The awards from the Quebec order of architects are out, many of them in Montreal. Guess what feature the Catégorie Résidentiel unifamilial en milieu urbain has.
Updates from April, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Religious schools are still being subsidized by Quebec: 50 of the 165 private schools it funds are explicitly religious, and of those, 27 are Roman Catholic.
Chris
About 2/3 of Quebecers self-identify as Catholic, though probably less for the young, so that fraction seems right.
Meezly
Thanks for posting this Kate. At least the article is highlighting the contradiction between Bill 21 and the funding of religious schools, even though the Ministry of Ed. does not.
jeather
If you’re going to subsidize private schools, I don’t think they need to be secular. The question of whether private schools should be subsidized is different, but given that they are, I don’t think some of them being religious is necessarily an issue.
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Kate
Metro looked into the fears and the reality of the REV bicycle paths on St‑Denis and Bellechasse.
Blork
I regret that I haven’t had the opportunity to ride my bike on the REV yet. (Life goals 2022!) I certainly would have loved having it there when I lived in that area years ago.
Regarding parking (which is the only thing most people talk about), I am not what you’d call a representative sample, but I have parked on St-Denis maybe 10 times since the REV came in and I have never found it to be any more difficult than before the REV. Mind you, most of the time it’s mid- to late-afternoon on a Saturday or Sunday when I’m doing this, but a few times it’s been mid-day mid-week. With maybe one exception, I’ve always been pretty happy with how quickly I found a spot.
My only concern is that in some cases it’s really not clear if that space you’re eyeing is legit or not. Especially when close to the mid-block crossings (which I LOVE as a pedestrian), the signage is classic “fog of Montreal” design, meaning the info is either totally absent or it can be interpreted four different ways.
mare
I might be in a minority but I don’t like the St-Denis REV. It’s absolutely not a réseau express vélo, it’s super slow. I hate that I have to stop every two blocks and wait a very long time for a red light. At many intersections the green light for cyclists is only 30 seconds and then there’s more than 2 minutes of red.
thomas
Last summer I was surprised to see so many families with kids biking along the REV. Isn’t this the type of clientele businesses would like to attract? At least, the ice cream shops must be happy.
John B
I’m with mare on there being nothing express about the REV. It seems like wherever the city puts in improvements for cycling they come with cycling traffic lights that give very little time to cyclists but oblige us to stop when it might otherwise be safe to go.
The REV should let cyclists get to their location quickly, not slow us down so our bikes become slow like cars, but more dangerous and with worse air conditioning.
Joey
Hard to imagine an actual reseau “express” in the city, tbh, especially on St-Denis. The appeal of the St-Denis bike path is its size (nice wide uniditectional lanes) and its safety (distinct cycle lights that don’t conflict with turning cars, etc.). Compare with the De Maisonneuve bike path, which is narrower, bidirectional and for decades didn’t have bike lights, meaning cyclists had to contend with pedestrians, cars turning left and bikes coming in the opposite direction.
The idea of a network of fast lanes for bikes has a lot of appeal, but I can’t imagine it being actually implemented. Seems PM’s objective is to make all forms of commuting safe for the commuter and pedestrians, as well as independent of cars. In practice that means slowing traffic down all kinds of vehicle traffic, including bikes.
As for parking around St-Denis, it was a challenge before and it’s a challenge now. BFD.
Meezly
Agree with Joey. “Express” is a bit of a misnomer, maybe it should’ve been called the “Reseau efficace velo” instead, but doesn’t sound as good.
We biked it with our 8 yo last summer. We started from Laurier and biked almost all the way to Ahuntsic, The REV made it so easy. And yes, we stopped for ice cream on Sauve!
DeWolf
The REV’s name is a misnomer only if you’re the kind of cyclist who rides 30km/h on an expensive lightweight bike. The express part has more to do with directness: long, straight routes along major streets. Even with all the traffic lights, going from the Latin Quartier to Villeray along the REV is still way faster than the old zig-zag bike routes that took you along Cherrier, past Lafontaine Park, up to and around Laurier Park, then the bumpy, narrow path on Boyer. For short trips within the Plateau, the REV is often slower than taking side streets, but as soon as you need to cross the CPR tracks, it saves a ton of time versus the old routes.
That said, the traffic lights are definitely problematic. Most times I’m on St-Denis, I seem to hit red lights at every intersection, which is annoying. But worse than that is the inconsistency between intersections. Some have solid green arrows to prevent drivers from turning right when cyclists have priority, which the drivers often ignore. Others have red arrows to prevent right turns, which work better, but isn’t idiot-proof because some drivers get confused (if they aren’t deliberately running the red). And smaller intersections like St-Denis/Gilford or St-Denis/St-Grégoire have no bike lights at all, and many drivers don’t check their mirrors before making a right turn, so you need to be extra cautious. I remember hearing that the lights are provisional and the city will gradually make adjustments, but you know how long these things take.
On the whole, having such a long, direct cycling route through the entire central part of the city makes such a huge difference in mobility. Although I enjoy zig-zagging through residential streets, sometimes I just want to go from A to B as efficiently as possible.
Joey
@DeWold, would you agree that the REV St-Denis is slower than just riding down St-Denis under its old configuration (safety be damned)?
CE
I use the REV almost daily and agree with the complaints about the lights but what I really appreciate is the pedestrian experience on St-Denis. It’s just so much more pleasant to walk there now that it isn’t a four lane street. Lots of shops and restaurants there have gotten business from my girlfriend and I over the last year because we’ve actually wanted to walk down the street.
dhomas
@Meezly there’s an ice cream shop around Sauvé metro now? That used to be “my” metro for a long time before I moved, but I haven’t been around there in a couple of years, since I started working from home in 2018. There was still a Super Club Videotron there the last time I passed by.
I haven’t yet tried the REV St-Denis. Hopefully this summer. I have taken the REV Souligny, which is quite “express” as you can ride it quite quickly without much interruption. Unfortunately, in its current state, it dumps you in the middle of nowhere at the end of the path going west. There are apparently plans to connect it to more of the REV network. Looking forward to it!
Meezly
@dhomas, sorry I was mistaken. We only made it up to De Castelnau, which had the ice cream and the funky Ruelle Vintage shop. Don’t know why I thought it was Sauvé as it’s way further north. But De Castelnau is one of the streets that’s made pedestrian-only during the summer and it’s a very pleasant stop if you’re trying to get to Sauvé!
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Kate
Bill 96 would require that health care be delivered only in French to newcomers after only six months.
A group of doctors and other social services professionals are asking to be excluded because of the impossibility of explaining health issues to newcomers who don’t know any French (and, it isn’t spelled out, might well be able to manage in English). But the Jolin‑Barrette ministry is determined not to budge.
How do you punish a doctor who switches to English to give someone a terminal diagnosis or explain to someone that their kid is gravely ill, if they are not yet able to grasp complex explanations in French?
In other Bill 96 news, First Nations are concerned that the new educational rules will cause their students to fail.
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Kate
In Longueuil, a 12-year-old girl was struck and killed by a bus Wednesday morning. No details of how it happened have been mentioned.
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Kate
Bixi is open for business again.
Meezly
Woot! just had my first short ride of the season after dropping off the kid at school. It took me 3 tries before I found a valid bike to check out. The first gave me an amber light and the second was just dead. As a quality analyst, I’m surprised at the failure rate of a newly opened bixi station. Still glad bixis are back!
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Kate
Casting about for a cause, Ensemble recently proposed allowing dogs on public transit. La Presse found that three quarters of its readers said no thanks.
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Kate
Following Tuesday’s rampage in the subway in Brooklyn, the question is asked whether the Montreal metro is safe enough. The piece goes on to say that there are 160 security agents circulating in the metro system, armed with telescopic batons but not with firearms, 115 SPVM cops (presumably armed, article doesn’t say), plus security cams.
The implication is that it’s a safe system. It is, at least, a guarded system. There have been relatively few serious incidents over the years, but it can never be 100% certain that some random person will not snap.
Kevin
It would help if there weren’t so many people pushing inflammatory rhetoric that is designed to make people afraid and launch lone-wolf attacks, but stopping that would require that people stop digging deeper into their rabbit holes.
Uatu
I just wish that there was a way of responding to emergencies without shutting down the system. Every month there’s at least one shutdown during rush hour due to various reasons (people on the tracks, medical emergencies etc) and I end up waiting on the platform jammed with people to ride a metro that’s jammed with people….
mare
There’s not much you can do to stop someone who’s already in the metro car and only starts being violent after arriving in a busy station.
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Kate
The Covid situation in Quebec is deteriorating according to public health, and the N95 is back in style.
The trial of Carl Girouard in Quebec City is on pause as a second jury member tests positive.
Dr Luc Boileau is going to give a presser at 1 pm Wednesday.
Blork
OK, raise your hand if any of this comes as a surprise to you. Right.
mare
The fact that *anybody* thinks that masks that are designed to prevent to spread droplets and are leaking air are somehow effective against an airborne virus is still puzzling to me.
After two years you’d think everyone would wear a better mask, especially in hospitals where, by default, there are a lot of sick people who might be infected, and also a lot of people with a high risk of complications if they get infected. But better masks are expensive, and more annoying to wear during mandatory one-and-a-half shifts. It might also scare the patients (who still don’t have to wear masks, and don’t get better masks when they need to be outside their room.)
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Kate
Global has a short video visit to a 911 call centre describing some of the stresses involved in managing emergencies.
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Kate
Some may remember a 2019 incident in which a man in Tétreaultville killed his kids then himself. The coroner’s report is in, saying among other things that Jonathan Pomares should not have been released from hospital after going there for suicidal thoughts, and that in general, there should be better communication among the professionals concerned in cases like this.
Two other unrelated stories to do with mental health are in Wednesday’s news. The trial has begun in Quebec City of the man accused of attacking people with a sword on Halloween in 2020. Carl Girouard, whose mental state had been under examination for years before his rampage, is trying to establish he’s not guilty because of mental illness – but it isn’t as if nobody knew he was on the edge.
Then I hit up the La Presse tab, and the top story is about mental distress among police.
Blork 18:09 on 2022-04-13 Permalink
Long live the breakfast bar!
Ephraim 09:19 on 2022-04-14 Permalink
The breakfast bar was created because of the open concept that was popular over the last few years. When you take away a wall, you sort of lose the informal eating in the kitchen. The lack of wall means that the lower cabinets don’t have uppers, so they expand the island for storage and well, create a space for eating that takes half the room of the table, by being long. It avoids using the dining room for informal meals… like feeding the kiddies breakfast.
Blork 17:42 on 2022-04-14 Permalink
It’s also nice as a social hub when someone is simultaneously cooking and entertaining/socializing, whether it’s guests, the kids, spouse, whatever.
DeWolf 20:25 on 2022-04-14 Permalink
The project that won the multi-family residential award, located at the famous corner of Alexandra and Alexandra, is very nice. One of my favourite cafés opened a second location in the ground floor retail space (Noble, which has a little takeaway window across from Laurier metro) so I go there often. It’s pretty much exactly the kind of human-scale development we need, with the added bonus of having a thoughtful design and high-quality finishings. The brickwork is well done.