Public transit ridership is gradually recovering but is not yet at the officially aspired 75% of the pre-pandemic level. Numbers hover around 50% of their levels before March 2020.
This story contains a separate report about a hammer attack on the ticket booth in Côte-Vertu station on Friday night. Workers inside weren’t hurt, but the photo shows extensive damage to the booth glass.
Campaign promises are coming thick and fast.
Denis Coderre would tax parking lots.
Balarama Holness would hold a referendum on the city’s language status.
Valérie Plante is promising the most beautiful downtown in North America. She’s promising free downtown parking in December on evenings and weekends. And she says that, in some locations, construction worksites will be authorized 24 hours a day to get the work done faster.
A toy store in Park Extension has been fined $2,250 for staying open after 5 p.m. on a Saturday. Well, that’s the law.
What would happen if those retail scheduling laws were simply thrown out? Anarchy? Chaos?
Heaven forfend!
This is a silly law that the city of Montreal could override today if it chose to n
No one hates small business like the gov’t of Quebec
No one happily acquiesces to the idiocy of the gov’t of Quebec like Montreal’s municipal gov’t
Two topics in a row with the almost the same dollar amount! What are the chances!
mare, you have won the Montreal City Weblog lifetime loto of $2,237.50!
Public daycares are striking for more pay – which, if $2,225 a month is an affordable rent, they have to.
We in Montreal have been *spoiled* by extreme low rents over the years, and our rental laws are keeping the rent increases low (if landlords follow the law) so people pay only say 15% more rent than 10 years ago. In other provinces they don’t have that stringent rent control and rents have risen much faster.
According to the Canadian Rental Housing Index forty percent of Canadian renters pay more than 30% of their income on rent. Our incomes are generally lower in Quebec, (and taxes higher) but I guess there are relatively few people from Quebec among those 40%. (There are graphs with numbers on that site but they don’t work on this iPad)
mare, you make it sound like we now have to suffer to make up for all those years we’ve been spoiled.
@Kate Hmm, I thought I wrote “spoiled” not *spoiled*. With my bad eyesight it looks almost the same, in the font used in the edit field, less so in the published comment. It wasn’t meant as emphasis.
What I mean is that you can’t have it both ways. Montreal’s economy is booming for various reasons, one of them the influx of the game and tech companies, and it’s also seen as a nice city with a high quality of life and thus attracting more and more people from other countries (France, the US) and provinces. That means that there is a bigger pressure on the housing and rental market and since the newcomers come from places where housing is much more expensive they have no problem paying a high rent (for Montreal standards) because they still think it’s super cheap here.
We never paid the average Canadian “30% of your income” rents but we’re catching up.
Developers putting up big buildings routinely pay compensation to the city to get out of the requirement to include social or “affordable” housing, and this has been going on since the Tremblay administration first made the rule in 2005. This is the first of three articles Le Devoir is doing on the subject.
It’s time we revisit the fines. If they were punitively unafforable for the developers, the social housing would get built as intended.
Seriously. The amount they gave in compensation covered a mere 5% of the units they were supposed to build. Clearly a better deal for them to pay a small amount and walk away.
Silly way to do it. Simply put it as a percentage of the property if the developer pays it at the start of the project based on the value of the apartments being sold. Or twice that amount if they sell the apartments for more than they stipulated, or they don’t pay it and it’s paid at the time of the emission of the occupancy certificate.
Or, make it a perpetual tax on the unit, which might push the value down and hurt sales. That might get the developers’ attention.
There was another incidence of shots fired with no victims overnight in Rivière-des-Prairies. Update: The Journal got some reactions from people whose houses now have bullet marks.
CBC has a piece comparing the promises of Projet, Ensemble and Mouvement.
The remaining areas of natural greenery around the city are vanishing before they can be protected.
The federal government apparently considers $2,225 a month an affordable rent in Montreal, at least for giving out low-interest loans to Quebec developers.
The minimum wage in Quebec is $13.50hr x 40 hrs/week x 4 weeks = $2160 per month – $2225 rent = -$65 a month for all other expenses including such luxuries as food.
I foresee no problems whatsoever.
While I agree that number seems ridiculous, it seems to mean “affordable for average earners,” which in Montreal appears to be a family income of about $88,000. It’s pointless to make references to minimum wage because the metric isn’t intended to be “affordable for the lowest income.”
Bear in mind that this isn’t some formal declaration of affordability, or anything involving government policy beyond the immediate issue at hand. It’s the arbitrary number used by Ottawa for low-interest loans to real estate developers. They qualify for the loans if a certain percentage of the housing they build is below that threshold of affordability for middle-class families. The idea being to ensure new housing isn’t just for the six-figure crowd.
As a side note, years ago the various governments would always appeal to helping the poor at election time. But for the past 20 or so years it’s always the “middle class” that is being appealed to. I’m not sure exactly when or why this switch happened. Maybe it’s because the middle class is the largest group of voters, or maybe it’s because 40 years ago the middle class didn’t need any help. But if you take a drink for every time a US or Canadian says “middle class” during an election campaign you’d never survive until election day.
Minimum wage is not a living wage. I’ve been seeing more and more signs in closed stores “closed due to no staff or understaffing” – good!. People need to stop accepting garbage salaries. If your buisness can’t pay a living wage, you shouldn’t be in buisness.
Blork, I was making a joke, but if you want to get into it…
Median or average incomes are both terrible metrics. A better one would be a percentage distribution of income by income level. If you do that, you’ll see that roughly 80% of Canadians make less than $88k per year. (And roughly 20% make less than minimum wage.) If you’re making $88k in Canada, you’re not an average earner and you’re not middle class. You might not be yacht rich, but by Canadian standards, you’re pretty well off.
So all joking aside, if you’re basing an “affordable rent” on a top 20% income, things are probably not going to work out all that well somewhere down the line.
Sure, but they’re talking about household income, not individual income. I assume it’s assuming middle class families, in which there are typically two earners. Remember that this is specifically about “affordable for middle class families” since “middle class family” seems to be the only thing governments want to talk about.
I’m not defending that metric, I’m just pointing out what it’s used for, which isn’t what people might think it’s for (and it isn’t some kind of social policy metric).
Blork 14:20 on 2021-10-12 Permalink
I don’t even know how to take public transit anymore. My OPUS card has been suspended since April 2020, as I’m on the annual plan plus subsidized from my job. Since nobody was going into the office, they set up a “suspended” status. But what if I just want to do a quick jaunt somewhere? Can I buy a one-shot ticket from a bus driver? (I’m not going to un-suspend my OPUS until I’m ready to start using it daily or almost daily, and that might never happen.)
Kate 14:28 on 2021-10-12 Permalink
Is there any reason you can’t keep a few tickets on the same Opus, or even a different one?
I’ve used tickets for occasional trips since March 2020. Had a couple of weekly passes in the summer when my census work was at its peak and I was covering territory every day.
Kevin 15:29 on 2021-10-12 Permalink
I realized six weeks ago that my Opus card expired in mid-2020…
james lawlor 15:45 on 2021-10-12 Permalink
Kate: The STM has a problem with this issue. Your OPUS à l’année can actually be used with no problem even if it is currently suspended. You can even load a 10-pass onto it. Both these things cause problems for the STM.
If you load a 10-pass onto your OPUS à l’année, the passes will not be deducted when you scan it. Instead the system will think you want to use your monthly pass.
If you use your OPUS à l’année you will get an email from Telematik saying you violated their terms of service since you travelled using a non-valid pass.
You actually need to purchase a seperate OPUS card to load your 10-pass tickets. You can get the tickets transfered from your OPUS à l’année card to a newly purchased card if you go to a service centre.
Source: Personal experience and 1 hour of wasted time to get it sorted out.
Kate 16:05 on 2021-10-12 Permalink
james lawlor, I thought something like that might happen, which is why I wrote “or even a different one” above. Blork knows more than most people about the stern requirements of the Opus card. He has written about them.
Kevin 16:58 on 2021-10-12 Permalink
A couple days ago I read a piece by TVO arguing that Toronto should rethink its transit expansion because of the pandemic. I believe Montreal should do the same.
https://t.co/C0cEV1KnrJ
Blork 17:08 on 2021-10-12 Permalink
Yes, I guess the solution is a separate OPUS card. I’m less COVID-nervous about using the Metro now, so maybe I’ll do that soon. It will make the occasional 5 à 7 more enjoyable, as I won’t have to worry about D&Ding.
Kate 19:09 on 2021-10-12 Permalink
You know, it would be nice if they had Opus cards in different colours. Then you could remember which card had which fares on it. But that would involve an explicit admission that the fare system has been so complicated that people might need to do this.
JP 19:11 on 2021-10-12 Permalink
So true. I currently have 2 valid Opus cards and a couple of expired ones laying around. It’s so annoying.not knowing what’s what and having to grab everything.
j2 19:18 on 2021-10-12 Permalink
Woah! No need to slander the RPGs! You can still game high or drunk – just as long as you don’t get behind the wheel.
jeather 20:21 on 2021-10-12 Permalink
I usually write the expiration date on mine If I had two for one of those reasons I would mark them with nail polish or something to distinguish them.
Blork 22:02 on 2021-10-12 Permalink
Or just use a Sharpie and put a piece of scotch tape over it so it doesn’t rub off.
dhomas 05:51 on 2021-10-13 Permalink
I use this app to see which Opus is which:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=card.opus
It also tells me how many tickets I have left.
denpanosekai 08:51 on 2021-10-13 Permalink
WOW thanks Dhomas!!!
Kate 09:17 on 2021-10-13 Permalink
dhomas, that doesn’t need any special hardware?
Azrhey 09:31 on 2021-10-13 Permalink
I use that app too. @kate it uses the NFC thingamie used to for paying with your phone so if your phone is apple/google pay capable your good to go.
mare 09:43 on 2021-10-13 Permalink
@AZpzrhey I think it works with any Android phone that can read NFC cards.
@Kate
A version for iOS is probably possible, depending on what NFC tags are used in the OPUS card software. “Core NFC doesn’t support payment-related Application IDs.” I stopped doing programming and don’t have current enough hardware (neither Mac nor an NFC capable iPhone) nor a Developer account anymore to make one. Apple will probably also not let it on their store if it’s not sanctioned by OPUS.
mare 09:52 on 2021-10-13 Permalink
There are several iOS apps that read raw NFC data, but the OPUS info is probably encoded, so that won’t help.
dhomas 10:08 on 2021-10-13 Permalink
Any Android phone that has NFC can use the app. If you’re unsure if your phone has that, basically any phone that mentions payment capabilities like Google Pay or Samsung Pay is able to use this app. They all is the same underlying technology.
Kate 10:25 on 2021-10-13 Permalink
mare was right, it isn’t on the Apple app store.
dhomas 11:47 on 2021-10-13 Permalink
It’s not all too surprising. Apple was quite slow to adopt NFC, and their M.O. is to mostly lock stuff down so you can mostly only use their ecosystem. That said, I have no iDevices, so I could not confirm if there was any such app for iPhone.
thomas 16:31 on 2021-10-13 Permalink
The iOS app Recharge OPUS, is currently under beta testing allowing one to refill a new version of OPUS cards. Note that the app can still read the expiry of current non-refillable OPUS cards.
dhomas 08:24 on 2021-10-14 Permalink
@thomas do you know where you can sign up for the beta testing for Recharge Opus? I know some people who might be interested.