TVA estimates 4000 people walked in a demonstration Saturday for Earth Day.
The Gazette says it was 7000 people and has photos. La Presse says quelques milliers.
Updates from April, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
I linked this earlier on my weekend post, but various media are strongly pushing news about highway closures so here you go.
Or maybe nothing else is going on.
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Kate
A new study from the University of Western Ontario suggests that Montreal is poorly prepared for an earthquake. We do get the odd tremor, but the last fairly serious one was in 1732.
mare
Look how badly prepared people were for an ice storm… What if the whole city had been without power for 5 days or more, essential services down, phone network and internet not working, all shops cash-only and emptied fast. And a cold snap afterwards… and gas stations closed because their pumps don’t work. Etc etc.
Very few people, myself included, have emergency plans. Is there an emergency radio and what is the frequency? Does anyone still has a battery (or crank) operated radio? Flashlights? Candles? Camping stove?
Kate
I have flashlights and candles, and I was glad I did, two weeks ago.
I bought a tiny camping stove in advance of Y2K, with memories of the 1998 ice storm still fresh, but I never used it, and I long since gave away the gas canister. The camping store around the corner doesn’t sell gas canisters, so it was no use to me in the recent ice storm.
You can’t buy camping gas online, for obvious reasons.
I’ve never had a crank-operated radio although I’ve looked at them. Maybe this would be a good idea.
MarcG
I have a dynamo lantern from Canadian Tire which total garbage. It doesn’t hold a charge and the light it gives off is very unpleasant, and it wasn’t even cheap, buyer beware! The recent storm inspired me to replace it with a lamp that runs on 4* 3000mAh batteries that should be able to run for 10-20 hours.
Azrhey
You can buy chafing fuel online (fancy word for methanol in gel form) as well a fondue fuel in gel/brick form as well. It’s safe to store at home as long as each can or brick remains sealed until it gets used.
Can’t really make pot roast with that, but a can of chafing fuel (Amazon sells a 12 pack with it’s own heater contraption ) is enough to make a Moka pot of coffee a heat a couple of cans of bean soup.Still be careful with CO2 ..it’s not as dangerous as regular BBQ gas, but windowsill cooking is a must.
I guess being born couple years after the fall of a fascist dictatorship made my parents raise me “always have all your documents in order and at hand, keep a stash of medication of two months and at least three weeks of non perishables” since then we’ve added a collection of power banks and a small UPS under the bed…just in case… just a like bit paranoid at Casa de Azrhey.
Kate
Azrhey, making a moka pot of coffee is precisely what would I need to do! I wasn’t planning to use the camping stove to cook food, but to stave off caffeine withdrawal.
Your preparedness isn’t paranoid. As we now know, there can be pandemic lockdowns and long blackouts, and we may yet face unforeseen crises.
Kevin
Kate
Canadian Tire always has small canisters of propane and other fuels.
And I’m waiting for the FRX3 version of that radio to be back in stock. It’s a bit larger with a bigger battery, and only $10 more
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Kate
Sun Youth is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to finding Lara Parkin, who’s been missing for 3½ years. She disappeared from Sud‑Ouest borough in November 2019, and would be 29 years old now. Police page.
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Kate
Electric scooters will soon be banned from bike paths with a change in the law, although the law also needs to be applied if it’s to do any good.
steph
It’s gotten to be quite ridiculous how some electric scooters have dummy pedals, just to contravene the law. I’m glad they’re going to repair the loophole.
EmilyG
Thank goodness. I hope it’s enforced.
Tee Owe
What about e-bikes? They can go quite fast too. As an old-fashioned pedal-powered cyclist I find them intimidating sometimes -where do we draw the line?
Ephraim
@EmilyG – Police enforce a law in Montreal? Ever seen a cop give a bike a ticket for driving on the sidewalk? Driving in a pedestrian only zone? Driving in the wrong direction of traffic? Driving in a pedestrian crosswalk? Heck, double park a car and they will HONK you rather than get out of their car to give you the ticket. Can’t even get them out to give a ticket for a handicapped parking spot (and that’s over $300). From time to time the chief will tell them today… ticket everyone who jaywalks. It’s once a year. We need to stop the expectation that the police will do their job. That’s why so many cars are stolen in Montreal… no bait cars. But we have money for cameras on St-Lawrence and to repaint cars to black instead of friendlier white/blue. And why I want so many of their jobs to be replaced with PDF forms… because honestly, most of what we need from them is a police report for our insurance
Blork
Tee Owe, e-bikes are capped at 32kph (legally), and sporty MAMILs can certainly go that fast or more on their racing bikes. That said, it’s true that some e-bike riders take advantage of their motors to go faster than they should on the bike paths. All of that would be moot if there were a way to enforce the 20kph speed limit on bike paths. (I say this as an ebike rider, but mine is only a 250 watt motor so it looks and behaves like a regular bike.)
As the article infers, there will need to be some clarification on what constitutes a “scooter.” There’s also the issue of electric kick scooters, which are becoming more popular, as well as things like those electric unicycles (which are wicked cool but dangerous AF). The light kick scooters don’t represent much of a problem on bike paths, but as with all such technologies there is a move towards BIGGER and FASTER. Some electric kick scooters on the market can easily to 40 or 50kph, and there is no place for such speeds (from any vehicle) on a bike path.
Complicating all this is the sense that this conflicts with the various movements towards alternative transportation methods (alternative to cars). On the one hand we want to get people out of their cars but on the other hand we won’t let them use bike paths if they’re riding a scooter, kick scooter, electric unicycle, etc.
How long before someone riding a kick scooter on the street (because they’re banned from bike paths) hits a pothole and wipes out, falling under a car and getting killed? What then? Everyone will be complaining that we’re not making it safe for non-car riders, yet we don’t want them on bike paths.
For the record, I love the bike paths, and use them on my bike. I tolerate other types of vehicles as long as they’re riding with the traffic and not zooming past at much higher speeds. I do not like it when people on full-on Vespa-sized electric scooters use the bike paths (I see that a lot on the Jacques-Cartier Bridge path).
And finally, all this would be moot if people weren’t such idiots and could just get along and be respectful with each other; meaning, riding safely and not speeding!
Blork
Ephraim, here’s a photo of a mounted cop giving a cyclist a ticket at Parc Mont-Royal. But that was in 1991, possibly the last time it happened. 🙂
https://flic.kr/p/RnkSe4Meezly
Merci buckets, Vélo Québec!
mare
The police *do* give tickets to cyclist once in a blue moon. Someone I know got stopped and their ‘fixie’ was good for 10 tickets! (Six for no reflectors, no front and rear lights, no brakes and they were wearing AirPods.) Even I think that’s a bit excessive.
DeWolf
It’s not once in a blue moon. Police give out thousands of tickets to cyclists every year. In 2018, Montreal cyclists were ticketed 42 times more than cyclists in Toronto:
Some of these are for legitimate offences like running a red light, but others are for infractions of dubious value like riding with earbuds or not having exactly the right kind of reflectors. (It seems strange to me that you’re not allowed to ride with earbuds, which are hardly soundproof, and yet you are allowed to blast music in your car, windows up, while eating a hamburger.)
DeWolf
Regarding electric scooters – they’re already banned on bike paths in Montreal. Changing the provincial law won’t make a difference since clearly there is no enforcement.
Also, pedal-assisted e-bikes are not classed as scooters, although I suppose it becomes complicated when they have additional motor-only functionality (as many high-end e-bikes do).
bumper carz
Imagine how scary it is for young kids using protected bike paths to be passed by some grumpy middle-aged manchild on an electric gadget beeping his horn. Stay in your car if you want to go fast and scare people.
DeWolf
I mean, the real answer to this problem is to make more space for all kinds of non-car forms of transport. Electric scooters shouldn’t be sharing the path with regular bikes, but that doesn’t mean they’re not a legitimate form of transport. They’re still emission-free ways of getting around that take up way less road space than cars.
As long as we insist on dedicating 50-60% of road space to car storage, though, we’re going to have problems accommodating all these different types of mobility.
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Kate
Sad story from NDG, where the new owner of a building is demanding that tenants get rid of their 20‑year‑old cat.
You’d imagine that rental laws would say that having a pet is an acquired right; maybe when that pet dies you can’t get a new one (although that’s mean enough), but unless the animal has caused injury, it should be allowed to live out its life. But probably not. Ownership is all.
steph
A new landlord is asking to modify a previous lease? The TAL isn’t going to give him reason. This landlord must be hungry to lose a 2nd case at the TAL.
DeWolf
The landlord has no right to unilaterally change the terms of the lease, so no, ownership is not all.
dhomas
Also, what a dick. Cats don’t generally live very long past 20. He could just wait it out and add a no pets clause to the lease. But the landlord is just looking for reasons to get the tenant out, since they failed the first time. It’s asshole landlords like these that make people hate landlords in general.
Kate
It’s true. I’ve had two cats so far who reached 20 – just. At that age they’re frail and it’s not like you could find them a new home, even if you wanted to.
H. John
The tenant agreed to change her current lease to say “no pets allowed”.
As the article notes:
“Le 31 décembre 2022, la locataire reçoit un avis d’augmentation de loyer ainsi qu’une proposition de modification de loyer afin d’y interdire les animaux.”
The tenant had 30 days to respond rejecting the changes. If she had rejected them, the landlord would have been forced to take her to the TAL if he wanted to fight for the changes.
She did not respond; and, the changes are now part of her lease.
The landlord can require her to get rid of the cat.
She can hold out, forcing the landlord to take her to the TAL for a ruling (which he will win).
With the current backlog, it will be more than a year before the hearing is scheduled, and longer before the decision is written.
Given Lola’s age, she’s just as likely to have moved on to a new “eternal” landlord before the case gets heard.
Kate
True. The tenant should never have agreed to that change of lease.
I suppose I caved to a sad story about an elderly cat, didn’t I.
MarcG
It sounds like she “agreed” through inaction. Perhaps she didn’t understand the document or the process of sending a registered letter, which I assume she would need to have done in response, was too complicated for them to deal with.
Joey
You might infer from the comments that she was especially negligent when it came to refusing the rental increase/lease change – the article makes clear she thought it was wisest to ignore the notice since she had a date already on the books to hear her eviction case.
«À ce moment, je ne signe pas l’avis d’augmentation de loyer et de modification du bail, comme je ne sais pas si je vais être évincée», dit-elle.
It’s hard to imagine a TAL judge eventually evicting her for keeping her cat around (perhaps, as H. John says, it’s harder to imagine Lola being around when the TAL finally hears the case), though I suppose she is in violation of her lease.
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Kate
Video caught a driver using their vehicle to push a traffic signaller out of their way on a closed street. CTV has obscured the licence plate in the accompanying video but clearly police will know who owns that blue car.
Nicholas
It’s really simple: ban that driver from driving for life. Cars are a tool. If you use it as a weapon, on purpose, when you’re not justifiably fearing for your life (say someone is shooting at you), no amount of training or rehabilitation will get you to understand what 99% of people who live in society do. Lots of drivers are negligent and harm people unintentionally, even though they shouldn’t have been negligent, and the punishment for that is too low too, but this is not negligence: this is intentionally using your car for a purpose it wasn’t designed for in a way that might kill a fellow human. Ban. For. Life.
Tim S.
Note how CTV framed it as a “frustrated driver.” (I think this is more journalist sloppiness than a media pro-car conspiracy, but either way, same result).
Also, I wasn’t expecting the twist of the United Steelworkers Union joining the side of groups advocating for more road safety. Good for them.
DeWolf
Imagine if I attacked somebody with my bicycle. It certainly wouldn’t be framed as “frustrated cyclist.”
MarcG
“Frustrated gun owner”
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Kate
A Le Soleil writer blames Montreal for the CAQ’s abrupt decision to make Quebec City’s 3e lien a transit‑only project.
Nicholas
“Cinquièmement, la majorité des ministres de la CAQ provient de Montréal.” This may be true if you count the whole region, but just one minister is from the island, and one from Laval, because most of the island elected MNAs from other parties. Which, fine, but if your argument is that the off-island ministers are too anti-car, when off-island there is a ton of driving and sprawl and resentment of the island….
Uatu
The tunnel would quickly be clogged with traffic from induced demand anyway so might as well move more people with public transport.
DeWolf
Weird column. The author rags on Montreal but also Quebec City, whose mayor was opposed to the 3e lien and whose downtown residents (the ones who would suffer from all of the traffic and pollution) were pretty much unanimous in their opposition.
This was basically a project for Lévis and the Beauce, which have a combined population of about 270,000 people. Hard to justify a $10 billion project that benefits a relatively underpopulated area.
steph
Maybe Montreal could do without it’s tunnel too.. I’d guess most of it’s traffic is coming/going to quebec city anyways.
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Kate
TVA tells about a report that says that every time there’s an incident of gun crime, it costs half a million dollars, adding up police time, hospital time, lost work time, and – in fatal cases – funeral costs and psychological support.
TVA goes into how most recent incidents stem from a gang war between Anjou and St‑Léonard and says there’s been gunfire every three days since January.
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