It will be virtually impossible to drive anywhere in the Montreal area this weekend, so better make other plans.
Updates from November, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Marc Tanguay, PLQ MNA for LaFontaine riding, has been named interim party leader and says he’s considering a bid to become the real leader.
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Kate
Hochelaga-Maisonneuve has rejected an industrial project that would have involved cutting trees and demolishing this building which someone in the item describes as “patrimoine industriel” and claiming that “les résidents du secteur « sont attachés » au bâtiment.”
I was wondering even where residents would live in that area, but if you look for 7101 Notre‑Dame East on the map, you’ll see four residential streets in a rectangle bounded on all four sides by industrial installations.
Blork
Imagine the air quality in that little neighbourhood. OTOH I’ll bet you can buy a house there for under $200K.
MarcG
$339,000 is the new “under $200K”. https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/25025801/1100z-av-%C3%A9mile-legrand-montr%C3%A9al-mercierhochelaga-maisonneuve-mercier
Blork
That said, there’s something special about that kind of neighbourhood that always gets my imagination going. Looking around there (in Streetview) it seems sort of lost in time. It’s the kind of neighbourhood were folksy novels about family traumas are set, or movies about nerdy kids who grow up to be astronauts or whatnot.
Blork
OMG, $339k and they don’t even show pictures of the interior. That’s bent. At least there’s a big back yard, but come on!
Blork
The ReMax listing says “This property requires major renovations.”
Ephraim
This shows the inside… https://www.centris.ca/en/houses~for-sale~montreal-mercier-hochelaga-maisonneuve/22516528
There is also a duplex with garage for $600K and two quadplexes for $750K and $995K. The $750K one has converted a garage into an apartment… wonder if it’s legal? Reminds me of an apartment they put with an entry on the alleyway only to find out that no reputable notary would do the paperwork because it had no legal streetside entryway
mare
I once made the mistake to take my bike to an address on Ontario street in that area without a map, just with the house number (this was before smartphones). So I started my ride East on Ontario from Papineau. Ontario might be the most cut-up street in Montreal, with so many small sections, intercut with industrial buildings and areas, and sometimes just a fence between two sections. Every time I got stuck I had to make huge detours, most not at all bike friendly, to reach Ontario again and then find out that the street was again blocked by a industrial building. It took forever to reach that address, slightly to the west of this neighbourhood. There are 5 disjointed sections of Ontario Street E. between Viau and Baldwin, with long stretches of ‘missing’ Ontario street.
denpanosekai
Today I learned we have a Rue Beauclerk (LOL) Nice find Kate. Does that neighborhood have a specific name? There’s a bit of wartime housing.
Kate
denpanosekai, it’s part of Longue-Pointe, so the army base is right nearby. But I don’t know whether that enclaved section of streets – Beauclerk, Émile‑Legrand and Lyall, and stubs of Ontario and La Fontaine – has a distinctive name.
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Kate
As also reported recently by CBC, Villeray’s Ste‑Cécile church is on the brink of packing it in, with little money to maintain the building even though residents are pleading to keep it open for community purposes. The borough can’t afford to buy the property, either.
Michael
I’m guessing it’ll be destined for condo conversion? I know losing the interior community/meeting spaces will be painful to some, but to me the real loss will be the public steps/plaza space the building currently offers. Not sure if that could be preserved if the use turns residential.
Kate
There haven’t been many condo conversions of big churches like Ste‑Cécile because technically it’s a pain to do. The only one I know of on that scale is on St‑Laurent at St‑Zotique and it took a long time to complete. So I doubt anyone’s clamouring to get their hands on it for that purpose.
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Kate
Here’s a piece on a winery in Senneville from the Gazette.
And here’s what I get on screen:
- At the bottom of the screen, a cookie notice “Notice for the Postmedia Network”. I can make this go away.
- An unrelated video box appears bottom right on the screen. It can be made to go away.
From the top:
- Bar with a link to “Parenting and Advice” at the top of the screen, telling me to sign up now.
- Bar with small sections burger and search
- Bar with main links to other sections
- Banner from the federal government promoting Remembrance Day (French version)
- A bar with four links promoting other stories on the site, with broken graphics showing little question marks
- Conventional row of social media icons
- Headline, deck and byline
- First article photo, caption and credit
- Paragraph 1 of the article
- Second copy of the banner from the federal government promoting Remembrance Day
- Black rectangle apparently containing videos, which intermittently flashes ads and teasers for unrelated articles
- Paragraph 2 of the article (3 lines)
- Blue box with header “Montreal Gazette Headline News” urging me to sign up for daily headline news
- (To the right of the last 3 items, a row of 5 items, under “Trending”. Four have broken graphic links.)
- Paragraphs 3 and 4 of the article
- Third copy of the banner from the federal government promoting Remembrance Day
- Second article photo, caption and credit
- Paragraphs 5 and 6 of the article
- Fourth copy of the banner from the federal government promoting Remembrance Day
- Paragraphs 7, 8 and 9 of the article
- Fifth copy of the banner from the federal government promoting Remembrance Day
- Paragraphs 10, 11 and 12 of the article
- Third article photo box, caption and credit, but there’s no photo, merely another broken graphic icon
- Recommended items (unrelated)
- Reiteration of social media icons
- “Most commented” articles on a carousel
- Box ad from the federal government promoting Remembrance Day
- Latest national stories (6)
- Aperçu of current advertising flyers
- Note about comments, but no comments
- Second copy of box ad from the federal government promoting Remembrance Day (all these federal ads have been the French version – no objections to French, but there should be some coding to feed the appropriate language to any media platform)
- Black footer with links and contact info
It’s a master class in distracting someone from reading an article. And in theory the Gazette’s readers are paying to read it.
Blork
It’s unbearable. Even worse on a tablet screen.
Even worse when there’s a video in the story (CTV stories always have this). You stop the video and then scroll, but a thumbnail video appears blocking half your text. If it’s playing an add sometimes the “x” to dismiss it isn’t even visible, and if you touch it (trying to dismiss) it clicks through to a page for whatever’s being advertised. GRRRRRR!!!
BTW, part of that inability to stop the ad is because they get paid more for having the ad viewed instead of dismissed, and the more of the ad you view, the more they get paid. (It’s called “quartiles.” If you dismiss it after 25% has played they get paid for one quartile; if you dismiss after it’s half played they get paid for two quartiles, etc.)
OK, there’s money involved so I can see why the make us suffer the ads. But why make us suffer the video report WHEN WE’RE TRYING TO READ? FFS, if I’m SCROLLING it’s because I want to READ not listen to someone on a video!
So awful. This is why I avoid any CTV links unless there’s no other source. Same for Gazette.
steph
To be honest, I just don’t click the Gazette links anymore at all. (I always look at the hotlink before clicking).
M
True of so many newspapers these days. So many are unreadable without reader mode. I just set articles to load in reader mode by default now
MarcG
Adblock browser extensions make the internet tolerable. You can even customize them. For example, mine blocks all of the normal ads by default, but the “Headline News” isn’t detected, so I right-click and block it – easy.
John B
Sooo, just FYI, c’est la journée du souvenir demain.
Kevin
I have written to The Gazette multiple times about the unwieldiness of their site, especially the fact that it continually kicks you off if you are logged-in.
I am convinced it is this bad on purpose in order to push users to the e-paper version.
mare
I don’t think the Montreal Gazette has any influence on this, this is the standard Postmedia website ‘design’. It must be awful to try to produce good content and then have it presented in this way. Fortunately they still have a lot of old readers that read printed newspapers.
I actually prefer reading those as well, digital is terrible for quickly scanning headlines and browsing through sections. I used to spend at least an hour a day, and sometimes two, reading my printed newspaper (not the Gazette), reading almost all sections except sports and business. Now I have three digital newspapers subscriptions, but I only read a few articles a day, often following links from emails or other sources.Tim S.
My father used to get a print subscription, but it was recently cancelled (by the Gazette) due to a lack of delivery people.
Kate
> Adblock browser extensions make the internet tolerable
They do, but I feel I need to see the media sites as they are so I know what I’m linking to. I can’t assume that readers of this blog have their browsers set up with similar blockers. So I like to see what any user, using any browser, will get.
(I use Chrome for my personal browsing, which has Adblock installed.)
Tim S.: That’s bad.
John B: I had NO IDEA.
Blork
Sites can also detect ad blockers, and they pop up big windows asking you to turn them off (and sometimes won’t even let you see the content unless you turn it off).
I use Adblock Plus on Firefox, and it blocks some of the shit but almost always provokes the above pop-up on newspaper sites. It’s so bad that I generally open every newspaper link on this blog by right-clicking and choosing “open in private window.” (My ad blocker extension is disabled in private windows.) This has the dual advantage of not harassing me with the TURN OFF YOUR AD BLOCKER noise and also keeping the tracking cookies isolated from my other browsing. But it means suffering those ads.
Joey
@Blork why not just use a service like Instapaper? Right-click –> send to Instapaper –> open Instapaper –> read text-/image-only article…
Blork
Joey, I’ve used Instapaper for years. I even pay for it to get premium features. But I’m not going to shoot something to Instapaper if it’s just some short local article like most of the links on this blog. Too much clicking! (Also, i often run the French articles through a translator because I’m impatient.)
But it’s fantastic for longer pieces that quietly sit there until you’re ready to read them.
EG
With some news sites when they complain that I’m using an ad-blocker, I can get rid of that notice by typing 12ft.io/ in front of the URL. Works for many paywalls too. Though some news sites like the NY Times have gotten wise, and have forbidden the 12ft.io/ workaround.
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Kate
The Globe & Mail swoons over Google’s new Montreal office.
shawn
and refers to the area on Viger near Beaver Hall Hill as “Paper Hill,” which I’ve never heard before (I think) but yes you can find some Google hits for it online.
Kate
It’s a very long time since the area was full of printing companies.
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Kate
We’re to expect big weather Friday evening into Saturday, both rain and wind. It’s the remnants of tropical storm Nicole.
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Kate
Radio-Canada has a feature on the morgue, how it works, and the people who work there. They look at both the Montreal and the Quebec City facilities.
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Kate
A reward has been put up for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a man involved in a shooting on a Saturday evening last April at the corner of St‑Laurent and Jean‑Talon. One of the two suspects was caught but the other has not been found. This is how La Presse described the incident at the time.
Global has some stills from surveillance footage of the man being sought. I guess his pal doesn’t want to talk about him.
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Kate
The mayor unveiled a plan for pollinator‑friendly gardens as COP15 looms.
Adding a later report about the city starting a fund to protect vulnerable species.
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Kate
J-F Lisée wastes his and our time on a plea to be able to talk about Indian Summer again and for McGill to revert to calling its teams the Redmen, because asking people to change a few terms is ethnically cleansing his language.
Kevin
As someone else said: he’s a better writer than MBC, but he’s telling the same story.
Kate
Yes, I saw that too. Accurate observation.
Don Macpherson calls it a “brilliant parody of a Québecor column”.
GC
“Redmen” is a pretty anglo term for him to be fighting for, too.
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Kate
Homeless folks camping under the Ville‑Marie near Atwater were given a break this week, after first being told they had to clear out by Thursday. Now the transport ministry says it will try to find them a place to go – and it can’t be safe to camp in a tent there through winter, so let’s hope it’s not just talk.
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Kate
REM trains are being run at full speed in automatic mode on the route downtown to simulate how they’ll actually be running when in service.
The South Shore is getting ready to rejig its entire bus route map to integrate the REM next year.
mare
That whole ‘no bus routes going in the same direction as the REM’ stipulation in the contract is going to bite us in the ass when there will be a technical problem with the REM. And there will be problems, because it’s technology. Imagine a train that breaks down on the Champlain. Or people on the track, or just a faulty detector that *reports* there are people on the track.
Without backup bus lines that can be used to redirect passenger traffic, like there is on the metro, it will be chaos. Those busses don’t have to run very often, but when there is a bus stops infrastructure and bus routes on maps, people will know where to go to in case of need. It works pretty well with the metro after someone has jumped and the service is down.If the REM is so good why are they afraid of competition by busses? The current bus lines are better and faster for some people that don’t live near REM stations and who’ll have to make detours and transfers in the future that’ll increase their travel time. Why remove transit option before we can even assess which ones are no longer used by passengers? Maybe total ridership will go up when there are more options.
The government doesn’t build highways and before they even open demolish all the smaller roads, do they? They didn’t even do that *after* the highway had opened, because it’s a known truth the highway will just add new cars. They didn’t close other bridges after the 25 bridge was build? Built it and they’ll come.
Why do that then with the REM? Because it’s only ‘public’ transport in name? Maybe public transport for profit is a bad thing, and not really public transport.
shawn
Be curious to see what happens in the West Island. Think is, they’ve got to turn buses into feeder routes for the REM because a) there’s so little car parking and b) some odd placements of REM stations.
mare
I know, I know, the transport agencies probably lack busses and drivers to keep the old routes, even if they were allowed to do so. Things are always more complicated.
Keeping with the highway analogy, those older, smaller roads also need to be lit, maintained and signposted (and policed, but finding money to add more cops is never a problem). Maybe CPQInfra should be obliged to subsidize those feeder bus routes, instead of extracting money from the boroughs.Blork
Hopefully they won’t mess with the RTL bus lines I use. I live nowhere near any REM station, so I don’t think they will. Currently the whole system is set up to either feed into the Longueuil Metro (north end of south shore) or the Panama station and thus express buses into the city via the Champlain bridge (south end of the south shore). I suspect it’s those south end bus lines that are more likely to change, because that’s where the REM is coming through. DON’T MESS WITH MY NORTH-END BUSES!
Regarding the lack of bus lines along REM routes, hopefully there is a plan to at least have “temporary” bus lines along those routes for when the system goes down. As in, if the REM goes down, there’s a plan for specific “temporary” buses to run along temporary lines. Mind you that’s only good for major outages, as it will take time to ramp up whenever it happens. If the outage is only for an hour then the REM users are basically out of luck.
Blork
BTW, I don’t know if those north-end/south-end designations are in actual use or if I just coined them. If they’re not in use they should be.
Fun fact: when you take the Victoria bridge to the south shore, you’re actually farther north when you land in St-Lambert than you were when you got on the bridge in Montreal. #weirdmontrealgeography
Uatu
Instead of of making transit more attractive it’s making me think of actually driving to work. And I hate driving. I’m sure that I’m not the only one that thinks this.
It’s going to be interesting to see how a breakdown is handled because it will effect commuters that are coming from as far down as st. Jean and they won’t be happy after a long day at work
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Kate
La Presse says traffic is typically bad on Wednesdays and was particularly bad this Wednesday morning around the river crossings.
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Kate
A restaurant in St‑Laurent was the target of firebombing early Wednesday morning. TVA says it was the second restaurant firebombing in the area within two days.
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