Angrignon metro station now has elevators, making it the 24th accessible station in the system.
Updates from December, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Found this mentioned on Twitter: the Indigenous Village at COP15, an installation at the Old Port this weekend.
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Kate
The city’s canine population is up, as are reports of dog bites. I’m not clear what statistic was counted, but the piece notes that nearly half of Montreal’s households include at least one pet.
(The federal census didn’t ask about pets, even the long form.)
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Kate
Ted Rutland has a terse and well‑supported piece in CultMTL laying out how much the city is overfunding the police.
Ephraim
Oh, I would LOVE to go through their budget with a fine tooth comb. I’d stop the repainting, because they should have never changed from white. The uniforms… let them go back to clown pants, they were cheaper! Let’s charge them to park in the parking lots, as per tax law. We can save on gas by ensuring that they don’t leave their jurisdictions. And we can save on their overtime by teaching a non-police corp to direct traffic, freeing them up to do their actual job. Oh and how much could we save with fillable PDF files 🙂
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Kate
Two youths suspected in recent violent street robberies were arrested in St‑Calixte. Can I say that I was glad to read they were 18 and 19 years old and thus will be tried as adults?
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Kate
A fairly large student demonstration was held Friday afternoon against COP15, with a lot of police keeping an eye on it. Protesters feel that these meetings are all talk, in which targets are agreed on then never met. It’s difficult to argue with that when it’s true.
A city-sanctioned march for biodiversity and human rights will be held Saturday at 1 pm, starting at the Cartier monument.
Chris
Fairly large? By what metric? I would call it pathetically small.
Kate
As you will.
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Kate
Montreal’s Moroccans have been lit up with the progress of their national team at the World Cup. Having defeated Spain on penalties Tuesday, the Morocco team reached the quarter‑finals and will face Portugal on Saturday morning. As someone points out in the item, Morocco is now holding the hopes of many, not only as the only African country but the only piece of the Islamic world still in the contest.
Saturday afternoon we see the revival of a centuries‑old rivalry as England faces France.
Incidentally, Canada shouldn’t feel too bad about its defeat by Croatia. That team defeated Brazil on Friday – also on penalties, but even so. Not a country that first comes to mind when you think soccer, Croatia is one of the smallest countries to reach a World Cup final, which it did against France in 2018.
I’m hoping for just a little honking, whoever wins Saturday’s matches.
Update near noon Saturday: Morocco just beat Portugal and progressed to the semi‑finals.
Kevin
The goalposts and crossbars have been a significant 12th man in these games n
dwgs
Sorry Kate but Croatia has reached the semi final, they need to beat Argentina to get to the final. Still a remarkable achievement though.
Kate
Maybe I didn’t write clearly? Croatia reached the final in 2018.
dwgs
oops, maybe I didn’t read clearly before coffee. Sorry.
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Kate
Police have reopened a 26‑year‑old cold case: in 1996, a young woman called Patricia Ferguson vanished in Pointe‑aux‑Trembles. It’s mentioned here that there have been new developments in the case, but nothing about what they are.
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Kate
Things to do on the weekend from CultMTL, CityCrunch, more to come.
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Kate
Quebec has adopted its law making the oath to the King optional.
The premier also blew off the tradition of an end‑of‑session press conference as the National Assembly rises for the Christmas break.
Kevin
A year or three after the next election someone is going to fight a law in court and argue that it’s illegitimate because the MNAs never swore the correct oath.
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Kate
Radio-Canada looked into the hard lives of Inuit women living on Montreal’s streets.
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Kate
The city is considering changing some downtown zoning to make it possible to convert some office buildings to residential use, since the trend for remote or hybrid work is growing rather than fading away.
Cadichon
There’s some confusion in that article. Residential use is already authorized all over downtown, so zoning is not an issue there. But I guess outside of downtown, some smaller office buildings are zoned for commercial use only.
shawn
I was hoping to read something like this. Makes so much sense. Can’t wait to see which buildings may convert.
DeWolf
Here’s an example of what Cadichon means. This is zone 0004 which encompasses the area around Central Station and the Bell Centre:
https://www1.ville.montreal.qc.ca/CartesInteractives/ville-marie/doc/VM_4.pdf
It’s zone for mixed-use, including commercial/industrial on any floor, so basically it’s an area where you can build whatever you want. The area near the train station is almost 100% offices, but the area near the Bell Centre is now mostly residential.
Basically, there’s nothing stopping a developer from converting office buildings into residential, so I’m not sure what else the city is planning to do. Maybe they’ll streamline the permitting process?
DeWolf
1425 René-Lévesque (the old brick building at the corner of Bishop) is currently going through the approvals process to be converted from office to residential:
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/1425-rene-levesque-ouest-agrandissement-et-conversion-etages/4107
400 René-Lévesque was converted from office to apartments in 2019:
https://mtlurb.com/topic/11148-encore-residences-400-r-l-17-etages-2019/
I’m not aware of any other recent conversions in the downtown area, but I’m sure they’re coming. The only part of downtown that is completely dominated by offices is a narrow corridor running from Place Bonaventure up to Sherbrooke, which is exactly the route of the REM, so I’m sure there are quite a few lower-grade office buildings ripe for the picking.
shawn
Right, 400 René-Lévesque was the one I remember.
Cadichon
1420 Sherbrooke was also converted 10 years ago.
DeWolf
I had no idea that was a conversion! The building looks so different now I just assumed it was a new build.
A couple more projects currently underway include the conversion of the old Point Zero HQ into a 26-storey apartment building:
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/980-saint-antoine-ouest-26-etages/249
There’s also 1900 Sherbrooke West:
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/gramercy-residences-9-10-etages/1064
Dominic
The parking lot on top of Gare Centrale would be perfect for a high rise
DeWolf
The station’s owner has a proposal to build three towers with 1,800 housing units on top of the station’s parking garage, but there hasn’t been any word about it since 2019:
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/895-de-la-gauchetiere-gare-centrale-etages/612
https://renx.ca/cominar-plans-major-residential-developmentsThis article from 2021 suggests it’s still in the works:
https://storeys.com/cominar-canderel-billion-dollar-purchase-montreal-bull-market/
DeWolf
@Dominic there’s a proposal to put three towers there. 1,800 housing units.
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/895-de-la-gauchetiere-gare-centrale-etages/612
It’s been in gestation for a few years, not sure if it’s still moving forward…
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Kate
CF Montreal is losing Ismaël Koné to Watford FC in England, and coach Wilfried Nancy to the Ohio team Columbus Crew.
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Kate
CBC’s Verity Stevenson talked to several people trying to preserve urban wildlife and their hopes for government help.
Radio-Canada’s Valérie Boisclair also looks at the story and about how the city plans to devote more space to preserving animal and insect species.
The Flickr Montreal faune/wildlife gives a sense of the many species around us in the Montreal area – for now.
PatrickC 13:51 on 2022-12-10 Permalink
The criticism that the elevator cars are too small is well taken, even if there are space limitations to be dealt with. It’s not just the disabled that have difficulty with long flights of stairs. And was there really no alternative at Mont-Royal to having to change from one elevator to another on the northbound side?
Kate 17:35 on 2022-12-10 Permalink
I doubt they would have frivolously multiplied the difficulties and cost, but I have not seen any explanation why that was so.