According to Narcity, the average rent this year for a 3½ has reached $1620 while Alain Dubuc announced recently on La Presse that rents are about to explode, predicting a 30% increase before 2025.
I’m not seeing how people are affording this, but doesn’t an article like Dubuc’s tend to soften people up for the idea of ongoing massive rent hikes – making it sound inevitable and necessary?
A 90-year-old man knocked down by a scooter Monday evening in Rivière‑des‑Prairies has died.
I note pedestrian deaths on my incident maps, and this is the first one I’ve seen reported this year despite the police saying this poor old guy was the fourth Montreal pedestrian to die in traffic in 2023. I’ve done a search and don’t find any others reported. Odd.
I wonder what they mean by “scooter”. Just do an image search to see the wide range of devices this could be referring to.
There’s a picture of it in this previous article about the collision:
I suspect if it was anything other than a street legal licensed moped, this would be a much bigger story.
Yeah, that’s not a moped, that’s a scooter-style motorcycle. Such vehicles can be small (50cc or smaller, which may or may not have pedals) which do not require a motorcycle license. Or they can be larger, in which case they DO require a motorcycle license. The only difference between a large scooter and any other motorcycle is that the scooter has a step-through frame instead of one you mount like a horse.
This looks like a large one. Probably 250cc or even larger. So it’s a bit silly to call it a “scooter” given the ambiguity of that word. It’s a goddamn motorcycle.
…for example, here’s a 400cc scooter made by BMW. That’s a full motorcycle. The choice of “scooter” style has nothing to do with licensing or regulations; it’s simply a choice of riding style. It’s a motorcycle.
The vehicle in that JdM photo looks like it’s as big as this BMW.
Aren’t these called “mopeds”?
What is scooter vs motorcycle style, Blork?
The term moped comes from motorized pedal and they have small engines and pedals. What Nino rides in Le Fabuleux destin d’Amelie Poulain. They inspired the look of Bixi bixes.
Scooters have a step-through frame and the rider adopts a ‘sit up and beg’ position. Think Vespa.
They come with small engines (50cc, no need for anything other than your standard driver’s licence).
What hit this pedestrian is what riders call either an executive scooter or a Maxi-scooter. The largest engines are around 650 cc. You need a motorcycle licence, although if you do your test on this you’ll only be qualified for automatic transmission engines.
Kevin gives a good roundup of what qualifies as a moped and what is a scooter, and in particular, what is a scooter-style motorcycle.
To put it another way, a conventional motorcycle is mounted like a bicycle, where you straddle the vehicle. Think of straddling a horse.
A scooter style motorcycle (or as Kevin says, “executive scooter” or “maxi scooter”) has a step-through frame, which means you’re not really sitting on it like sitting on a horse. You can put your knees together while riding it and your feet are on a flat platform, not on pegs or pedals. Some people prefer this style over conventional motorcycles because they are more comfortable to sit on (no straddling) and easier to ride because they typically don’t have gears and a clutch. However, some people think they’re less “cool.”
A lot of the conversation above reminds me of those “What exactly is an assault weapon?” comments after mass shooting stories.
April was an odd month for weather: there was more rain than usual, including the freezing rainstorm that started on April 5, followed by a record‑breaking warm spell peaking at 27.9°C on April 13 – and, unusually, virtually no snow at all.
I linked to a Metro piece recently about pedestrianized streets and was asked what was up with Rue St‑Paul. Just now, Mayor Plante tweeted a link to this page on the city website, which doesn’t list Rue St‑Paul either.
CBC notes that there aren’t any new pedestrianized streets this season.
Weird. It’s listed on Ville-Marie’s website:
https://montreal.ca/articles/les-pietonnisations-au-coeur-de-ville-marie-5189
I believe it explains it here: dans le cadre d’un programme municipal de 12 M$ sur 3 ans qui vise à soutenir leur dynamisme.
These seem to be listing those which are financed through this program.
Plateau borough is to triple the fine for bike path blockers.
What do you want to bet that cops, who I see block bike paths a lot, won’t be ticketed, and the cars used to do the ticketing will park in the lane to ticket?
What would happen if cops from one cruiser tried to ticket another?
There is definitely a “when pigs fly” joke in here somewhere I just can’t find it.
When cops violate the law, you take a picture and send it to the commission
Bigger fines is nice, but they really should tow them.
@Chris – If they won’t tow them from handicapped zones, what chance do you have for a bike path?
I’ll be pretty surprised if they ticket working vehicles for double parking in bike lanes. Most delivery trucks and construction trucks aren’t ticketed while “on the job”, only if they park overnight without a permit. For that matter anyone that stops in a bike lane won’t get ticketed as long as their 4-ways are on, or if there is someone sitting in the vehicle.
I believe VSP just closed this loophole as well. If it’s the same, then it is for all ‘immobilisations’ of vehicles. Not just for parking.
Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie is varying the cost of a parking sticker depending on the size and type of your vehicle.
Good. Anything to disincentivize people from buying SUVs and pickup trucks. They are deadly, anti-social vehicles that don’t belong in cities:
Not to mention the extra pollution they cause compared to cars, or the extra damage to roads because of their weight.
The Plateau started this trend a few years ago. I’m all for it, though I can’t imagine the potential annual parking cost (which is hella cheap, even if you drive a big, dangerous, gas-guzzling truck) would make one bit of difference in someone’s decision about which car to purchase or lease.
The sud-ouest also varies based on engine size. This all makes sense to me.
I used to live in Rosemont. Both sides of my street were lined with parked cars of people who lived on the street. About half of those cars were SUVs. I wondered to myself why so many people even needed cars at all in the city, let alone SUVs.
I believe the ideal solution would be to deny parking permits for large SUVs or trucks. In the older areas of the city, such as Centre-Sud, the streets are not sufficiently wide to accommodate these oversized vehicles. For instance, I have observed a situation on a three-lane street, with parking on both sides, where an SUV was unable to navigate through a section occupied by parked SUVs. Consequently, the driver had to reverse on a one-way street.
It’s funny to see large trucks that decide that they should be able to go on any street in the Village and the Plateau. We watched as one Frito-Lay truck had to back up 3/4 of the way on the street because it was too narrow to pass close to the end. The street clearly had a no truck sign… but he thought he found a quick way to cut through only to have all the regrets in the world. Drolet is like that… I’m sure more mirrors have died on Drolet than people who actually live on the street
Ephraim, I used to live on Drolet, and every so often you’d hear CRASH-CRASH-CRASH as someone who misjudged the width of the street picked off a series of mirrors.
$209 per year is still much lower than the actual cost for the city per parking spot, about $800-$1300 per year according to this Radio Canada page.
The article annoyingly gives the new prices, but not the older prices. Are they up? Down? More or less than inflation?
I find it a little frustrating that the system is set so that you can get away with a heavier electric vehicles. As a pedestrian, I really don’t care if the vehicle that might hit me is electric or not. I just read something about how the front ends of electric pickups are actually empty – so their dangerous design, with a huge dead zone of visibility, is simply aesthetic.
@Tim S. Not aesthetic, safety. It’s the area that crumples and protects the driver/passenger in a front end collision
Also worth noting I drive a very small compact “Gas-powered 1.6 litres and less” so my parking sticker pice in PMR is as low as if I drove a 100% electric. Granted my car is 13 years old so is probably not as efficient as a new larger vehicle but with this kind of legislation it’s all about optics, not logic.
Maybe Limoges will be luckier than Outremont’s old mayor – introducing parking stickers was one of the main things that made him lose the PM seat in the last election.
Most of the local news Tuesday is in flood zones outside town.
Early Tuesday, calls were made to 911 about an attempted arson on de la Commune near Place Royale. (CTV’s report said Tuesday night, which made me think for a second that I’d lost a day…)
(They fixed it!)
mare 00:16 on 2023-05-03 Permalink
Average rent for a newly constructed 3 ½, not the average rent of the complete stock of existing 3 ½s.
There’s a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy in these ‘rents are exploding!’ stories. Even honest landlords will be tempted to jack up the rent between tenants because ‘everybody does it’ and they’d feel suckers if they don’t.
The cost-benefit ratio is also very skewed. Jacking up the rent of an apartment with $100 per month, not only increases their yearly rental income but also increases the resale value of their building with around $20,000. On the other hand, even if the new tenant successfully contests the rent increase with the TAL (and few do because they want a good relationship with their landlord) the possible penalty for the landlord is very small. A few hundred dollars, not in the neighbourhood of 20 grand.
denpanosekai 08:04 on 2023-05-03 Permalink
Verdun now in the top 3 right after Downtown and Westmount. Who could have guessed even 10 years ago!
Ian 09:31 on 2023-05-03 Permalink
Yeah this false dilemma logic is a bit misleading. The argument that if there isn’t new construction rental costs will soar by a similar percentage to how much new construction has dropped assumes it’s a zero sum closed system – there are also inflation, gas prices, supply chain, employment, mortgage rates, cost of living etc. etc. etc.
Like most things the cost of rentals isn’t a single-lever issue. The danger here is that making these fallacious claims influences political mood, making politicians more concerned about new housing starts in particular, which is of specific benefit to developers, the construction business, and realtors. Cui bono?
Blork 11:01 on 2023-05-03 Permalink
Oh, but the clicks!