As I saw in a tweet: September 2019, 500,000 people march for climate action; September 2020, Mayor Plante is served a cease and desist over the bike path being constructed on St‑Denis.
Updates from September, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The haze over Montreal on Tuesday is smoke from the raging West Coast wildfires. It’s high in the atmosphere so it should not affect our breathing.
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Kate
Montreal has gone to yellow alert on Quebec’s Covid alert system. We’re being asked to cut back on social gatherings and be more careful generally.
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Kate
When we were deep in the first wave of Covid, the Legault government promised employment at $26/hr to people willing to be trained as patient attendants. Thousands signed up, but now they’re being told to sign contracts for no more than $20.55/hr and that they’ll have to repay their training fee of $9,120 if they don’t comply.
In addition, it seems like many CHSLDs hired people under the table to clean during that first wave. There’s an investigation.
Meezly
Funny, I just saw this tweet which applies just as well here as it does in the US:
https://twitter.com/kate_manne/status/1301519097973428228Anything that involves prioritizing or throwing more money for “women’s work”– caring for the vulnerable & the elderly, giving “handouts”, improving health care, educating children and providing a SAFE environment in schools, etc. will always be akin to pulling teeth for any male-dominated government, esp. the Legault one.
JP
I didn’t read the article…but $9,120…$20.55/hr. It just seems ridiculous. Ugh..of course, they’d reduce the hourly wage from what they had initially stated. It might be too much to expect any sort of integrity. And, now the recruits have got the $9,120 hanging over their heads. And, this is where the resentment starts…
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Kate
In creating a beach for Pointe-aux-Trembles an archaeological find of thousands of artifacts has extended understanding of human occupation of the area: Iroquoians were living in the area as long as 2400 years ago.
Michael Black
That’s a short time. The Ancient One, the Kenniwick Man, is 10,000 years old, and matches DNA from people on the Colville reservation in Washington state.
Kate
I know it’s relatively short, but apparently it’s the first time there’s been such a find on the eastern tip of the island. I think there’s been something of a fixation on locating the original site of Hochelaga, which is assumed to be closer to midtown Montreal (the traces likely to have been destroyed as the city was built up) so that not so much work has been done on the island outside that area.
It’s also interesting to know more about the agriculture and technology available to the people here 2400 years ago.
DeWolf
Michael, that’s true, but don’t forget that 10,000 years ago human settlement here was impossible because Montreal was still at the bottom of the Champlain Sea.
It’s interesting to think that Montreal has been inhabited for as long as Paris, albeit not continuously.
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Kate
TVA says it’s counted up and found nearly a thousand parking spaces have been abolished this summer. But these are not permanently cancelled: the voies actives sécuritaires are specifically meant for summer, and should be ending over the next month.
Chris
Well, I don’t like their spin, but this is media doing their job finding facts that the City refuses (allegedly) to answer.
Nit: Kate, the article says “1000 espaces de stationnement *payant*”. Presumably even more non-paid spots have been removed too.
Of course they make these numbers sound big, but give no context. 1000 out of how many?
Ian
More relevant would be what percentage in specific neighbourhoods… it doesn’t help to know that there is lots of paid parking available on Charlevoix if you were hoping to find parking on Fairmount.
For example, in Mile End almost all paid parking on east-west streets has been removed, and as I predicted, there are lots of people with out of town plates illegally parking on residential streets with sticker parking .
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Kate
La Presse’s Mario Girard has a piece on the internal rumbling in CDN-NDG borough management but doesn’t succeed in casting any more light on the mess there. We know the mayor, Sue Montgomery, has had trouble working with the fonctionnaires, but whether the situation is that she wanted reasonable changes and the sitting fonctionnaires thought they knew better, or whether she made outrageous demands which the fonctionnaires refused to meet, is anyone’s guess. Probably the situation could be described both ways depending whose side you take.
Girard’s conclusion, that this situation is not good for the borough, is probably true. It really is time to break that borough into two pieces and start over.
walkerp
This is like the number one political mystery of Montreal that I want to know more about. I notice that Sue Montgomery now seems to be taking shots at Valerie Plante every time she gets in the media on another issue, so maybe it is just straight out warfare at this point.
walkerp
I didn’t fully understand the article. What is going to happen this autumn that will reveal the truth, as Sue Montgomery says? Is that the decision of the supreme court in December? Or are there two things?
My guess (and it is not a confident one) is that Stephane Plante is shady as hell and was up to some serious shenanigans along with several other fonctionnaires. Sue Montgomery is guilty of lack of experience and strategy and just came in thinking she could bulldoze the whole thing wide open. The other counsellors either oppose her on ideological lines (Rowtrand mainly) or have to tow the PM party line and are using her isolation for their own gains.
All this is based on the weak foundation that Plante and the other fonctionnaires were there under Applebaum who was clearly corrupt as hell. I don’t know what went on in that borough before that but I suspect even more corruption.
But this theory only works if we assume that Plante is either really stupid (clearly not the case) or somehow complicit in some level of corruption or pressured by the union in some way. It’s preposterous that “she didn’t read the report” as Montgomery alleges. Why is she holding the line on this toxic environment argument?
Sue Montgomery may be difficult to work for but there has been zero evidence of any of that. Usually that comes out and you hear the stories of actual abusive boss behaviour. There has been none of that.
Argh! What’s the real story here?! I
Ian
It’s pretty obvious Plante is in the pocket of local developers – he tried to railroad Montgomery into a condo deal on the old theatre, remember? She called him on it and that’s when things got really ugly.
As in many things related to municipal politics, the only question worth asking is cui bono?
Dhomas 19:43 on 2020-09-15 Permalink
So, they claim no one is shopping on account of the pandemic. What better time to build? You won’t be stopping the shoppers, they’re already not there! Is it better to impact the flow of shoppers during good times?
Benoit 20:43 on 2020-09-15 Permalink
There’s only 2-3 weeks of work left and then it’s done. They’ll have their parking spots back.
j2 22:52 on 2020-09-15 Permalink
The city destroyed businesses on Saint Laurent for worse reasons than this.
RIP Mondofrites
JoeNotCharles 02:59 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
On the one hand I normally roll my eyes hard at “we’re losing parking!” arguments, I’m all for a bike path on St-Denis, and I agree that now while fewer people are using the street anyway is the best time to put in a bike path…
But on the other I have no idea what they’re doing on St-Denis. Why does a “bike path” require digging up odd-shaped holes all over the road? Just put up a divider like on Laurier!
walkerp 07:42 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
This is the thing. Plante gets all the blame but the way actual construction is carried out here is so inefficient and likely corrupt. Now the administration must bear some of the responsibility but I suspect they have very little control over the actual execution of the plans. These companies probably increase scope as much as they can to maximize profits. And they just don’t work efficiently.
I come from the west coast and there is a culture of competence in the trades out there. Now everybody complains about construction projects there as well and there have been many fiascos but it’s visibly shocking to see how badly the work is done here when you first move out here. Twenty goons standing around and acting tough while somebody accidently digs into a gas line or weeks and weeks where nobody is working at all. It’s crazy.
I imagine the mayor and her administration have very little control over that.
Ian 08:08 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
I really don’t understand why they couldn’t have just painted bike paths. In the email bulletin from Plateau Mont Royal it said construction on St Denis is supposed to last 6 weeks – I’ll be surprised if it’s completed by first snow.
walkerp 08:29 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
My understanding is that painted bike paths are not actually safe and show little reduction in accidents. You need a real barrier between the bikes and the cars.
But also see my post above about scope creep. I bet the contract has some language about lateness and overtime where the construction company gets more money up to a certain point and they probably push it right to the limit on every job.
Ian 08:32 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
Be that as it may, here’s the quote from the bulletin:
“Travaux du REV dans Le Plateau
Les travaux d’aménagement du Réseau express vélo (REV) débuteront le mardi 8 septembre le long de la rue Saint-Denis dans Le Plateau.
Les travaux devraient durer de cinq à six semaines et entraîneront la fermeture de la direction SUD de Saint-Denis, entre Saint-Joseph et Roy Est. Le détour devra se faire par la rue Saint-Urbain. La circulation sera toutefois maintenue vers le nord.”
So six weeks minimum of St Denis being down to one lane through the main business district. At the tail end of one of the worst retail summers in memory.
Oh well who knows, it only took about a decade for Saint Larry to mostly bounce back. Small price to pay for an essential bicycle highway.
Spi 08:45 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
For the most part the REV is 80% painted lines. It’s not going to be like Rachel where there’s a concrete divider between the bicycle lane and the car lane the whole length, what will be separating the bikes and the cars will be the parked cars with nothing stopping the parked cars from impeeding onto the cycle lane.
Most of the difficult work consists of digging up holes and pouring concrete “islands” at intersections to protect the start and finish of the bike lane with a handful of mid-block pedestrians crossings on st-denis.
Kate 08:49 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
It’s been emphasized before, but St-Denis is basically a mini highway. Most people are using it to cut through the Plateau, not to meander along and shop with their car.
Ian 09:06 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
While this is true, a 6 week (minimum) construction site taking over most of the street and sidewalks seems excessive and can’t possibly not hurt business. Go down and take a look for yourself. I did, it’s pretty obvious.
walkerp 09:10 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
The problems of businesses dying has been going on on St-Denis for years now. And it started before that last big construction project. These issues are structural and demographic. The construction is a big factor for sure, but not the main one.
Joey 09:23 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
The corresponding traffic jams are a real hoot too. Too bad our construction industry is so rotten. We elect political parties who want to driver nice things, well built. And we get shitty work that doesn’t last and takes too long to execute. Shame this work couldn’t have been done in spring when everything really was quieter. My hunch is the value of the St Denis REV will be clear as soon as it’s up and running, and most of us will forget the poor planning around the construction.
DeWolf 10:35 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
As Spi said, most of the “odd-shaped holes” being dug on St-Denis are concrete islands that will serve as bus stops, which will prevent buses from cutting into the bike path. The same thing was done at a few corners on St-Urbain. Others will serve as pedestrian islands for new mid-block crosswalks, and a few others will be planters with greenery.
All of these details were made public in May when the city released detailed maps and renderings. There were also several information sessions held on Zoom during confinement.
DeWolf 10:37 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
Here’s a PDF with all sorts of information:
https://ville.montreal.qc.ca/documents/Adi_Public/CE/CE_DA_ORDI_2020-05-20_08h30_REV_presentation_CE_20200520.pdf
BTW, “paint some lines on the street and call it a day” is exactly the approach that has gotten so many cyclists killed over the years.
Jack 10:49 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
“The haze over Montreal on Tuesday is smoke from the raging West Coast wildfires. It’s high in the atmosphere so it should not affect our breathing”…..freaking bike paths !
Kevin 11:04 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
Striving to declare that the street is failing because of just one thing is as nonsensical as the anti-masker covidiots believing Trump is waiting for the right moment to round up and execute millions of child-trafficking cannibal pedophiles.
It’s the disappearance of unique destination stores and the construction in neighbouring areas and the rise of online shopping and the changing demographic and the pro-bike anti-car administration and some other je ne sais quoi.
If it were in Manhattan, St. Denis would be one way with parking on both sides and divided bike lane — and residential high rises up and down the street.
Ian 11:51 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
Yes of course, painted bike paths kill people! How could I have been so foolish? I expect they will remove the painted bidirectional bike path from my street posthaste as soon as I inform my elected representatives of this terrible mistake on their parts.
DeWolf 12:00 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
You’re being disingenuous, Ian. A residential side street is not the same as St-Denis. You’re also ignoring years of research that has produced actual evidence that painted bike lanes are much more dangerous than bike lanes protected by bollards or other barriers.
https://www.monash.edu/news/articles/more-than-a-stripe-of-paint-needed-to-keep-cyclists-safe
Joey 12:37 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
@Ian in fact your street is a great example of the futility of painted bike lanes. I would like to ask my Hasidic cousins (who may not even acknowledge our shared heritage) what piece of scripture their respective rabbis have identified as allowing them to break every rule of the road known to man. Double-park your minivan in a bike lane while on your phone? It’s God’s will!
dhomas 13:52 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
I live on a street with painted bike paths. This is what you get with those:
https://mtlcityweblog.com/2020/07/08/caught-doing-175-km-h-on-the-new-bridge/#comment-143091
Ian 15:08 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
@Joey yeah they seem pretty cavalier for sure, but their kids all ride on the sidewalks so they obviously aren’t too concerned with the people that use the bike lane. We also have speed bumps, which are way more effective than pretty much anything anyhow. I always laugh when some tough guy in his fancy muscle car bottoms out as I’m hanging out on my stoop.
FWIW the only accident I have every seen on my street was this summer when an older guy on the bike path heading south ran into two kids that darted out from the alley on their scooters in front of him, he hit one, and he went over his handlebars. Fortunately nobody was injured too badly, just shaken up.
@dhomas yes of course therefore everyone drives 175 on streets with bike lanes, I’d better notify my elected representative right away.
MarcG 15:44 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
I’m sure your elected official is quite aware that painting lines on the road doesn’t prevent people from crossing them…?
dhomas 16:00 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
@Ian I never said *everyone* speeds through bike lanes. Clearly, as I also mentioned the law-abiding driver directly in front of the maniac. What MarcG says is true. It’s much easier to cross a line of paint on the ground than it is to cross a concrete median. Remove the option and you get near 100% effectiveness at removing cars from bike lanes. Just like it’s much harder to speed over speed bumps, as you mentioned.
Ian 16:16 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
So put in speed bumps &/ or concrete turnpikes. They didn’t have to close Remembrance for 6 weeks to install those. Even on Bellechasse the dividers are just posts bolted directly into the road surface. Besides, I thought the median was just at the bus stops… they need to leave curbside for the delivery trucks, I think.
MarcG 16:19 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
Those bolted posts are useless, you often see them folded over or knocked right out and chucked on the roadside.
Ian 17:41 on 2020-09-16 Permalink
Are you suggesting the implementation of the REV on Bellechasse was a waste of money? That’s how they did it. If you sincerely believe it to be ineffective and or unsafe I guess PM needs to be alerted, stat! Clearly they don’t know what they are doing!
😉
Raymond Lutz 19:24 on 2020-09-20 Permalink
I can’t hold back reviving this old thread (the establishment against bike lanes). In France there’s a big manufacture closing, Bridgestone. There’s some commentaries on TV, here on TF1
“Les «pistes cyclables en surnombre» invoquées dans le commentaire sur la fermeture de Bridgestone.
Et en conclusion: «Moins de voitures, c’est moins d’usines et moins d’emploi. Un chômeur qui roule à vélo, c’est d’abord un chômeur»
Sounds familiar?