV has undoubtedly become of symbol of certain people’s frustration with Plante. But it’s not Formula E, which was a boondoggle that benefited no one and lasted just a few days with nothing to show for it other than a sense of having been swindled. The REV is a network that will prevent more cyclist deaths and encourage more people to get around in a way that is healthy and ecologically responsible. It’s something that is meant to last years, like a much better version of the bike paths on Rachel and de Maisonneuve, both of which made huge strides in promoting bikes as a means of getting around.
Think of it in a political sense. Let’s say Plante announces that, okay, the REV will remain half-finished and it will stop at Gilford. Maybe she even goes one step further and rips out the already-built REV on de Bellechasse. She will not gain any votes. The angry, irrational “Plante is destroying Montreal! La mairesse c’t’une folle!!” crowd will never vote for her anyway. And the people who did vote for PM because of its 2017 electoral platform, including Plateau and RPP voters who are most affected by the REV and who have voted overwhelmingly for PM for years, will feel betrayed enough that they may never vote for PM again.
Maybe Plante won’t be reelected because people will remain furious about bike lanes for a full year, which I really doubt, because a year is a long time in the best of circumstances and in a pandemic we’re living in dog years. If that’s the case, better she go down swinging and leave a legacy that will long outlive the rage-addled baby boomers who hate cyclists.
Kevin
There are two solitudes in Montreal.
On one hand you’ve got people who hear about the wheelbarrows on Mont Royal Avenue and think “Oh that’s great, we need that.”And on the other hand you’ve got the less physically able, the people who live more than 10 km from work, and the people who hate clowns.
Ian
I think what we are kind of dancing around in our comments, and the focus of the linked article here, is that Coderre was largely hated for being a ham-fisted autocrat, doing what he felt was right, and everyone else could go fly a kite.
PM was elected on the basis of being responsive and community centric, and that they are now turning out to be inflexible ham-fisted autocrats in their own right is burning through a lot of the political goodwill that they were elected under.
In times of trouble people want familiarity, that’s not rocket science. That Plante is jumping on this as an opportunity to change the city in perpetuity iooks opportunistic. Sure the REV was platform but so were lots of other things PM turned out to not have he political will to do anything about like gentrification or AirBnB etc. It really does look like this bike path business is their hill to die on. As I’ve said on this site before, I think they are so attached to this notion because it is one of the few things they can actually make happen without any real effort – that it is is ineffective and in some parts of town disliked has no bearing on this performative political action. hey need to seem effective to their core voters. If those voters will carry them through the next election remains to be seen, but the dislike felt toward them is not because of gender or even bike lanes, come down to it. It’s that a large proportion of voters feel betrayed by a party that was supposed to change everything but turned out to be just another bunch of jerks that do what they want without listening to the “little guy”.
At least Plante got Norris to finally keep his aggro act under his hat, but let’s get real – one year’s worth of memory is not that long when we are talking about…
Bagelgate
Clarke refection X 2
Constant changes on Remembrance
mismanagement of St Denis
Getting rid softball in the park for tennis yuppies
500 parking spaces eliminated (Rabouin’s election promise) turning into 800 in residetnial neighbourhoods
Ongoing “inability” to slow gentrification while we know property tax is their main revenue
Trying to solve downtown with clowns
Opportunistic and apparently random street closures
Heavily biased “surveys”
Lack of clarity around street changes (no notices to residents, etc.)
etc.
etc.
etc.curious
And to replace one of Ian’s “etc.” her failure to keep her promise of giving the residents of Ville-Marie borough back their right to elect their own mayor, thereby preventing opposition to her vision for the downtown. i would gladly supply the link to the petition launched to correct this if that is allowed on this blog.
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Kate
I see on Facebook that Mont-Royal is holding a street fair for the upcoming long weekend. The street’s been closed to traffic all summer, but now the stores will be allowed to bring out displays of stuff for sale.
I’ll come back here and add any other fairs and events that I notice for the long weekend.
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Kate
Time Out’s JP Karwacki encourages readers to take advantage of outdoor dining on streets closed to traffic while summer lasts.
Are people going out to eat? Since mid-March I haven’t eaten in any restaurant, or even gone out for coffee. I’ve had food delivered on a few days when I reached evening and thought if I had to eat my own cooking one more time I’d die, but aside from that, nope.
walkerp
We have not eaten at a restaurant, indoors or out, since it all started. We have done much take out.
MarcG
I also haven’t eaten at a restaurant but done a bit of ordering in and treating the packaging like poison. I pass by a popular restaurant while jogging in the morning and it’s been full of old people eating breakfast since they reopened.
JFP
I have gone to the restaurant (larger ones that can actually do 2m between tables) and to patios semi-regularly over the summer. Took appropriate precautions and am still alive to tell the tale.
Jake
I walk down Bernard in Outremont almost every day and the terrases at Brasserie Bernard, Enfants Terrible and their neighbours are always full, so there definitely are a lot of people going out to eat.
Blork
We haven’t eaten-in at a restaurant since mid-March, but we’ve done take-out maybe seven or eight times since about June, plus a few drive-thru burgers at lunch time. But we’re lucky in that I seem to be a decent cook, so we’re not exactly suffering.
I think the only terrace we’ve been to is the one on St-Denis in front of La Dépendance, last week. There was barely any car Traffic on St-Denis, so it was kind of nice. That was last Wednesday at around 11:00AM and it felt like Sunday at 8:00AM (in terms of traffic).
Then we went downtown, and that was a whole other situation…
JP
I haven’t eaten out at all either or even ordered take-out, except once. At some point, I was also tired of eating the same meals over and over, and decided to try MakeGoodFood and Hello Fresh meal delivery services. It was nice to have new recipes and flavors. I won’t be ordering from them every week, but I did find the meals were quite good and different from what I usually make.
The one time I walked down Bernard, it looked really, really busy…you wouldn’t even think we were in a pandemic. I have been tempted at times to eat out on a patio this summer, but in the end, it just didn’t happen.
Ian
I haven’t eaten out or been to a bar since March. I love bars & restaurants, and especially a summer terrasse. I get it, I really do – but it just feels like foolish self-indulgence in the face of a risk vs benefit assessment.
I ma fortunate in that I have a back yard and a patio on which I spent considerable time, effort, and money. My landlady is super grateful, but I figure if I’m spending all my time at home it’s worth my time and money to make it as nice as it can possibly be.
Blork
Somewhat unexpectedly, I found myself downtown today at a little after 5:00. Hungry, but not sure where to go (and the weather not good for a terrace) so we ended up at Time Out. It was practically deserted, and I think only five of the kiosks were open. Pretty low risk, as the tables have barriers to keep groups apart, and there are cleaners galore. I saw one woman disinfect a nearby table four times even though no one sat there the whole time.
Ian
That makes sense, they would have to do it based on the passage of time – unless they hired another person to actually sit and count customers – probably simply cleaning on a schedule is more cost effective.
Mitchell
I ate out with a friend back in mid August, on the terrace. Everyone kept their distance, the waiter wore a mask and didn’t bend over to get in our faces. Even the traffic noise wasn’t too loud. As JFP said, I’m still here to tell about it.
GC
I haven’t dined in a restaurant since March, but you only have to walk by a few to see that lots of people are doing it. And, yes, terraces are often very busy.
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Kate
Two men in their seventies were shot in a bar in Lasalle Tuesday evening. A younger man who had been bounced from the bar earlier came back and attacked the patrons then fled. Nobody got killed; no arrest yet.
Update: A suspect has been arrested.
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Kate
Montreal schools are still chronically short of teachers.
Surprise surprise, student bubbles cease to exist once class is out – as if that couldn’t’ve been foreseen.
A big teachers’ union is going to court to press the Quebec government on promised testing in schools.
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