Updates from June, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 17:47 on 2022-06-16 Permalink | Reply  

    L’Anneau was inaugurated Thursday on the esplanade of Place Ville Marie, but the big weather meant the ceremony was held indoors.

     
    • mare 18:13 on 2022-06-16 Permalink

      La Presse didn’t even take a photo, but used the announcement animation as illustration?

      Ah, from other sources I learned the inauguration is like a ship’s baptism, the ring is not finished but still on the ground. What a missed chance of revealing it with a dazzling Cirque de Soleil trapeze act. Or a stunt with the ring on fire and a Formula One race car. Or just one Act of God in the shape of a lightning bolt.

  • Kate 17:46 on 2022-06-16 Permalink | Reply  

    Polytechnique shooting survivor Nathalie Provost received an honorary doctorate Thursday during the school’s graduation ceremony. Provost returned to class less than a month after being shot four times on that December day in 1989.

     
    • Kate 13:51 on 2022-06-16 Permalink | Reply  

      Numbers from the REV at St‑Denis and Des Carrières shows 9,685 users Wednesday.

      That link comes from Bartek Komorowski’s twitter. He also tweets this piece of news: “On Tuesday, something unprecedented in Montreal municipal politics happened: the City Council unanimously approved the construction of a section of the REV express bike network on boulevard Henri-Bourassa.”

       
      • DeWolf 12:09 on 2022-06-17 Permalink

        Apparently the maximum vehicular capacity of St-Denis is about 9,000 cars per day, so we’ve now reached the point where there are more bikes than motor vehicles on this particular street.

      • DeWolf 12:16 on 2022-06-17 Permalink

        Even more interesting: a data analyst posted a link to the city’s traffic data on Twitter. Apparently there is an average of 8,153 motor vehicles that use St-Denis every day. It was 16,500 per day before the REV was built.

        https://twitter.com/adamwerty/status/1537625807081938945

        So not only has the REV successfully cut the number of noisy, polluting vehicles on St-Denis by half, it has actually increased the overall capacity of the road. When you consider foot and cycle traffic alongside motor vehicle traffic, St-Denis is in all likelihood carrying more people per hour than it was before the REV was built.

      • Kate 09:32 on 2022-06-18 Permalink

        Thank you, DeWolf. I noticed the effect a lot last summer, when I was doing census work around the section of St‑Denis between roughly Beaubien and Liège. Lots, lots, lots of cyclists, and the motor traffic was not so bad.

    • Kate 13:47 on 2022-06-16 Permalink | Reply  

      The mayor has tweeted that access to the metro will be free on weekends this summer from Saint‑Laurent, Place‑des‑Arts, McGill, Peel, Champ‑de‑Mars, Place‑d’Armes and Berri-UQAM stations.

       
      • DeWolf 14:19 on 2022-06-16 Permalink

        Glad to see this, given the previous announcement that downtown parking will be free on weekends.

      • steph 16:16 on 2022-06-16 Permalink

        This is good news, but how will it be implemented. Free to get on at those stations to travel anywhere? If someone is stopped at another station, they just have to claim they came from one of the free stations?

      • DeWolf 16:20 on 2022-06-16 Permalink

        @steph There hasn’t been any official announcement but word is that you’ll be able to get a free ticket at any downtown station, which can be used as a bus transfer or proof of payment elsewhere in the metro.

    • Kate 08:49 on 2022-06-16 Permalink | Reply  

      In the silver lining category, seems the city’s air quality is still better than before the pandemic.

       
      • Kate 08:45 on 2022-06-16 Permalink | Reply  

        The Université de Montréal is promising to divest from fossil fuels by 2025, although it’s not divesting its sizable retirement fund. Le Devoir’s article says UQÀM, Concordia and Laval are all divesting: UdeM’s decision should give McGill’s divestment proponents a boost.

         
        • Dogandbone 15:28 on 2022-06-16 Permalink

          there divestment in fossil is intriguing, but as a part of a global system underpinned by the economies of resource extraction seems to me like image management rather than a genuine ethical stance, especially when taking into consideration all of UdeM’s activities

          the ethical void of the UdeM is palpable in parc-ex, and it is clear that any promise of an equitable relationship with local communities was a wispy PR strategy, and behind was no meaningful organisation or funding. I still fail to see any ethical redlines that hav ben adhered.

          Maybe I am being cynical, but this announcement feels like collateral from a concerted move to target ‘clean’ investment, i.e. from other burgeoning sectors that have more robust intergovernmental support – tech / services. I recommend reading the recently released study by the CBAR on Montreal’s AI ecosystems, and how the divide between UdeM and its communities is more than just an ethical or cultural quagmire. It is another ethical time bomb. It is colonization in action.

          https://communityactionresearchparcex.ca/projects/digital-divides-the-impact-of-montreals-ai-ecosystems-on-parc-extension-housing-environment-and-access-to-services-april-2022/

      • Kate 08:36 on 2022-06-16 Permalink | Reply  

        A group represented by Anne‑France Goldwater is taking Longueuil to court over the plan to cull 70 deer from Michel‑Chartrand park.

         
        • Kate 08:34 on 2022-06-16 Permalink | Reply  

          There’s a severe thunderstorm watch over the city and area for Thursday afternoon into the evening.

           
          • Kate 08:26 on 2022-06-16 Permalink | Reply  

            Downtown Montreal is busy again with tourists pouring into town for the Grand Prix. Business owners are happy.

            The Journal says that other professionals are preparing for the rush too.

             
            • Blork 11:43 on 2022-06-16 Permalink

              I was in Old Montreal on Saturday evening and I couldn’t believe it. The place was jammed. And you could tell it was mostly tourists because the biggest lineup was at the Usine de Spaghetti.

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