Metro ticket agents are to stop accepting cash as of February. The ticket machines will still accept cash, but aren’t the machines limited to accepting an amount of money lower than the cost of a monthly pass?
Updates from December, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
An open letter describes efforts being made to save Chinatown.
carswell
Yeah, they’re going to build bridges all right. Having hemmed in Chinatown to the south with the Ville Marie expressway and convention centre, to the east with the hospital centre complex to the west with fancy condos and the *third* HEC campus, they’re now going to build a big REM de l’Est bridge down René-Lévesque north of the quartier. RL is already something of a barrier. The REM will only make it worse. Despite all the public hand-wringing, the people in power don’t give a damn about the neighbouhood as anything more than a tract waiting to be turned into a slightly quainter Griffintown.
Ian
Let’s not forget the razing of entire block for Complexe Guy-Favreau and the zoning laws being changed to prevent the business area from moving east. One might almost think the powers that be didn’t want there to be a Chinatown anymore, stretching back many decades…
There’s a reason the Chinese community is now largely concentrated in Brossard. Montreal’s loss.
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Kate
QMI’s Michael Nguyen reports on the appearance of Ali Ngarukiye in court Monday. Ngarukiye is facing charges stemming from allegedly attacking and disarming a policeman in Park Ex last winter, and then to killing his cellmate. He had been deemed fit for trial but the judge has asked for another assessment.
walkerp
Cops found the perfect fall guy.
Still waiting for a detailed narrative of the attack, what actually went down.
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Kate
If the bit of snow we had overnight into Monday is enough to close some schools, those kids might as well assume they’re spending winter at home.
Adding: Notes on the first snow clearance of the season.
dwgs
Usually those schools where a lot of kids come by bus are the first to pull the plug. In the end the freezing rain doesn’t seem to be too bad but when you have to make a decision at 5 a.m. about the odds of a school bus sliding off the road…
walkerp
Very clickbaitey that article. No schools were closed in the CSDM, which I believe is the biggest, no?
mare
Our borough has acquired new sidewalk cleaners, with integrated salt and grit dispensers. Small problem though: they’re massive and wider than the sidewalk. So this morning they had to choose between destroying my wooden plant bed border (inset 20 cm from the sidewalk) and a parked bike. They chose my plant bed, which is okay, it can be made again for $50 and a couple of hours.
But I foresee issues in the future.Bert
Don’t cities have a right-of-way on the first few feet of a property? It’s what lets them install fire hydrants, traffic signals and the like. For some reason I have 5 feet in mind.
Kevin
@mare
Which borough?
@Bert
Yeah, it’s a catchment, but people frequently put stuff there. My property has very large stones about 30 cm back from the sidewalk. Last time they worked there, I checked with crews if they needed to be moved, and they were fine.mare
@Kevin Petite-Patrie, between Christophe-Coulomb & Papineau, and Beaubien & Bellechasse.
@Bert These are not on private yards, but in the ‘carrés d’arbres’, between the street and the sidewalk, which the borough heavily promoted to be turned into flower or vegetable gardens. In order to keep dogs out and signal people that this is not the fastest way between their car and the sidewalk, most people put a border between the concrete and the soil. The borough said that was fine as long as you indicated it with stakes. A good idea anyway, since snow cleaning crews have removed a lot of soil in the past. Mine are not rectangular and actually inset 20 cm from the concrete, but it was not enough.
I’ve warned the owner of the bike and she moved it to her balcony, and I’ve put in another stake halfway between the corners. Just to prevent them to scoop up the many bags of soil and compost we’ve added over the years.
Kate
walkerp: Some Anglo media (Global and the Gazette do it, but to some extent they all do) tend to focus more on the West Island and other western suburbs than central Montreal. Hence the mention of the school commissions in question.
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Kate
La Presse talked to a few people who have bought guns because they feel threatened, although I wish the journalist had asked the woman who’s afraid of getting hit by a stray bullet how she thinks it would protect her to have a handgun at home.
carswell
Reposting since the original posts in an only somewhat related thread have been pushed off page 1 of MCW: “[…] The first paragraph already tips you off that the headline’s misleading: it’s a “minority” of individuals, none of whom are named, in northeast Montreal. I expect this kind of alarmism from PKP media but reporting like this has me beginning to to suspect that at least some at La Presse have bought into the CAQiste Montreal-is-evil myth. […] Let’s also note that La Presse’s article, which will certainly encourage some to look into arming themselves, comes on the anniversary of the Polytechnique shootings. Such class and sensitivity.”
The first-paragraph reference to “jeunes professionnels et mères de famille” makes getting a gun sound like something reasonable, non-violent people might want to consider.
david476
Keeping a pistol in your home for protection isn’t particularly unreasonable or indicative of a violent nature, it’s just not particularly necessary for the vast majority of Montrealers.
Carrying a pistol on your person throughout the day, however . . .
dhomas
Having a pistol in your home puts you at greater risk of being harmed by someone in your household than a random stranger harming you with a handgun ever would.
david772
^ I guess that says more about you and the people in your household than it does about the average person?
Kate
david772, that’s uncalled for. dhomas is right, I’ve seen stats from the United States. Snarky attacks on other participants is unwelcome here.
david844
Not an “attack” at all, Kate: if I owned a pistol, nobody in my household would use it against anyone else, I can assure you of that, and I’m curious about stats in Quebec and Canada – I’ve never even heard of a person getting shot with a gun in the home, let alone killed by one.
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Kate
As always on December 6, there are tributes planned and reflections on how the tragedy still has an influence even on people who were not yet born at the time. A sociology professor is studying the media response to the 1989 massacre and the evolution of attitudes since that time.
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Kate
Radio-Canada’s Marie-Eve Maheu accompanied the mental health emergency squad for three days and encapsulates the experience in a 17‑minute video.
Spi 22:28 on 2021-12-06 Permalink
I give it 3 months before they reverse this decision. There are so many new immigrants/elderly etc that can easily sign with their fingers how many tickets they need and know how much it cost and hand over cash, now you’re going to ask them to navigate machines they likely can’t read and will require the teller to do for them.
carswell 22:39 on 2021-12-06 Permalink
This should be illegal. Definitely anti poor people. Not to mention anti bank haters.
mare 23:06 on 2021-12-06 Permalink
There are many other places, pharmacies for instance, where you can buy an Opus card or have it recharged with tickets and passes. By people who treat you, in general, nicer than the ticket booth attendants.
I’m surprised however, because the last time I used them, which is obviously a long time ago, they accepted ONLY cash, and no cards.
@Kate, from the article: “Une modification aux distributrices automatiques de titres permettra l’achat en argent comptant du titre mensuel, précise-t-on par exemple.”
Kate 23:15 on 2021-12-06 Permalink
Thank you, mare. Also, “les agents de station seront disponibles pour aider les clients qui auraient de la difficulté à les utiliser” – which probably means that they’ll actually have to come out of their booths more often to help with the machines. All this means is that the STM is trying to limit the complications of collecting and sorting change and bills.
JP 00:25 on 2021-12-07 Permalink
I’ve had moments where I couldn’t remember my pin, and I’m fairly young. That’s why I always carry some emergency cash. This is setting a bad precedent.
carswell 09:51 on 2021-12-07 Permalink
Elementary and middle school kids don’t have bank cards these days, do they? What are the implications for them?
Also, won’t this push even more riders to use the ticket machines? At “my” station, Université de Montréal, there’s only one machine. From about the 28th of each month to the 2nd or 3rd of the following month, the queue can be impossible (I once bailed after standing in line 25 minutes). Lately, about every third time I try to buy a monthly pass, it simply doesn’t work; I’ve gotten in the habit of always having a few full-fare tickets on my card so I can travel to somewhere with a functioning machine. Since the neighbourhood is something of a commercial desert (only one store, a dep, on Édouard-Montpetit between Vincent-d’Indy and Côte-des-Neiges), the closest merchant that can reload cards is at least a 15-minute walk away.
Spi 10:48 on 2021-12-07 Permalink
@carswell brings up a good point, since the ticket counters will no longer be accepting cash they presumably won’t be equipped to do so (have change to give back) and the automated ticketing machines (like all other payment machines) are programmed to not accept cash payment when they run out of change. It’s only a matter of time until you end up in a situation where the machine is out of coins or small denomination bills and the ticket agent can’t help you because they have no cash to return to you. Someone who only has cash would then be shit out of luck.
This has the potential of being very stupid very quickly, I change my mind I give it 2 months instead of 3.