Updates from June, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 22:45 on 2023-06-27 Permalink | Reply  

    The biggest Canadian owner of rental apartments is ready to sell buildings to the city – and it’s not the only one. Evidently investment companies were going nuts buying up Montreal properties awhile back.

     
    • Ephraim 13:57 on 2023-06-28 Permalink

      It makes me wonder if this is a bad sign… and the apartments that they are selling are apartments that they don’t ever see as being profitable. That the expenses of upkeep far outweigh the rents brought in.

  • Kate 22:40 on 2023-06-27 Permalink | Reply  

    Amtrak’s Adirondack train only returned to service in April after a long pandemic shutdown, but it’s on hold again because Canadian transportation officials limit train speeds north of the border when the temperature reaches 30°. As one of these articles says, this would push crews over their federally mandated workday limit.

     
    • mare 23:51 on 2023-06-27 Permalink

      Unfortunately I found this out yesterday, an hour after it was announced. A friend’s son from NJ is going to stay with me for a few weeks and had booked a ticket on the Adirondack this weekend. But it was canceled because the train wouldn’t go any further than Albany. Now he has to take the terrible Greyhound bus, which is more expensive too (US$105 vs US$71). Maybe because of surge pricing or just because US politicians want Amtrak to go bankrupt so they can dismantle and privatize it.

    • dhomas 03:15 on 2023-06-28 Permalink

      It seems temporary. You are able to book a ticket from July 2nd. All dates prior to that are shown as “cancelled”.

  • Kate 20:38 on 2023-06-27 Permalink | Reply  

    TVA says that 95 households have asked for help as Moving Day looms and they have nowhere to move to. But this TVA piece runs this story in with another, about a new subsidized rooming house for women, run by Chez Doris, which has just opened, and doesn’t sound like it’s meant for families in a jam. There are rooms for 20 women in this new facility.

    Josée Legault writes about the need for political will to tackle the housing crisis.

    And as always this time of year, there are stories about abandoned pets but more because of the rising cost of living, rather than specifically because so many landlords like to ban them.

     
    • Kate 20:31 on 2023-06-27 Permalink | Reply  

      Twin girls age 6 have been abducted by their mother, which sparked an Amber Alert on Tuesday evening.

      Update: News items say the kids have been found.

       
      • Kate 10:26 on 2023-06-27 Permalink | Reply  

        I rarely notice Toronto news at all but it’s bound to be nice for Mayor Plante that the new mayor of that city is also a left‑leaning woman.

         
        • Meezly 12:07 on 2023-06-27 Permalink

          Hard not to notice as it also made international news!

        • Gilles Beauchamp 12:26 on 2023-06-27 Permalink

          But not in the Quebec version of the Globe and Mail ! I noticed the first page of the Ontario edition… but search in vain in my edition: no article at all.

        • Joey 15:01 on 2023-06-27 Permalink

          @Gilles maybe the QC print edition went to bed before the polls closed…

        • Blork 15:35 on 2023-06-27 Permalink

          Can’t wait to see MBC’s stories about how Toronto is being run by a “Chinese spy.”

        • H. John 22:55 on 2023-06-27 Permalink

          I liked Jan Wong’s tweet:

          “Lol On 100th anniversary of Chinese Exclusion Act barring Chinese from entering Canada, an Asian-Canadian woman will lead Canada’s biggest city.”

          https://twitter.com/WriterWong/status/1673663545697812481?s=20

      • Kate 10:14 on 2023-06-27 Permalink | Reply  

        Transit fares in the Montreal area will be going up on July 1 except for people 65 and over, for whom it will be free of charge.

        Update: As noted in comments below, there was a protest downtown on Tuesday.

         
        • Nicholas 12:41 on 2023-06-27 Permalink

          The free fares are only for agglo residents riding within the agglo (Zone A) with a photo OPUS ($15 for 7 years). Fares for non-residents (off-island, tourists, etc) in Zone A are more than doubling from $1.25 to $2.75, etc. (And without a photo card, e.g. tourists, and riders who don’t know you need a photo card, it’s full adult fare, as before.) (They used to be half the price of student fares, but will now be the same price, and since those are going up with inflation the price increase is >100%.) Fares in zones AB/ABC/ABCD are going up slightly if at all. Laval (and some MRCs) already has free 65+ travel for its residents on its networks, but it means no one is eligible for free travel between any two sectors as you only get free travel within your sector where you’re a resident. It’s still a nice benefit, but will confuse lots of people.

        • Kate 12:54 on 2023-06-27 Permalink

          ARTM promised to simplify the old fare system but inevitably brought in a new system that’s confusing in a whole new way.

        • st 13:49 on 2023-06-27 Permalink

          how long will tickets I buy today be valid?

        • shawn 14:04 on 2023-06-27 Permalink

          I had the same question: my assumption is tickets bought today won’t be accepted as of July 1. Is that so?

        • Kate 14:14 on 2023-06-27 Permalink

          During previous fare increases I’ve always been able to go on using any tickets I had already bought, till they were used up. After all, they’re just bits on a chip and the STM machine has already placed them there.

        • Meezly 16:17 on 2023-06-27 Permalink

          I think I heard on the radio that there was a protest at Square Vic earlier today about the STM fare hikes.

        • Spi 20:08 on 2023-06-27 Permalink

          Tickets purchased before the fare increase remain valid until their expiry (which I think is 2’ish calendar years).

      • Kate 09:38 on 2023-06-27 Permalink | Reply  

        In five weeks this city has seen a hundred incidents of arson. La Presse has a table dividing them into buildings, vehicles and other.

         
        • Kate 09:35 on 2023-06-27 Permalink | Reply  

          The construction consortium building the REM has been fined multiple times for putting its workers into dangerous situations.

           
          • Kate 09:24 on 2023-06-27 Permalink | Reply  

            A CHSLD nurse has been charged with sexually assaulting residents – and TVA says the victims are elderly priests.

             
            • Meezly 09:45 on 2023-06-27 Permalink

              This raises so many questions (and assumptions).

            • Kate 10:16 on 2023-06-27 Permalink

              I know. I had to make an effort not to add a satirical flourish about priests.

            • dwgs 20:18 on 2023-06-27 Permalink

              Turnabout is fair play.

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