Mayor Plante is demanding Ottawa act on the number of illegal handguns in circulation, following the death of 15-year-old Meriem Boundaoui on the weekend.
Updates from February, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
When I just looked at Twitter, I saw CTV reported 32 cases of Covid variants have been found in Montreal. La Presse was listing 22, on Twitter, but when I clicked on it, it was reporting 44 cases including one in a school.
Update: An Aaron Derfel Twitter thread on this topic.
steph
How many variants in those 32 cases? UK-Covid. S-A-Covid. Brazil-Covid.
nau
As of last night, they were saying that no cases of the Brazilian variant of concern had been identified in Quebec. They did mention one case of a Californian variant that no one is sure whether it should be considered a variant of concern or not. La Presse only says that of the 44, most are the British variant of concern.
JaneyB
I don’t understand how those variants are getting in. We have the hotel quarantine rules for border crossers now. Apparently, we need ankle bracelets to go with the hotel rules. Legault is making a big mistake opening right into the British variant – on the scale of last year’s unlucky Spring Break. Things have been crap for months now; will another 6 weeks of crappiness hurt that much – compared to a whole new pandemic of this variant? Very frustrating.
GC
Maybe they got here before the hotel rule went into effect? Also, remember that the hotel rule doesn’t apply to land border crossings. Plus, there were that info that only 1/4 of land-crossers had to quarantine, because the other 75–OK 74%–were considered “essential” travel.
Sounds to me like there are a lot of ways for variants to get in.
Mark Côté
The hotel rule isn’t even in effect until February 22.
GC
Thanks, Mark. I wasn’t sure if it had even taken effect yet.
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Kate
The federal government is promising billions of dollars to cities for public transit. But after reading the item below about the REM, can Montreal even accept and use this money? Quebec holds complete sway over transit here. The city has no jurisdiction, if I understand the situation correctly.
Taylor Noakes
This demonstrates the disconnect between Fed policy and muni reality.
My reading of the REM documents and Prov gov’t limitations on infrastructure construction is that Montreal could maybe use this money to build the Pie-IX SRB or buy new buses for existing lines, or maybe throw the money back to the province to complete the Blue Line.
It could not, AFAIK, use this money to buy new buses to run parallel to the REM, unless it could demonstrate that the REM was over-saturated and needed relief. It could maybe be used to build Metro tunnels to places not currently served by the REM, but only if the city got the province’s permission first.
I think Montreal could accept it and renovate Metro stations or hire more transit employees, but not much else.
Important point: Montreal is legally prohibited from developing transit infrastructure by itself. So when Coderre or Plante or whoever talks about building a REM to here or a Metro to there, the caveat is that they absolutely must get provincial permission first.
Even if we had $10 billion of our own money lying around, we are prohibited from building the Pink Line.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Montreal needs to be ‘sovereign’ from Quebec, at least in terms of being able to do what’s best for the people who actually live here.
steph
We are a distinct population and it’s clear that the rest of Quebec abhors our way of life. IF ONLY they understood what it was like to be a minority group.
Kevin
The regions want nothing from Montreal except its money.
ant6n
Montreal could push the REM2, like Coderre did the REM1, and the federal money could be used for that. After all, it´s not what´s getting built, and what the repercussions are down the line, but that something gets built at all… right?
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Kate
The investigation called into the wrongful arrest of Mamadi Camara is being called not transparent by his lawyer, because it will take place behind closed doors.
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Kate
Not surprisingly, the lockdown last March and April cut engine emissions and reduced air pollution here and in other Canadian cities, but it was a short‑lived improvement, as things got back to “normal” soon after the lockdown lifted.
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Kate
“Montreal’s getting transit solutions to problems that don’t really exist, dreamt up by people who may not live here and likely haven’t used public transit in decades.” Taylor Noakes takes apart the REM for CultMTL, calling out the flaws in the planning (what planning? it was wished on the city without any discussion) and the evolving plans, e.g. omitting the airport. Bluntly, he calls the thing a white elephant.
The latest “news” about the REM is that it will never go to Chambly or St-Jean-sur-Richelieu.
Faiz Imam
Not to rehash any of the old debates, but the news that rem will never go to Chambly or st Jean is excellent.
Those ideas were baseless cynical politicking by opertunistic politicians, and under no realistic scenario would it make sense to have a rapid transit rail line go there.
The fact that they publicly rejected the idea means the people in charge have the right basic planning principles, dont just operate on politics.
On the other hand, such a line wouldn’t make any money either, perhaps that’s enough reason.
Em
I remain cautiously optimistic about the REM. I hate that it’s been built to serve developers, and I question some of the stations. But I also, cynically, think that if we wait for a purely public project we’ll be waiting another 30 years.
What we really need (and have needed for a long time) is a metro expansion, but I’m convinced that this province will never, ever be able to get it done. But I do think we need more rapid transit, and it needs to be built above-ground, and now is better than in five years from now. And hopefully it will lead to more transit-oriented development around the stations instead of endless sprawl.
Maybe.
Kate
Em, if the city has been unable to develop better transit, it’s because Quebec passed a law forbidding it to do so.
I wish someone would write a piece comparing Montreal’s legal situation vis-à-vis Quebec with other cities’ positions in their provinces, states or countries. It always seems to me this city is treated like an idiot child – not given the independence that most large cities have to make decisions about key matters like housing or transit. But I have not lived in other cities, and that level of news doesn’t usually reach international news sources.
Uatu
Great read, Taylor! I’m not crazy about how the last mile has been glossed over. I live in a tod but now I have to ride a bus to a highly congested train station to wait for a train to wait for a Metro. How is this an improvement. I was hoping I could just take the train to the airport but f-that if it involves switching lines and dragging my luggage around busy train stations. And I feel sorry for the shift workers who have to waste time waiting in nearly empty train stations on a late night and if I bought a condo in the new fancy devs like the Solar I’d probably end up using the car anyways since I could afford to. Who’s this thing for, again?
Blork
Could someone please explain the following logic, which I see repeatedly whenever people talk about suburbs and exurbs?
“People who live in (exurb) shouldn’t drive to work in the city, they should use public transit.”
“Public transit shouldn’t be extended to (exurb).”
Those aren’t separate arguments from opposing sides; this is what I hear coming from people on the same side of the argument.
ant6n
People shouldn`t live in exurbs. People should not commute from exurbs into the city.
People who live in suburbs should take public transit, but at the same time suburbs should become more urban.
Public transit should not go to exurbs. Public transit may go to suburbs, but should not be built primarily to serve suburbs. Rather, public transit should primarily focus on the city and inner suburbs, and also connect to suburbs as a secondary objective to encourage densification and sustainable mobility.
When connecting to suburbs, public transit should focus on areas and along corridors that can urbanize more, highway-centric public transit is anti-urban.
Blork
“People shouldn`t live in exurbs.”
See, that is just ridiculous. Some of these exurbs have been in existence for centuries. Entire family histories exist in these places, and many people prefer smaller towns to large cities. Saying “People shouldn`t live in exurbs” sounds like something right out of Chairman Mao or Stalin, FFS.
As for “People should not commute from exurbs into the city,” tell that to the millions of people around the world who commute into cities by rail every day. Tell them that their choice is to be unemployed or to pack up their families and erase their histories so they can live crammed into overpriced apartments where they will be miserable. And why? Because we seem to have a generation of people who don’t like to share and who are extremely judgemental towards people who don’t live the way they do.
European and Asian cities with extensive rail systems used to be the envy of progressive-minded people in North America. Apparently not anymore! Nope. If you don’t live in a railroad flat on the Plateau or Mile-end then you are clearly a piece of shit and should be cancelled. Right.
qatzelok
Living in Exurbs means driving for hours and hours each day. It means being part of no community whatsoever. It means destroying thousands of hectares of wetlands and forests.
And if our provincial government keeps creating these car-addicting, nature-destroying, non-places, it’s because it has its dirty hands in the car industry.
Look at our current Transport Minister Bonnardel’s bio on Wiki:
” Il se lance en affaires dans les années 1990, exploitant différents commerces reliés à l’automobile dans la région de Granby.”
Private interests getting inside government leads to corruption like this.
Blork
I don’t usually reply to qatzelok, but for the sake of other people interested in this discussion:
Chambly has been around since the 17th century.
St-Jean-sur-Richelieu has also been around since the 17th century, and ironically was once considered a transportation hub for both rail and water transport.
Granby has been around since at least 1800.
These “non-places” with “no community whatsoever” have long-standing communities going back generations. They also support many local businesses and industries, including agriculture — as in, the food that is eaten by your royal highnesses on the Plateau and Mile-end.
Most of the people who live in those places also work in or around those places. They aren’t just bedroom communities for Montreal. But some do come into the city daily, and I’d rather see them do it by rail than by car.
walkerp
I don’t quite know what you are arguing about, but maybe it is helpful to distinguish between these towns in older/eastern Canada which were independent towns before being swallowed up by the megalopolis and those true exurbs, built in dystopic tracts with walls and names like “Foothills Estates” that surround Calgary and other western cities.
Blork
Well, this started with references to Chambly and St-Jean-sur-Richelieu and the REM, but my main complaint is the prejudicial thinking that there is only one legitimate way to be a citizen, and that’s to be packed into a rental apartment in a dense part of Montreal.
Not everyone wants that.
Those places you describe around Calgary are pretty grim, particularly buy the standards of typically urban people. But what are their options? I know people who live in those Calgary exurbs. They want a house with a yard where their kids can play. They don’t want to live packed into crowded apartments. So what choice do they have?
walkerp
While I have little sympathy for anybody who lives in Calgary, I recognize that the problems are structural and political, not something that individuals have much power over beyond voting.
Tim S.
I’ve said it before, but I don’t see why we can’t build more places like St Lambert. It has a main street, with a few high-rises (mostly old-age homes at the moment, but could be normal apartments). Away from the main street are a few 3-4 story apartment buildings, and a few streets beyond that there are fairly densely-packed single family homes. There’s a rail station off the main street with potentially quick and easy access to downtown. It’s great. I lived in Philadelphia for a while, and there are plenty of similar towns there off of commuter rail lines. They’re really nice, and like St Lambert, kind of expensive, because people want to live there. If you look at a map they might be exurbs, but they combine the virtues of walkability, single-home ownership, and easy, cleanish access to the central city. We don’t have to be forced into a false dilemma between the Plateau and Brossard.
Kate
Tim S., it’s a good question, but it’s also like “why can’t we replicate main streets like Wellington, Masson or Mont-Royal any more?” and the answer is: They’re not profitable for developers, so they won’t be replicated. What we get instead is the Dix30 alongside purely residential bedroom developments, because the assumption is everyone has a car and does 100% of their errands with it.
Taylor Noakes
Thanks for posting Kate!
This whole thing about how ‘there’s been no public transit development in the past 50 years or 30 years (I’ve seen both numbers thrown around a lot) strikes me as odd.
Since the original Metro was built in the mid-1960s, it’s been extended several times over, the most recent of which was in the late-oughts. A five-line commuter rail service was opened in the mid-1990s and another line was added about a decade ago. New trains, Metro cars and buses have been purchased several times over. Metro stations have been renovated and new services were installed, like cell phone service and train/metro/bus tracking equipment. An SRB line has come and gone and is back on the drawing table. Bixi was introduced. A ferry has been trialed. New airport shuttles. Bike lanes. Reserved bus lanes. express bus service. It goes on like this. There have been many incremental improvements and expansions of public transit over the past 50 or 30 years.
Ironically, the original project that has since become the metric to which we all refer was 100% funded by the taxpayers of Montreal.
Fun fact: Montreal began building the Metro before it was awarded Expo 67. Neither the Fed nor the gov’t of Quebec contributed to the Metro, AFAIK.
Remarkable too that the Metro cars were built by a local supplier that had no prior experience building Metro cars… and it was still a steal.
DeWolf
It’s true there has been piecemeal improvements to transit over the past 30 years, but what we need is a wholesale investment in regional transit similar to what Paris is doing right now. Greater Montreal has grown by a million people since 2000 and public transit has absolutely not kept up.
I agree with your comment higher up that Montreal needs more autonomy from Quebec, but we also need more investment in regional planning. Montreal is an urban area of 4.5 million people, not just a city of 2 million. We need to deal with the fact that 1/2 of our population lives off-island in cities with mediocre (or sometimes non-existent) public transit.
If transit in Montreal had actually kept up with the region’s population growth, we’d have the Pink Line, a blue line that stretched from NDG to Anjou, modern tramways or true BRTs serving the South Shore, Laval, the West Island and North Shore, twice as many commuter lines (with frequent all-day service) and regional rail serving places like Joliette, Drummondville, Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, St-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Granby. That’s what’s needed to keep people out of their cars and make sure regional growth is higher density and oriented around transit. But that hasn’t happened. The CAQ’s solution is the REM, but ultimately that’s just another piecemeal answer to a very big problem.
MarcG
I just looked at the train service for the St-Lambert line and it’s garbage – no service on weekends. I know there are busses that will take you to Longueuil metro but it kind of takes a bite out of “there’s a rail station off the main street with potentially quick and easy access to downtown”.
steph
Haven’t reasonable calculations shown that the REM through the TMR tunnel will be running at capacity as soon as it opens. What capacity is expected for the south shore to DIX30? ALL those rush hour buses that took the Champlain Bridge will be forced to dump their passengers onto the REM.
Tim
How much is the fare for the REM? Or is that still a secret?
Taylor Noakes
@MarcG – this is a key issue. REM construction interrupted service across all lines, and for such a long time, that it will take a while to get back up to the high levels of use experienced ca. 2008-2014 No one’s talking about the passenger deficit created by REM construction
@steph – I believe so… three different lines are now being crammed into the tunnel, apparently leaving every 5 minutes or less, and this isn’t counting the fact that the DM line was generally most crowded between Gare Centrale and Bois-Franc. And now there’s also the Mascouche passengers who will be getting on to the same line as well.
@DeWolf – total agreement, but I think Montreal needs to be leading on that front, not the province. I think the agglomeration council is best suited to address these issues, but there’s no way Quebec will ever devolve that level of control to Metro Montreal, at least not unless the city took a strong leadership position and convinced the communities to jump on board. Even then…
Orr
>>>St-Jean-sur-Richelieu has also been around since the 17th century, and ironically was once considered a transportation hub for both rail and water transport.
In fact St-Jean-sur-Richelieu is still waiting for the long-promised canal from Laprairie to be built.
Em
@taylor noakes — Just out of curiosity, do you think it would be better not to build the REM at all? What other concrete alternative would there have been, within the limitations that currently exist?
I don’t know enough about it, but part of me thinks any new rapid transit is better than what happened with the Blue line. I don’t think buses are much of an alternative to any other form of transit unless they’re 10 minutes max. But I know much less about it than you do.
DeWolf
@Tim – the ARTM is introducing a new fare structure this summer that will mean the entire island of Montreal will be a single zone with the same fare whether you are taking the metro, the REM, the bus or the train. The proposed monthly fare will be $90 for Zone 1, $144 for Zone 2 (Laval/Longueuil). I don’t think they have announced any details about single cash fares.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/artm-new-public-transit-fares-system-1.5710892
PO
I’m late to the party, but I want to give a shout-out to Blork for putting into words what I’ve been wanting to express for a long time. It’s refreshing to see push-back against the well-worded sass that’s thrown out to anyone who doesn’t strictly subscribe to the “4-1/2 in the Plateau” lifestyle and props it up as the only redeemable existence allowed in their worldview. I don’t want this to be seen as an ad-hominem, but the constant stylings of ant6n and qatzelok and others are so divorced from reality that it’s almost become a joke to be expected in every transit-related thread on this site.
ant6n
Huh. So wait, I tried to help Blork understand the supposed contradiction between encouraging suburbanites to travel by transit, and discouraging building transit to the exurbs (Btw, independent towns outside Montreal without commuter connections are not exurbs). I say that we shouldn´t encourage _exurban_ sprawl through transit construction while neglecting the city and inner suburbs, and then I get accused of being authoritarian and communist? What if I had suggested we should also discourage _suburban_ sprawl? Would I then be Hitler?
If anybody ever dares to suggest we should stop doing stupid transportation policy (like only investing in rail in suburbs and exurbs), you respond with “but you communist can´t make me move away from my suburban home”. That´s not disconnected from reality (as you guys claim I am), but rather is disconnected from English as a means of communication.
I have said nothing about any “plateau lifestyles”. Nothing that that only certain existences are “allowed”. That`s all a bunch of strawmen. It seems you´re the ones eager to hate on somebody who has a life style different from yours.
But this is also irrelevant. I am talking about transportation policy, and how it should be used to encourage and discourage certain developments. I`m not talking about personal life choices. You guys are completely out of line.
PO
@ant6n: I ought to have primed that with a disclaimer. I think you’re an absolute genius when it comes to anything transit related. You’ve proven yourself time and time again as extremely knowledgeable. If it was up to me, I’d put you in charge of all of Montreal & Quebec’s transit projects. Absolute expert and I do mean that.
Also, parallels to communism were not from me, so I’m dismissing that element. I’m too stupid to be qualified to make statements like that, so I don’t. That being said, I draw the at “People shouldn`t live in exurbs. People should not commute from exurbs into the city” as far as whether someone is speaking rationally or speaking out of contempt. If that’s not an attack on personal life choices, then it was worded improperly from the start. But it’s not the first time I’ve seen this sentiment, be it from you or others.
It’s a fine line. You don’t think I wish we could improve density everywhere? You don’t think I wish I could buy a place to live in a dense and livable neighborhood? For some of us, that’s a pipe dream. And I’ll be damned if the common rhetoric from a lot of people here doesn’t usually put the blame on the apparent unsophisticated rubes who are priced out of purchasing anywhere on the island.
If transit policy can drive the cost of housing down, then let’s make it happen. If it can be used to densify existing areas and spur new dense development, then let’s make it happen. But if all a person can afford is a home in an ‘exurb’, then I’m not interested in hearing anyone saying their home “shouldn’t” exist and that they “shouldn’t” commute into wherever it is they work.
Blork
We’re on page 2 now, so no one is reading, but I’ll add this anyway.
Like @PO, I respect your transportation policy knowledge, @ant6n. In this particular case we were specifically talking about Chambly and St-Jean-sur-Richelieu when the “people shouldn’t live in exurbs” line showed up. So even if those towns aren’t technically exurbs, your statement was (even if indirectly) applying to them.
As for the rest of my rant, that was directed at the many people who dismiss non-urban dwellers, not you specifically. The level of ignorance about living outside of the city center is astounding. Many people here seem to think that 100% of people who live off-island drive huge SUVs into the city every day, and that is so far from reality that it’s mind boggling.
Transit policy and urbanization policy are complicated, and no matter which choices are made there will be winners and losers. What I lose patience with is when people (not ant6n specifically; all y’all!) treat it as black-and-white and simple, that if everyone just lived on the goddamn Plateau all the problems in the world would go away. I’m exaggerating of course, but sometimes the density rhetoric seems to be at that level.
So shoot those trains out to Chamby and all, because (if you ask me) that kind of thing will actually reduce exurb development because many people would rather live in a nice, well established town that’s a bit farther out than a soulless exurb in the middle.
ant6n
@PO, Blork
Blork asked for “the logic” behind demands that he deemed a contradictory. So I gave “the logic” behind asking for a certain kind of transportation policy. It could also be called the goals. (Note that Blork brought up the term “exurb”) One goal of a sustainable transportation policy could be that people don´t live in exurbs – that is not unreasonable as a policy goal of building transportation infrastructure. It´s not an attack on people, but on particular kind of development pattern. By definition, exurbs are low density, far off sprawl, disconnected from the continuously developed area of the city. It can not be fixed as far as sustainable transportation or density is concerned, only discouraged to grow in the first place.This, btw, is different from suburbs: here, both sustainable transpotation (i.e. taking transit) and some degree of densification is at least plausible. When I outlined a couple of goals, I tried to show that these things are not actually simple, that there are some trade offs, but also that there is a difference between suburbs and exurbs, and that one could perhaps draw a set of lines to make it clearer where the levers for sustainable transportation policies are:
making the transportation itself more sustainable, but also encouraging certain development patterns, and discouraging others. This of course is not easy. For example, transit to some suburbs may reduce the car usage by converting mode share to transit, but on the other hand may induce further-off development and thus induce traffic that will more than undo the gains. This would be unfortunate, especially in Montreal where there so many possible places for infill development.
As far as small town living is concerned … I think there´s nothing wrong with living in small towns. What I find problematic is when more and more people move to those places in order to commute to Montreal. That’s not just a detriment to Montreal as the city, and the environment, but also to these towns as well – as bedroom communities, they lose they small town character, their vitality, and are in danger of becoming exurbs. Extending a metro line into a small town may encourage this kind of evolution (i.e. be a net negative), while also be an inefficient use of transit spending in general.
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Kate
The city’s first post-Covid clinic is opening Friday to see patients coping with lingering symptoms after catching the virus.
Ephraim
And with as little as we know about the long term effects, might be a great place to work… there are a lot of unknown unknowns when it comes to COVID. Just in the known knowns, some people are expected to take up to a decade to fully recover.
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