Joseph Facal has a big old sneer at Montreal in Thursday’s Journal.
I read his thing wondering what’s the point. The city is recovering from a pandemic. It’s also gradually recovering from a decades-long neglect of its infrastructure. Whenever I read complaints about construction cones I’m like OK, you’d prefer we let the water mains and sewer system collapse, and the roads above them look like bomb sites? Or do you want them fixed and maintained? Then put up and shut up.
Of course he also hates cyclists.
Update: Shoe dropped for me: And Facal (or a page editor at the Journal) has the nerve to headline his lousy piece with the title of a classic Beau Dommage tune.
Also: Anyone know where Joseph Facal lives? I’d be willing to bet it’s off-island.
Matt G 16:57 on 2021-07-15 Permalink
What insignificant commentary. Like a city should be defined by how “nice” it is and how easy it is park for free…come on!
Kevin 16:58 on 2021-07-15 Permalink
All true Quebecers despise Montreal :/
John B 16:59 on 2021-07-15 Permalink
> OK, you’d prefer we let the water mains and sewer system collapse, and the roads above them look like bomb sites?
This is the choice that has been made for the last generation or two, so maybe the answer is yes!
Blork 17:43 on 2021-07-15 Permalink
I think I’d be more tolerant of road construction and orange cones if I had some sense that it was being done systematically and smartly. Maybe it is, but it sure doesn’t seem like it. The most famous example of doing this badly of course is the do-over on the Main a decade or so again, which was highly disruptive and then had to be done all over again the next year because of a lack of coordination between the parties involved.
That was so ridiculous and so in-our-face that I now look cynically at almost all such construction sites. How often do we see the machines show up and start digging and after two days they all go away, leaving a gaping hole surrounded by cones, and nobody comes back to the site for a week or two or even more?
I have the same cynicism regarding the renovations of escalators in the Metro. Does it really take six months to renovate an escalator? It’s like they have a dozen escalator renovations going on at the same time and only one team of renovators. So they spend a day at one site, then the next day they go to another site, etc. etc., so they only work on any given site one day out of twelve. (I’m not saying it’s like that, but it sure SEEMS like that.)
The same seems to happen with road and infrastructure repairs. Some seem to go quickly; others drag on for weeks or months, most of that time with no actual work happening at the site.
dhomas 19:40 on 2021-07-15 Permalink
I THINK they’re improving on this. In my neighbourhood, they’re redoing some of the streets. Before any street repair crews came, Bell came to put flags over all their underground infrastructure, as did Energir (Gaz Métropolitain) and Hydro-Quebec. Next, the city water people came to test all the city water pipes for lead. This was all done in a seemingly coordinated way, and in order. This week, they blocked the roads and started cutting the concrete around the sewers. Today, they removed the asphalt around the sewers. I spoke to some of the workers who told me that as soon as they finish, they will “raise” the water drains and then remove the rest of the street and sidewalks. We’ll see how the rest plays out, but so far it seems promising. The only thing that I think they could improve on further is coordinating between boroughs. They’re stopping right at the border of my borough and not working with the next borough over.
Kevin 20:59 on 2021-07-15 Permalink
@Blork
One of my brothers repairs elevators and escalators. He’s never worked in the metro (they have their own crew) but he’s spoken with some of them as they worked while he was in adjacent malls.
Most of the crews you see are doing maintenance. Commercial properties sometimes pay extra to do that maintenance overnight, but the STM does not.
As for the maintenance, they do the best they can with what they have, but what they have is old and acquiring spare parts is difficult. That and cleaning the metro escalators is a bitch and a half.
DeWolf 22:02 on 2021-07-15 Permalink
Funny how he complains about bicycles and then raves about Amsterdam, Berlin and Seville (three great cities for bikes) a few paragraphs later.
Uatu 08:56 on 2021-07-16 Permalink
Seriously? You starve Montreal of cash and now you complain about it? Then quote some beau dommage song that doesn’t really reflect current Montreal? Ok boomeur.
Jack 12:09 on 2021-07-16 Permalink
Laval, Facal was a very intelligent immigrant. First his parents sent him to Brebeuf where he palled around with PKP. There he became a Quebec “independantiste”. In doing so an entire network immediately opened to him. His dedication to that cause is reflected in this reading list that according to him “describes” Quebec. An unbelievable level of tunnel vision and ideological pretense.
https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2020/12/24/10livres-pour-comprendre-le-quebec-actuel
JaneyB 18:01 on 2021-07-16 Permalink
re: escalator repair – if acquiring spare parts for old machines is difficult, why can’t they use a machinist to make the parts. That is what they do, after all. Old buildings, old machines…whatever. There are experts that can make what’s needed to fix them. In the case of a large, captive contract like the STM, that shouldn’t be a problem.
qatzelok 19:59 on 2021-07-16 Permalink
A whiny boomer with car-dependence issues.
He should stick to writing incoherent troll-bites for the Gazette comment section.