Covid time, no? I feel like I last posted a weekend traffic notes about a day and a half ago, but here’s one for this coming weekend. Adding another.
Updates from September, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
Kate
-
Kate
Traffic lights at the corner of Decarie and de Maisonneuve, where two pedestrians have died over the last year, will get longer walk lights, according to this, but what’s really important is pedestrian crossing lights that prohibit motor vehicles from turning at the same time.
I’m willing to bet that a key problem there is that drivers coming up from under the train overpass don’t have a good view of the intersection till the last minute. You can’t rebuild that entire intersection because of the slope and the overpass, so the only answer is to slow them down.
Po
The only intersection in the city where I’d be ok with a pedestrian scramble crossing.
Tim S.
I spent some time yesterday in one of the nicer MUHC waiting rooms, looking out over the whole site, and thinking that the whole area could be so much nicer if only we could bury the train tracks, even just a shallow stretch around the station. I’m sure it would be expensive and logistically challenging, maybe the metro track would be in the way, but it would solve so many problems.
Ant6n
Raising the tracks 3m or so would be easier and solve most problems related to urban barriers. This applies for essentially all the train underpasses around the inner ring of Montreal, from vendome over namur through the line along the plateau border.
Max
Traffic in that area is horrendous and I can think of no better solution than tweaking the lights in favour of pedestrians and cyclists. It’s gotten so bad that when I need my Momesso fix I take the tunnel from the metro toward the hospital just to avoid that intersection.
Kevin
The tracks were rebuilt in that area just a few years ago, and the road under the tracks was lowered and widened.
Bizarrely, an extra lane appears just as you head under the tracks when heading northbound. That extra lane should appear 100 or 200 metres further south so drivers can see what’s going on and filter to the correct lane.
It’s a a deliberate bottleneck where many drivers cannot get into the correct lane until they’re going downhill, which creates frustration.
By making it safer for pedestrians to cross Decarie just south of the tracks (where there are rarely pedestrians) the city made it more dangerous for pedestrians just north of the tracks.
Michael Black
Apparently the new pedestrian tunnel is delayed again, I can’t remember where I read that. So don’t expect a tunnel for the train any time soon.
nau
The sensible (if expensive) solution recognized years ago was to have a pedestrian/cyclist overpass alongside the train tracks but if memory serves CP flat out refused.
-
Kate
The driver accused of hitting nine pedestrians Wednesday faces several serious charges. What I want to read is that they’ve taken away his licence, but I don’t see any mention of that.
Tim S.
I feel like this story is getting surprising little attention, compared to say, that Old Port shootout that hurt fewer people.
Kate
Yes, but in that incident a cop got shot.
-
Kate
Herzliah High School in Snowdon has been closed for two weeks by the public health department to cope with a Covid outbreak. (As noted on CBC radio, the Jewish high holidays are this week and next, so the school would have been closed for some of those days anyway.)
Jack
Kids went to a Bar Mitzvah, kids got Covid….no karaoke either folks.
Blork
I am impressed with how all this is unfolding with such predictability.
Meezly
I’m not.
-
Kate
Montreal’s economy is facing some lean years and the city administration is being pressed to present a budget acknowledging this. Greedy bastards keep making demands, though, from Peter Sergakis demanding reduced taxes to the Chamber of Commerce asking for trams.
Kevin
The official recommendation is to cut spending by $125 million, to postpone multiple projects, and to *properly* solicit the public in French and English for ideas.
dwgs
Sergakis can take a flying f@#k at a rolling donut. And seeing as this is the third time this week that I have seen local media in both languages dutifully promoting his talking points they can follow him.
Ephraim
First thought… how is the chamber of commerce planning on ripping off the city with these trams? There must be some way that they figured this out, because they never do anything that isn’t beneficial to themselves at the city’s purse strings.
The city should look at how opening up certain data and changing certain fee structures would allow it to live more lean. For example, having a way that citizens can verify permits for temporary street blockages. For example “no parking” signs having a requirement to have the permit listed and citizens having the ability to validate the permit. The price of the permit should relate to the number of spaces and the number of days that they need. The fines should therefore be exponential for putting up a sign without a permit and/or taking more space than you paid for, or extra days. In this way, the city would be collecting money from those using the city space while not having to tax businesses or citizens who aren’t impacting the city space.
Another way the city could raise money is by asking employees for innovations that would save money and offer them up to 50% of the first year’s savings. They have an interest in showing the city how it could save money and the city saves 50% on the first year but keeps on saving on the years after that.
They could also in some areas where there are needs for courier companies to deliver, create 15 minute parking ares. The fine for parking beyond 15 minutes without a permit should be astronomical. But they can sell permits to courier companies to use those spots.
They could also finally computerize the ticket system for parking tickets. Print the tickets rather than make 2 hand copies that likely need to be added into a computer later anyway. The data from which could lead the city to look at where they need to go more often and where they don’t need to go. The GPS data and parking ticket data would likely help increase income.
Kevin
Sorry, left out that’s the official recommendation from the city’s own finance committee.
Ian
I suspect a good portion of the revenue could simply be made up by enforcing traffic laws. Fining delivery trucks for idling, traffic & speeding violations, parking in bike lanes, jaywalking, riding bikes on sidewalks…
Plus if the laws were consistently and rigorously enforced I suspect we would all benefit from a far more liveable city as people would stop thinking it’s everyone for themselves, trying to get away with whatever they can.
Michael Black
But if they ticketed more, people would complain that it was a cash grab.
But yes, some of the benefits of driving seem derived from law breaking. I don’t care about expired parking meters, but I care a lot about cars parking too close to intersections, or triple parking or parking in bus stops or on the sidewalk. If that “ease” wasn’t there, some might think twice about taking the car for things that could be done by walking.
mare
@Ephraim “They could also finally computerize the ticket system for parking tickets. Print the tickets rather than make 2 hand copies that likely need to be added into a computer later anyway.”
As far as I know that’s already been done for years. At least by the “green onions” who give “no parking during street cleaning” tickets. Those have to be written fast in order to keep up with the cleaning machine.
BTW Probably because of people work from home and forgetting to move their car, but I’ve the impression they write a lot more tickets than before.
Ian
The only parking tickets I’ve ever had are for that precise thing and yeah mine have always been computerized. I sometimes lose track of what day it is, especially this year. To be fair I’ve only had a car for a few years so they may still write them out by hand for other kinds of violations, I have no idea.
@Michael Black I would LOVE to see the parking too close to intersections rule enforced. That is SUCH a hazard and people seem to do it with impunity all over town. Another thing I would love to see is somebody actually ticketing cars and bicycles for blowing through crosswalks. When you yell at them, drivers give you the finger, cyclists just ignore you. So many accidents in Mile End, it’s crazy – nobody pays attention, everyone is impatient. Droves of kids cross at the crosswalks on their way to schools every morning.
nau
Why just fiddle with parking around the edges? If the city needs revenue, it should start charging everywhere for the portion of the street that it constructs, maintains and snow-clears simply so a subset of its citizens can store their private property for free. That should bring in enough revenue it could even offer free short-duration parking in front of merchants’ establishments to help them out.
Kevin
@nau
Thank you for my Friday laugh!nau
No thanks to you for your usual empty snark.
Ian
You’re absolutely right, nau. The city should install meters on everyone and charge them for everything, that’s clearly a great solution. I mean after all if everyone stopped having cars we’d still need the roads for trucks and bicycle paths presumably, so the brunt of taxation would fall on them – so we need to measure and tax that too so the tax infrastructure is in place. Then of course those pedestrians with their expensive sidewalks, it only makes sense that those who walk more should pay more. Why stop there? We could water meters, maybe a special space tax for taller people, charge people bus fare based on their weight, why stop there, let’s tax people on how much they poop in grams so they can pay for the sewage system!
I mean, now that it’s clear that this is a serious and well thought out idea I think we should really explore it.
MarcG
Essay question (~500 words): Is the internet incapable of producing civil discourse? If so, for what reasons? To what extent do you consider this a frustrating and horrible thing?
Ian
Take it as you will, I was engaging in critical discourse in the time-honoured tradition of satire along the lines of “A Modest Proposal”. If you don’t think that’s civil, well, as Emma Goldman said, “if I can’t dance I don’t want to be part of your revolution”.
-
Kate
Jonathan Montpetit ponders the risk of COVID-19 conspiracy theories taking root in Quebec.
Raymond Lutz
From the original article:”Among the most popular purveyors of conspiracy theories in the province is Alexis Cossette-Trudel, the son of two convicted FLQ terrorists, who broadcasts his views on social media under the moniker Radio-Québec.”
Ostie de séparatiss! 😎 J’sava bin qu’diffuser s’te film-là alla r’faire sortir toutt une gang de mongols de l’ombre! J’parl des Roses.
Alou wette
The FLQ also spread many consipiracy theories, but it turned out that they were all true.
Sale tête carrée
It’s a Christmas miracle that people aren’t all white and of historically French descent… but not too recent… comment est-ce qu’on dit 《I think I just rolled my eyes so hard they got stuck》 en francais?
MarcG
It’s threads like these that remind me that I didn’t live here between 1995 and 2000.
JaneyB
Met Cossette-Trudel when he was working in his wife’s Tibetan shop and had a nice chat about philosophy and religion which he was doing his PhD on. (Yes, his dissertation is online). Only later did I learn about the FLQ pedigree. In our short chat, he just seemed like a very smart, ordinary guy but clearly he is radiantly nuts and a social menace. It’s hard to believe it’s the same person. He is certainly being closely watched by every security force for basically every reason.
Regeorge I Tait
He’s, like, a total bad guy.
My mom told me she remembers him.
-
Kate
Sad photo accompanies story about Ripples Ice Cream and Berson’s Monuments being razed for a new condo building.
Ian
Fortunately Ripples has a second location, open on Jeanne-Mance, just north of Saint-Viateur.
The connection between Ripples & Berson Monuments is an interesting one, I had no idea. I am glad to hear the new development is going to keep the street scape intact to some extent…
For sure it’s sad to see the old place razed but it’s kind of hard to imagine new development being any different given how things usually go on around town.
Kate
I remember vaguely hearing the guy had opened there because it was a family connection, but this is years ago, when Welch’s bookstore was next to Ripples and his black-and-white cat would cool her belly on the sample gravestones on hot summer evenings.
Ephraim
Ripples is now downstairs from Moishe’s
DeWolf
In an ideal city Berson’s would have been taken over by an NGO that could have done something interesting with the space. Sadly the cost of property is too high for something like that to happen without significant government funding. But I’m not entirely mad about the new development though because, as Ian mentions, it will include a courtyard that roughly mirrors the open space in front of Berson’s.
Janet
Rosie was the cat. I used to say hello to her on my way home walking up the Main. Now the old loft I lived in at the corner of St-Laurent and Duluth (over the former American Sample Dress Shop) is up for sale too. I’m waiting to see a similar sad photo of that corner. At least Berson seems to have tried to maintain something of the original site (courtyard, residential units, Berson sign and one-story building for the ice cream parlour).
j
I heard an interview with the owner on CBC that the place downstairs from Moishe’s is temporary, and that it’s an issue that food is being made, packaged, and served in the same spot. To sum up, the “original” location may or may not reappear, especially given they have a Mile End outlet.
I’m dreading to see whatever it is (condos?) that they put up in that spot.
dwgs
Read the story folks,
“And good news for ice cream fans: Ripples will return. The little shop opened by Bernett in 1984 will move back to its original location, perhaps as early as next spring.“One hundred per cent,” Berson said. “He’s family. When I started this whole process, I always insisted there be a spot for Richard. I could only imagine what my father would say if I didn’t leave him a spot; my father would return from his grave.””
Michael Black
I always thought it was a lucky coincidence. I think Ripples benefitted from not being wedged in between two stores, and being able to have the bench along the fence made it a mild hangout rather just a destination to get a cone. And it made it very easy to give directions, “look for the monument store”.
None of that changes, except it wssn’t random.
j
I’m so happy to hear that dwgs!
-
Kate
A man was shot in the leg in Park Extension Wednesday evening and hasn’t been forthcoming about who or why.
A little later in the evening, another young man was stabbed behind the Dairy Queen on Lacordaire in St-Léonard, he too remaining tight-lipped about what went down. “We got some footage, but we don’t have any suspects,” in the dialogue-worthy statement from the cop.
Ian
Often being shot in the leg is a warning. Hardly surprising this young gentleman is being less than forthcoming.
Reply