Updates from June, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 18:46 on 2023-06-20 Permalink | Reply  

    CultMTL has a list of the five top issues for Montrealers, and the housing crisis came up #1 even ahead of the climate.

    Rents rose a record 13.7% in Quebec over the last year.

    François Legault on Radio-Canada: the cost of housing is only going up because salaries are rising so fast! “Je ne veux pas que le Québec reste pauvre pour qu’on garde le prix des maisons plus bas qu’à Toronto ou à Vancouver.” Ask nicely and maybe he’ll rent you his garden shed for $500 a month.

    And in La Presse: “J’ai quatre 1er juillet d’expérience et ça s’est bien passé… Personne ne s’est retrouvé à la rue.”

    The Quebec ethics commissioner has opened an investigation into housing minister/real estate agent France-Élaine Duranceau.

     

    • Chris 09:02 on 2023-06-21 Permalink

      The CultMTL list is not a scientific poll, but rather a reader poll, and therefore not really representative of anything useful.

    • Meezly 09:15 on 2023-06-21 Permalink

      When Bill 31 was passed I knew that it was done for Legault cronies and lobbyists who were also real estate developers, but had no idea that the housing minister herself was a major housing flipper. This makes so much sense now. Is this not a serious conflict of interest and breach of public trust? Glad that the media is doing its job. But will Duranceau get her due? This also falls on Legault too if he had appointed her.

    • carswell 09:36 on 2023-06-21 Permalink

      La Presse’s top article this morning is a fairly scathing reply to Legault: Crise du logement : La réponse d’une mère au premier ministre.

      Today’s Chapleau cartoon is also on subject and on target.

  • Kate 12:35 on 2023-06-20 Permalink | Reply  

    Concerned residents in Côte-des-Neiges have put up a petition against synthetic turf planned for the soccer field in Mackenzie King Park.

     

    • DeWolf 18:31 on 2023-06-20 Permalink

      I was at a friend’s picnic in that park when a lady came up to us with the petition. She was making some dubious claims about how many trees would be cut down. To be frank she had real white lady Karen vibes.

      I don’t live near there so it really doesn’t concern me in any practical way, but I understand how this is a pretty thorny issue. On the one hand, synthetic pitches are necessary if you actually want to train up young athletes and give them a chance at playing real soccer. On the other, it’s… you know. Plastic. Not very ecological.

    • Kate 18:56 on 2023-06-20 Permalink

      I suppose the real issue is that either you have natural turf, but you have to pay city workers to mow it and keep it safe and suitable as a playing surface, or you put in astroturf and forget about it.

    • mare 19:44 on 2023-06-20 Permalink

      Not just the maintenance, but also the fact that real grass will get damaged when people use it too early to play on in the spring when the soil is still frozen and the grass is wet, soggy and very fragile.

      I don’t think the plastic is the issue, it’s the billions of tiny rubber particles that are in between the artificial grass ‘blades’. (When it was installed for weeks machines were making rounds on the field to compact them down.) It makes the artificial grass field a hot spot instead of a cooling heat sink like the rest of a park. It’s also supposedly entering the blood stream.

      On the other hand the artificial fields are playable the moment the snow has melted and the other pitches are still snow covered or just wet and soggy because the soil is still frozen two feet deep.

      (In Pere-Marquette park, in the middle of the first winter of the pandemic a few French ‘foot’ fans removed, with shovels, the accumulating snow on a part of the artificial field to have a mini pitch to train their ball handling skills. In the spring that part thawed first and then the whole field was snow free after a few sunny days. Even earlier than in other years.)

    • Chris 21:46 on 2023-06-20 Permalink

      Those astroturf fields stink to high heaven in the sun. Betcha whatever is off-gassing is not healthy.

    • Benoit 23:11 on 2023-06-20 Permalink

      Natural turf can only be used for about 14 hours per week or it gets too damaged. Synthetic turf has no such limit. With the shortage of soccer fields, synthetic has a huge advantage.

    • Joey 10:53 on 2023-06-21 Permalink

      How in the world is PM going to build a synthetic turf field that will *create* a heat island in the middle of a park?!?

    • Kate 11:56 on 2023-06-21 Permalink

      They will do it by making the case that it’s better for the local kids to have a sports field than for environmental concerns to be rigidly respected.

    • dwgs 12:05 on 2023-06-21 Permalink

      Athletic facilities in NDG / CDN are pretty sad when compared to other communities, especially in CDN. If kids are busy doing sporting things it helps keep them from doing other, less healthy things.

    • DeWolf 18:39 on 2023-06-21 Permalink

      It comes down to a conundrum: social justice or eco justice?

    • MarcG 21:22 on 2023-06-21 Permalink

      Are there other plants besides grasses (like creeping thyme or clover) that would serve as a soccer surface but could withstand more abuse?

    • Nicholas 23:41 on 2023-06-21 Permalink

      This is always a tough call. Melting snow and rain make grass fields unplayable for a while (without damaging them), especially when they’re badly maintained or heavily used. Even if games are cancelled, pickup games will happen and the areas near the nets will need to be resodded regularly. As Late says, more field time means more physical activity. Short-cut, heavily manicured grass is also not very natural, both for biodiversity and carbon removal. But turf does create a heat island effect, and often people will want to fence those off for official games only. Also those plastic pieces get everywhere! But there are other options: I’ve been on cork ones, and there are other natural materials. There have been changes since what was around 30 years ago.

    • Joey 13:03 on 2023-06-22 Permalink

      Starting rule of thumb: do for the CDN soccer players whatever Westmount does for theirs.

  • Kate 12:00 on 2023-06-20 Permalink | Reply  

    The Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM) is planning to present an idea for the southwestern end of the pink line this fall. The ARTM has its eye on the rail line along Victoria in Lachine.

     

    • Faiz Imam 12:34 on 2023-06-20 Permalink

      Boosting the existing line to full day service is an obvious win. I recall as a Concordia student how idiotic it was that I couldn’t reasonably take a train from downtown to Montreal west station.

      The potential is huge.

  • Kate 10:12 on 2023-06-20 Permalink | Reply  

    Here’s the STM page on river shuttles, with a map and some details on fares and how to access them.

     

    • Kate 08:15 on 2023-06-20 Permalink | Reply  

      No surprise: Anna Gainey has won the NDG-Westmount byelection for the federal Liberals.

       

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