The shelter tent on Cabot Square will be taken down this weekend and there’s no intention to replace the services it offered.
Updates from April, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
As long promised, harmonized transit fares have been announced by the ARTM. A single fare on the island of Montreal remains $3.50 for now, and a monthly pass $94 as of July, which is when this new system goes live. More details in the article.
There are already mixed reactions.
Blork
After reading three articles about this I still have no idea how it’s supposed to work, at least for people like me who live in “Zone B.”
“Zone B will cover Laval and Longueuil. A single ticket for Zones A and B will cost $5.25 and a monthly pass will cost $150.”
Does that single ticket $5.25 include the necessary ride on the Longueuil or Laval bus? (Presumably.) But what if you’re just riding from one place to another in Longueuil? Do you have to buy the $5.25 ticket? (Hopefully not.) But when you’re boarding a bus in Longueuil with the intention of going to Montreal, how do you specify you’re paying a $5.25 two-zone ticket and not a less expensive zone-B only ticket? Do you pay the bus driver? Do you need to have two ticket types on your Opus card? How do you tell the Opus reader which ticket to use? When you get to the Metro in Longueuil, how does the Metro know you already paid when you got on the bus in Longueuil?
Also: my monthly passes were $150 before the pandemic. Under the new system it sounds like it will still be $150, yet the articles keep telling me I’ll be saving money. FFS!
James
I just received by new OPUS card in the mail (OPUS à l’année). I pay $85.50 per month right now. Apparently the new Zone A card that I received is good for all bus, metro, and adapted transport from the STM and also the REM and commuter trains within the island of Montreal. So if the new price is $94 starting in July this is $10 extra to add commuter trains (which I never take) and the REM (which isn’t open yet). With hybrid working, you will need to go to work at least 14 times a month before the monthly pass at 85$ starts saving you money (compared to a 10-trip ticket at $3 per trip). If it went up to $94 then it would be 16 days a month at the office.
Monthly pass looking very marginal…James
Blork: You can refer to this document: https://www.artm.quebec/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Grille-tarifaire_TR_2022-2023.pdf
Zone B only : $3.50 (1 trip) / $105 (monthly)
Zone AB : $5.25 (1-trip) / $150 (monthly)If you had an OPUS card with both B and AB fares loaded and you took a bus in Longueuil and then entered the metro it is likely that you would be charged two times: the B fare on the bus then the AB fare on the metro.
The solution would be to have two different OPUS cards each with different fares. If you are travelling only within zone B use the OPUS-B and if you were travelling to zone A, use the OPUS-AB for both validations (bus and metro).MarcG
Sounds like simplification has been achieved!
Uatu
Oh yay. 184$. For a longer commute. And even longer if I’m working weekends or evenings. So great. What an improvement in my life. All you public transport wonks who are forcing me to use the REM and charging me more can go fuck yourselves
Blork
Thanks James. But as MarcG points out (I assume sarcastically) “simplification achieved!”
As in: not. Needing two juggle Opus cards, and needing to keep track of which is which, and which needs refills and how, etc.? Nope.
Tim S.
So a round trip from a South Shore residence to the city will cost 17$. This will reduce car use how?
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Kate
The CMM has passed an interim law to protect the area’s wetlands from development. I’m not clear what a “règlement de contrôle intérimaire” is, unless it’s just holding for 60 days till the Municipal Affairs ministry gives it the rubber stamp.
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Kate
A new head for the ARTM has been named by the Legault government: Patrick Savard, who used to be director-general of Longueuil. La Presse is tactful here but does mention that the new mayor of Longueuil sacked Savard after she was in the role for two months.
DeWolf
Reminds me of how Luc Ferrandez had to sack the Plateau’s borough director to get anything done. This doesn’t bode well for the ARTM.
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Kate
TVA says that Luc Boileau’s presser at 2 pm Thursday will announce the end of the mask mandate on May 14. This while emergency wards are overwhelmed on April 28 and Quebec’s on the edge of marking 15,000 people lost to Covid.
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Kate
After a two-year hiatus, the fireworks festival will be back this summer, from June 25 to August 6.
steph
I’m really happy about this. I love the fireworks.
carswell
How fireworks can affect your health and the ecosystem
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-fireworks-environment-wildlife-human-health-concerns-1.5218006Blork
Imagine being a Ukrainian refugee in Montreal and hearing that racket.
It might not be so loud in the city due to different acoustic dynamics, but on the south shore it is crazy loud. I live 4.5km from the site, and when the fireworks go off it’s so loud the dishes in the kitchen sometimes rattle. The cats run under the bed. The TV volume gets turned up to compensate. It literally sounds like an artillery barrage happening close by.
…but I do like to watch it sometimes.
carswell
@Blork My apartment is near the UdeM on the north side of the mountain and I hear them clearly when the wind is blowing right. Unfortunately, I’m not high up enough to actually see them.
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Kate
Wednesday night I posted a silly picture to Twitter about creating a true Montreal landmark, and it’s gone viral in a local way. I’m waiting to see it turn up randomly, uncredited, in other places.
Daniel D
It’s a great meme! Very “cromulent”, as one might say on this blog
Kevin
It’s a great image.
I posted that last night on this blog, but about 1/3 of my posts get swallowed.Blork
I don’t even use Twitter, and yet I saw it!
CE
Is it Fairmount or St-Viateur?
Kate
CE, I sidestepped the issue! The original photo was posted to Wikipedia and says it came from R.E.A.L. Bagel.
mare
What? Wikipedia allows humour? (Great pic!)
CE
I only went to R.E.A.L. Bagel once but remember it being good. For non Mile End bagels, I’m a fan of Beaubien.
jeather
I used to go there. It wasn’t Fairmount level, but it was perfectly fine. I believe the Queen Mary location is still REAL bagel, the Cote St Luc Rd one is now Dizz’s bagel and is less good. Bagel Henri Bourassa is good too.
Kate
Bagel Henri Bourassa is interesting. The owners are, I think, from India. They sell some of their stuff via Lufa. I’ve never had their bagels, but their onion bhaji are a real treat.
MarcG
I love the Bill 101 dodging tactic of making your business name an acronym – D.A.D.’s bagels (also run by South Asians) was the spot when I lived in NDG. Is there some connection between naan bread and bagel making?
jeather
Their samosas are also nice. I miss D.A.D.’s bagels a lot.
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Kate
François Legault says anglos favour Bill 101 (still called that, although it has been the Charter of the French Language since 1977) while his housing minister, Andrée Laforest, says Montreal is not so badly affected by the housing crisis.
The sad thing is that it doesn’t matter how out of touch the CAQ is with Montreal, because they’ll be elected this October with an overwhelming majority even if nobody in the metropolitan area votes for them.
Another recent story is that the CAQ, like the federal Liberals before them, has chucked out the promise to institute proportional representation – Dr Smog explaining why in one terse phrase.
Papa Legault says nobody in Quebec cares about electoral reform – he certainly doesn’t, when first‑past‑the‑post gives his party 80% of the seats in the National Assembly with 40% of the popular vote.
Deegan Stubbs
I just heard CJAD’s Elias Makos agree with the notion that manyAnglos are just fine with Bill 101. It’s not the first time he has alluded to this, saying at one point that he ‘loves’ what Bill 101 has done. Perhaps it is just a generational thing, Makos is about twenty years younger than me, but I was somewhat taken aback when he first mentioned this. From Neil McKenty to Tommy Schnurmacher, I can’t believe there was much support for 101.
DeWolf
There’s a lot of anger about Bill 96 (justified, in my opinion!) but I think it’s really just older anglos who still have a chip on their shoulder about Bill 101. Except for Balarama Holness, most people under the age of 40 seem to accept that Quebec — including Montreal — is a predominantly French-speaking place.
But maybe I’m wrong. I live in the east end and don’t really spend much time with West Islanders or west enders who live in predominantly English environments. Maybe there’s a whole generation of post-101 anglos who are super embittered about having to speak French and I just don’t come into contact with them. My wife knows one born-and-raised West Islander around the age of 20 who refuses to speak French under any circumstances, so maybe there’s a lot more of them than I realize.
Personally, I’m reminded that we really do need to be legal mechanisms to protect the French language whenever I visit eastern Ontario, where French is fading pretty rapidly from the landscape, even in places that are ostensibly majority francophone.
DeWolf
Also, about CAQ winning without support from greater Montreal – sadly, half the metropolitan area already supports the CAQ: the north shore is solid blue and the south shore is too except for Brossard and St-Lambert. And if current projections hold, the CAQ could also sweep most of Laval and pick up as many as four extra seats in Montreal itself. Even Verdun may swing CAQ if the vote splits just the right way.
I’m absolutely mystified as to how so many people could support this government after the past four years, but once again, I’m firmly ensconced in my little Québec solidaire bubble here in the middle of the island…
Kate
DeWolf, I’d say most anglos have come to accept Bill 101 as a fact of life and would prefer it to Bill 96. But I don’t hold a party on the anniversary of its institution, if you know what I mean.
Kevin
In the real world, nobody I meet has any complaints about language. We all work to accommodate one another in our difficulties and disputes, recognizing that we all have different skills and backgrounds and capabilities.
It’s only online and in Quebecor-land where bigots are losing their minds over hearing English or other languages while walking in a neighbourhood with tens of thousands of students, in the second-largest city in the country.
dhomas
@Kevin You mean you’ve never had strangers, upon hearing you speak English, tell you “au Québec, ça parle français!” in the grocery store or on the bus? It’s happened to me about 3 times, I think only since I started living “East of Pie-IX ᵀᴹ”.
I’ll be honest, personally, I loved those moments. They allowed me to respond, in perfect Québécois French, that I could pretty much guarantee that my French was better than their English. Still, I wish those folks would just mind their business. People are allowed to speak whatever language they want.Kevin
Dhomas
That happened in the runup to 95, but not since.Ten years after that I had francophone parents flinging their kids at mine so they could pick up English from my bilingual offspring.
JaneyB
@dhomas – I’ve only once heard “au Québec, ça parle français!” flung at me. Ironically, it was when I was doing a language exchange with a Quebecois trying to improve his English. He turned around a gave some choice words to the angry uncle. A perfect moment.
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Kate
A man who says he’s suffered with post-traumatic stress since being attacked by Stéfanie Trudeau – Matricule 728 – during the 2012 protests is taking her to court for the effects this has had on his life. He alleges he was beaten up and pepper‑sprayed by police during a protest.
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Kate
CEGEPs are getting dizzy trying to keep up with changes coming in Bill 96 and the need to meet demands for more French classes.
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Kate
Moderna is planning to build a new vaccine plant somewhere in the Montreal area, expected to employ between 200 and 300 people. Item mentions a big announcement Friday with Trudeau and Legault present, but not how much money the governments have promised to put into this project.
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