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Updates from July, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

• Kate 19:35 on 2023-07-10 Permalink | Reply  

  La Presse’s Nathalie Collard makes a case for saving La Ronde’s antique carousel, and also for some permanent memorial to Expo 67 which, as she says, was a major moment in this city’s history.

  Julie ßlanger, one of the forces behind Facebook’s Expo 67 group, says she’s disappointed that Collard underestimates what public pressure has done to preserve elements of the site. She lists, among others, that her group has stopped the demolition (under Tremblay) of Place des Nations in 2010, and pushed for the renovation of the site; blocked the closure of the Biosphere (under Tremblay) in 2012; put enough pressure on the municipal administration (under Coderre) to force it to hold public consultations at the OCPM; made the Société Parc Jean-Drapeau publicly accountable for its decisions.

  But Collard is right about the carousel.

  Kate, Ian, and steph are discussing. Toggle Comments

   

  • steph 15:25 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    is that ßlanger or Bélanger

  • Ian 16:19 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    Her online handle is with the Eszett.

  • Kate 16:42 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    She posts on Facebook as ßlanger.

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• Kate 11:38 on 2023-07-10 Permalink | Reply  

  A car and a house were torched overnight in different parts of town.

  Doesn’t the fire department get tired of having to put out these deliberately set fires?

   

• Kate 11:33 on 2023-07-10 Permalink | Reply  

  Competing petitions are duking it out over adding bike paths to Park Extension. Residents against the plan are concerned about parking.

  Meezly, Ian, carswell, and 10 others are discussing. Toggle Comments

   

  • Ian 11:41 on 2023-07-10 Permalink

    That said it’s worth noting the borough admits they didn’t do any consultations.

    If you agree with it, great, you’re lucky. No consultations means no recourse. It’s totally undemocratic and paternalistic.

  • Marco 11:49 on 2023-07-10 Permalink

    Should we still be calling them bike paths if they are are to be used by bikes, inline skaters, electric motorcycles, electric scooters and other “low-motorized vehicles”? Bicycle paths are for cyclists only. If we call them Multipurpose separated lanes then maybe they would be viewed as an enhancement instead of something that takes away space from the community.

  • Kate 12:04 on 2023-07-10 Permalink

    Call them what you want, if you take away parking spaces some people will kick.

  • DeWolf 13:54 on 2023-07-10 Permalink

    Ian, I’m curious to hear what exactly what kind of consultation you would like to see in this case. I’m assuming you don’t consider the borough meeting on June 14 to have been a consultation.

  • Joey 14:15 on 2023-07-10 Permalink

    Or the election. Turning parking spaces into bike lanes is Projet Mtl 101. The idea that this is being sprung on an unwilling and unaware propulsion is ludicrous. The article even points out that more residents signed the petition supporting the bike lanes than signed the petition trying to preserve parking spaces.

  • Ian 14:37 on 2023-07-10 Permalink

    @dewolf not true. Read the last line of the article – they were “information sessions” not consultations.
    “« On a fait des séances d’information sur ce qui s’en venait. On n’a jamais prétendu consulter les gens », admet-elle.”

  • DeWolf 15:11 on 2023-07-10 Permalink

    Yes, it was an info session. But you didn’t answer my question – exactly what would a proper consultation look like in this case?

  • Kate 15:40 on 2023-07-10 Permalink

    Referendum?

  • Nicholas 16:00 on 2023-07-10 Permalink

    Why do we need consultations for everything? That’s why we have elections: to pick people who will represent us and make decisions on our behalf. If we don’t like them we can throw them out of office in a few years. Having long review processes delays things, costs extra money and staff resources and biases us towards the status quo, all reducing what we can do. We just had a story the other day about a handful of residents blocking a bunch of units next to a REM station. What limit is there to consultations? What if we had them for tree replacements, sports field rentals, changing recycling contractors? Public consultations usually let a tiny group of the richest, whitest, most well connected people exert outward influence, and we don’t even know if they are actually representative of the majority (and lots of research shows they usually aren’t). We have democratic mechanisms to hold elected officials accountable: council meetings, newspaper letters, elections, and sometimes lawsuits. Let’s leave it at that, and if the majority is angry they can throw the bums out next election.

  • DeWolf 17:43 on 2023-07-10 Permalink

    Here’s my take. Except for the biggest and most important issues, referendums are generally a waste of time, money and political energy. And the smaller the issue, the more likely it is to be hijacked by very small but highly motivated (or well-monied) interest groups, which we’ve seen over and over again in places that practice some kind of “direct democracy” (ahem, California). If you govern by referendum, you’re governing by mob rule.

    I think there’s a lot of room in urbanism for co-creative and co-design processes. But these are most appropriate either for very large scale situations (eg, a master plan) or very small scale situations (eg, a neighbourhood park or plaza). And I really don’t think it’s suitable for any specific project that involves pedestrian or cyclist safety, because there need to be consistent standards from one neighbourhood to the next, since we’re talking about lives at stake. Consult on the master plan and implement projects accordingly.

    Projet Montréal has campaigned on these issues in two elections and it won both times. It developed a cycling strategy (which has, at various points, involved public consultations and a study by the public health department) and has been relatively consistent at implementing it from one borough to the next. The things being proposed in Park Ex were not pulled out of a hat, they’re pretty much exactly the same as what is being done elsewhere in the borough. That’s the whole point of representative democracy: you elect a government to do things on your behalf. I don’t see why there should be some kind of fine-grained consultation for every single project that falls under an umbrella that has already been approved by voters.

    Really, the only thing people here are upset about is the loss of parking. But who decided we should dedicate 60-80 percent of our streets to warehousing private vehicles at zero or minimal cost to their owners? Was there ever a consultation or referendum on that?

  • Ian 20:50 on 2023-07-10 Permalink

    My biggest complaint against Coderre was that he was an autocrat, simply doing what he wanted, based on having the “mandate” of a majority.

    Sound familiar? Luc Rabouin was positively gleeful about not having any consultations or traffic studies in the Plateau when I asked him about it, and his fans, like Nicholas, insisted that this sort of thing is a waste of time. This initiative is precisely the same.

    If an autocrat is doing what you like, it’s coincidental. If what you really want is a citizen-based democracy in which voices are heard, you don’t vote for autocrats. They may seem progressive for now but what happens when they decide to do something that seems to go against the greater good? You simply have no recourse. The only ace up our sleeve as citizens is that PM is so desperate to get re-elected they will muzzle the more abrasive folks they have in their army, like Alex Norris and bagelgate.

    If you don’t have any problem with paternalistic autocrats, that’s on you – I want a citizen-led, progressive democracy. If you really think your only job as a citizen is to vote every few years, you’re not really progressive or democratic. If you think a majority gives politicians mandated power to do what they feel like without answering to the citizens, you’re not really progressive or democratic. If you don’t think engineering studies are important to a well-functioninig metropolis, relying instead on cowboy politicians that shoot from the hip and follow their gut, you’re not really progressive or democratic.

    Honestly, it sounds like a few people around here think they know better than everyone else. If that hurts your feelings, well, you’re not really progressive or democratic.

  • Joey 21:01 on 2023-07-10 Permalink

    LOL Ian. You’re not really progressive or democratic if you support converting parking spaces into bike lanes? My man…

  • Ian 21:29 on 2023-07-10 Permalink

    Joey, you are totally missing my point.

    It’s not the results, it’s the methods. If we convert parking spaces into bike lanes and there’s no studies or democratic exchange, there is nothing to stop the next autocrat from changing them back to parking spaces.

    Studies and referendums are two of the ways we can keep autocrats in check. Abandon them at your peril.

    If an autocrat perfomrs a progressive action, it is merely coincidental. They could literllay do anything else that strikes their fancy next.

  • px_words 21:57 on 2023-07-10 Permalink

    park ex resident here, slightly appalled as always at the coverage of park ex issues in the wider media. There is a good publicly recordered and readily available q+a with the mayor covering the subject which was not covered by the journalists. Protests and counter protests took place on the day of the council meeting, where multiple opinions could have been traced, instead both la press and global appear to have picked the most vocal accounts on th issue from Facebook groups.

    On the issue of public consultation, transportation improvement projects are usually not considered as the type of project where public consultation is required for a number of reasons. Even more so for implementing long-term network improvements that were outlined in various PDUs. In recent (Project) yards here have been a number of public consultations and requests for feedback on a few projects liked to this on (park ex traffic calming, parc jarry plan, improvements to de castelnau and up to parc metro). On a few occasions I submitted comments and in some cases VdM organized events/consultations I attended in person.

    My lived experience of the neighbourhood also points to the same thing – people are not engaging with the information until the last available opportunity, claim to be not consulted, then journalists interview for reactionary opinions without giving context. Usually also, opinions are sourced only from a small section of the population, and there are clear holes in the larger narrative of the local area.

    On the bike paths, it is obvious to any rational planner that parc-ex is a cycle connectivity dead spot. It is also difficult to navigate as a pedestrian and cyclist due to the high volume of through traffic connecting across to the 40 and towards the Decarie. There is also a large portion of suburban visitors, frequenting churches, bakeries and shops. It is also generally not a wealthy neighbourhood, and for many people their car is their status symbol. On top of the congestion, the increasing size of vehicles, the density of population, the roads and junctions contain a plethora of conflicting designs – different style crossings, roads with random mixtures of stop and traffic light junctions in quick succession, a million driving schools. Basic local needs like walking to to the store with your young kids becomes a complicated issue. Double parking, junction parking is ubiquitous, as well as short cuts through alleys. Cars are overwhelmingly the dominant feature of daily life, despite there being a majority of adults using other means of transport.

    The bike paths proposed are an extremely modest step in the right direction, and make good and add pressure to add the southern rail crossing connection through to Outremont. The upcoming REV on J-T will also connect, with the northward route making its way though to the recently developed cycle path into Marché Centrale. I had many questions on the design and integration of such a path and the exact route, which I forwarded to the mayor, but I can’t fault the long-term thinking behind it. It is a first step towards making park ex liveable, walkable hub for many local . I am sure issues affecting access for carers and healthcare workers can be addressed. And something no one talks about in park ex is our excellent access to public transportation lays a great foundation for the future, and even bolder actions to rebalance the dominance of cars from the areas around metro stations outward could drastically improve conditions for residents, increase volume of customers of business and increase pressure to act on other aspects of urban development critical in the area (isolation, green infrastructure, lack of public space, affordable housing).

  • Ian 22:35 on 2023-07-10 Permalink

    “, it is obvious to any rational planner that parc-ex is a cycle connectivity dead spot.”
    Ah, but there’s the rub – there are no planners involved. There are no studies, no consultations, and certainly nothing even vaguely approaching an urban plan other than low-ganging fruit like forcing through whatever.

    Again, I support bikes and pedestrians over cars in the city centre – but to force through projects based on ideology is precisely what Drapeau did. Sure we got the metro but he also killed the farmers markets.

    Beware ideologues that assure you the loss of community input is worth it to quickly enact ….
    Anything.

  • bumper carz 08:30 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    Arrondissement – ‘We’d like to build a bike network so kids can bike to school.”

    Middle-aged Ram drivers – “Where are the consultations, studies, etc.? You are a dictator.”

  • walkerp 09:17 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    px_words thank you for that thorough and detailed view from on the ground. Happy for you and your neighbours that some things are going in the right direction there. I think you are probably spot on about the journalists basically following up on Facebook trends to find news without doing any actual on the ground reporting for themselves.

  • Ian 09:58 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    @bumper carz most of the Ram drivers in Parc Ex are suburban contractors, get your ad hominems sorted out.
    Again, you’re missing the point – autocracy is only coincidentally beneficial. Fir example the bike paths the city put in the Point are actually more dangerous for cyclists than the old ones bc no traffic flow studies were done.

  • Nicholas 10:48 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    Ian, please don’t put words in my mouth. I am not a “fan” of any politician, let alone Luc Rabouin; I didn’t even know who he was until a minute ago.

    As well, calling the current state of affairs in Montreal an autocracy is an insult to those who suffer under them. I’ve been to autocracies, where people are afraid of speaking their mind, where elections are rigged, where one man (and it’s usually a man) has absolute control (that’s the “auto” part of autocracy). Governments implementing the policies they ran under in free and fair elections, subject to constraints of higher levels of governments and the law, is perfectly in line with democracy, and national level governments that have no higher level of government are as well. Montrealers have the ability to rally, protest, form groups, sign petitions, write letters, engage with and form independent media, speak at council, form political parties, run for office, vote. Politicians themselves can join other political parties, which the mayor of this borough did a few years ago (after being kicked out of her party, tbf), tipping the balance of power. Lots of people didn’t like Coderre, but saying he was an autocrat is silly: after winning a single term, he lost two elections in a row! Autocrats don’t lose elections; the few that do don’t hang around long enough to lose a second!

    In theory, there are two kinds of democracy: direct and indirect. We could require a public referendum for literally everything governments do (as I mentioned above), or never have referendums, consultations or public comment, just elected officials who vote for plans (big or small) and the public service who implements them. Most people will want something in the middle, and may disagree about where to set that balance. But all of it, including the extremes, is a democracy, which involves people voting at regular intervals in free and fair elections for members of a legislature. That is what Montreal has, even if there are flaws with our system, and if enough people are fed up with the current government they have the ability to throw them out in 28 months. I would rather have this system than one where every issue, no matter how minor, needs to be reviewed by the public, resulting in a handful of unrepresentative busybodies running the show (and I have been that busybody!). I don’t want to do research for dozens of consultations a week; I want to pick people who can do that work for me, and if they make wrong choices I can complain to them, and if they do it enough I can vote against them. You may not like my preference, and I may not like yours, but neither is a sign of an autocracy, nor necessarily a flawed government. (And don’t take this as me supporting the status quo of how the Montreal-area governments are structured.)

  • DeWolf 11:12 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    Ian, you really elided my question because you never actually explained how you envision a consultation would take place in this particular case. Instead you went on a high-minded rant about autocracy and democratic participation, and you talked a lot about studies, particularly traffic studies, which are certainly not consultations. You seem to ignore the fact that dozens of consultations and studies have indeed been done on major projects – PPUs (master plans), and as px_words mentioned, the reconstruction of de Castelnau on both sides of St-Laurent, which involved public workshops, surveys, etc. I know because I’ve taken part in these consultations.

    When you say PM is acting without community input, you’re absolutely wrong. It’s just that you don’t like what they’re doing and so you value input from people who also feel slighted (dog park advocates, baseball lovers, people who want to park their car in front of their home for free) more than the people who participated in the process but also support the outcome.

    You also keep suggesting, over and over, that PM is just winging it when it comes to pedestrianization, bike paths, etc. And yet engineers are involved with literally every single one of these projects. They aren’t designed and implemented by politicians, they’re designed and implemented by the professional bureaucracy. And when you talk about traffic studies, the ones that Luc Rabouin gleefully admits haven’t been done, you’re talking about a very narrow type of study that only considers vehicular flow. The overemphasis on traffic studies in the past is exactly what prevented us from having more pedestrian space and more safe, all-ages-and-abilities infrastructure. What makes a traffic flow study more important than the study published by Santé Montréal that determined Montreal needs more protected bike infrastructure in underserved neighbourhoods like Park Ex and Montreal North?

    So back to consultation: the Park Ex project is not a major one. It’s literally just upgrading an existing unsafe bike lane on Querbes while adding a new path on Ball that will connected to Jarry Park and the bike path that runs the length of Villeray. Ball won’t remove any parking spots and is meant to be a vital link between schools, parks and existing bike paths – which was exactly how it was described on June 14 by the borough engineer who designed it. (And yet you keep suggesting these paths are completely improvised.) In the case of Querbes, I don’t think the removal of parking is important enough to trigger a full-fledged consultation.

    So yes, the grand scope of Montreal’s policies towards pedestrian and cycling safety have been vetted and approved by the public. There have always been consultations, studies and years-long design processes based on public input for major interventions like street reconstructions and the REV. And there have been consultations on the policies that have directly led to projects like this: notably the Park Ex traffic calming consultation that took place last year.

    But in this particular case, we’re talking about relatively minor interventions and upgrades of existing infrastructure. If that’s enough to trigger a consultation, then every little curb extension would be too. And if you think the removal of parking spaces should be subject to a referendum every time it happens, you’re enforcing a double standard in which parking is more important than the environment, public health or anything else, really.

  • px_voice 12:07 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    Some actual detail that should be noted that the section of Ogilvy affected happens to be where Ganacan and New Marche Swadesh are, both are specialist grocers/butchers that bring in visits from all over the city, and there are also numerous driving schools here, as well as the 80/480 South turning onto the same section of road one block west. There’s also the legendary restaurant Appayon and bakery Piccadilly, and popular takeout place with food from Guinea Bissau. Which means regardless of intent, this bike path section is going to be a challenge to navigate as it will be in constant conflict with illegal parking (that also frequently block surrounding alleys also). But in any case it makes sense to snake the path from De L’Épée onto Querbes through the neighbourhood, and think long term about these projects, and I trust these factors have been and will be considered in the design and implementation. Changes in behaviour will take time, and as people begin to realise the benefits linked to a strategy that equalizes access is a preferable experience, beneficial to the social, economic and ecological resilience of the neighbourhood. To arrive sans auto into these densely populated areas will be a dramatic improvement for the experience of visitors also, and foot and bike traffic creates better value from the location, compared to the policy of sustaining transportation design for businesses whose sole focus is on transactional visits from suburban diasporas.

    More background:

    https://montreal.ca/articles/le-reseau-cyclable-de-villeray-saint-michel-parc-extension-50866

    https://montreal.ca/actualites/une-demarche-participative-sur-lapaisement-de-la-circulation-samorce-48917

    https://montreal.ca/articles/le-plan-local-de-deplacements-de-vsp-19260

    More to come starting 2024:

    https://montreal.ca/articles/creer-ensemble-le-plan-durbanisme-et-de-mobilite-2050-15575

  • Ian 13:08 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    No studies needed eh? I guess everyone forgot the debacle on Clark already.

    A little autocracy, as a treat.

  • walkerp 13:21 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    Dude, Ian, show some flexibility of mind and appreciation of nuance! You are getting absolutely trounced here and instead of taking a knee and showing some dignity you just keep running into more punches.

    There are many ways PM can be critiqued but it’s just not happening in this context. But I’ll bite, what was the “debacle on Clark”. I, for one, seemed to have completely forgotten about it.

  • Michael 13:53 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    Ian is right.

    People just want to jam through their Bike philosophy and anti car agenda no matter what.

    So anybody that jams it through in any neighbourhood no matter what is doing a good thing.

    7 months of the year these bike lanes are not being used and frozen over. Who cares though.

  • Ian 14:16 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    Michael, i am pro-bike lanes. What I’m against is pushing through infra projects without required traffic studies then presenting it as a “fait accompli” instead of consulting those affected.

    walkerp, if you don’t remember Clark it’s no wonder you think I’m on the wrong side of history – you don’t remember it!

    When Clark got redone the dividers they put in to protect the bike paths made the street too narrow for emergency vehicles to pass. Alex Norris swore up and down studies had been done, belittling and ridiculing critics. He was lying. Plante had to admit that this was not the case. In fact, the Fire Department made the city rip up all the work from Van Horne to Fairmount and redo it. Basically the whole project cost twice as much … because traffic flow studies weren’t done.

  • DeWolf 14:34 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    Ian, that’s not what traffic studies are for. What happened on Clark was due to negligence either on the part of the contractors or the city engineers. They got the dimensions wrong. It happens. A traffic study wouldn’t have made any difference.

    Besides, Clark was ripped up to replace the underground infrastructure. Adding the planted median along the bike path was basically just icing on the cake. It was an existing bike path! So you really would have had a public consultation or referendum along the lines of:

    Do we add a planted median with trees after we rebuild the sewers on Clark, yes or no?

  • Forgetful 14:52 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    Haha not Michael with the “half a year of deep freeze” anti-active transportation argument.

    In Quebecois French there’s an expression: “pousse, mais pousse égale”.

  • carswell 15:04 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    @Michael, no one is jamming through an anti-car agenda no matter what and I dare you to prove it.

    The city is extending safer bikeways into a historically poor and underserved neighbourhood, one that has long been cut off from the rest of the city by the Berlin TMR wall, by hostile intersections like Rockland-Jean Talon, Parc-Jean Talon and the Acadie circle, by thoroughfares like Acadie, the Met and Jean Talon, by bike-dangerous streets like Beaumont and Parc, by train lines to the east and south. And however big a step forward this project is, it’s still not enough and won’t be till a safe and convenient crossing of the CP tracks into Outremont is found. (The MIL campus walkway, designed to be bike-unfriendly, is a missed opportunity as was the reconstruction of the Rockland overpass).

    Look at the map on the first VdM page px_voice linked to above:
    https://montreal.ca/articles/le-reseau-cyclable-de-villeray-saint-michel-parc-extension-50866#&gid=1&pid=1
    We’re talking about the addition of two bike paths. What’s more, they’ll be only two that cross Parc Ex, one north-south and one east-west, that accommodate through traffic. Without them, there is next to nothing useful or safe for cyclists in an area with lots of narrow streets and heavy traffic

    Many bike riders live in the area and, with the arrival of the MIL campus, there’s bound to be more. The people I know who live in the neighbourhood, some of them car owners, will also welcome the traffic-calming effect that these and other infrastructure will have on a neighbourhood too often invaded by drivers speeding through on their way to the TMR, the Met, the Laurentian Autoroute, Marché central, etc.

    As for your claim that the paths are unused seven months of a year: that’s unadulterated BS today and will be even more so once Bixi starts operating year-round. Even if you abide by the city’s current official dates for many of its paths — November 15 to April 15 — that’s five months and there have been numerous years where I, an avid cyclist but not one who bikes when the streets are snow, slush or ice-covered, have biked well into December and as early as March, i.e. four months. Also, even before year-round Bixi, winter cycling is a bigger and bigger thing; bike store owners will confirm that sales of winter bikes, studded tires, etc. are way up.

    But if forcing drivers to slow down a little in residential and small-scale commercial neighbourhoods and share a fraction of a fraction of the roads with other users is anti-car, so be it. It’s a badge I’ll wear with pride. And Projet’s resounding win in the last municipal election, where biking infrastructure was an issue, shows a majority of Montrealers will too.

  • carswell 15:07 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    Damn. Forgot the tags. Should have been: Berlin TMR wall

  • Ian 15:50 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    That wall is a blight. At lest the Berlin wall was a good support for graffiti.

    Anyhow, I have absolutely no sense of personal dignity that walkerp tells me to defer to, so …

    DeWolf, I didn’t mean to suggest that there should have been a referendum or local consultation on the Clark réfection. You are absolutely correct that this was an “improvement” to the existing bike path. That said, anyone with a measuring tape could have figured out that ambulances and firetrucks couldn’t pass, and for PM seniority like Norris to literally ridicule and belittle people on social media for bringing it up before the Fire Department did is, well, classic PM. There’s a reason he’s not allowed to be a spokesperson anymore.

    I figure what happened was someone thought it might be nice to put planters in the dividers, someone said they have to be “x” cm wide to support trees, the dividers got widened without consulting the original plan or doing any measurements. A simple traffic flow study could have solved that and saved millions of dollars and months of work, and serious inconvenience for residents – the site not only cost twice as much but took twice as long.

    I used to support PM 100%, knee-jerk voted for them, donated $ and everything – but after they screwed over Piper Huggins for daring to stand up to the old boys I saw the cracks in the facade. Since then, I have been bald-faced lied to by Norris, Ryan, and Rabouin. These guys will say anything, and have no scruples. Look how Bergeron flipped for Coderre. I get it; politicians. That said, I thought PM was different. Turns out they’re also just a bunch of reactionary ding-dongs that do whatever they feel like. As I have said in the past, I find it telling that Plante is the only one that speaks for PM now. Norris and his ilk have been muzzled because they simply don’t respect the populace and can’t deal with being questioned. I also suspect this is a large part of why Ferrandez ragequit.

    That I (mostly) agree with PM policies is secondary. It’s the methodology and utter disrespect for the public except when it comes to currying votes that I take issue with.

    Anyhow, I’d also like to take this opportunity to apologize for all my typos as I am on my phone most of the time when I am posting here, and as I usually correspond in French, it keeps trying to autocorrect me to French 🙂

  • Meezly 09:14 on 2023-07-12 Permalink

    This is tangentially related but just heard a CBC radio interview with the chief urban planner of Vancouver who was singing the praises of Montreal’s bike path infrastructure and saying how far Vancouver has to go to even come close, as there is a lot of resistance and politics.

    I remember a while back I took part in a survey about where in my neighourhood a bike path is most needed, and I responded that, as a parent who’s kid attends an elementary school on Villeneuve Ouest where the traffic flow is westbound one-way, an eastbound bike path along Villeneuve was needed so that students who live west of the school can ride their bikes safely to school.

    I don’t know if it was coincidence that they had already planned it, but within a year, an eastbound bike lane was installed!! I was pleasantly astounded.

• Kate 11:31 on 2023-07-10 Permalink | Reply  

  Some customers have been picketing Notre‑Dame‑des‑Neiges to protest the ongoing strike. More than 300 burials are on hold – surely they’ll run out of space to store them soon?

  CBC says outright that some people are sneaking in.

  Ian, carswell, Kate, and 1 other are discussing. Toggle Comments

   

  • walkerp 18:37 on 2023-07-10 Permalink

    I hope that it stays unmowed for the entire summer. Imagine the ecosystems that are thriving there right now.

  • Kate 19:11 on 2023-07-10 Permalink

    I know! But it won’t be.

  • Ian 21:30 on 2023-07-10 Permalink

    Foxes are coming back, too 🙂

  • walkerp 09:18 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    Sounds like somebody has been “crossing the picket lines” 😉 I may have to do so myself before they settle.

    What is really going to suck is they probably will do some horrible cut and culling of all the living creatures there. Apologies to all the people who have loved ones there but graveyards are stupid and should just be left to grow and turn into greenspaces.

  • carswell 10:49 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    Was wondering who would be sneaking in — as I reported last week, I easily found three breaches in or under the fence and two of them were clearly often used. One answer came in a Daybreak interview with one of the aggrieved customers, whose father was buried in the cemetery and mother’s corpse was in a freezer waiting to be interred alongside her spouse.

    The interviewee (probably the Jimmy Koliakoudakis in the CBC article Kate links to) was clearly upset and, while expressing support for the idea that workers deserve good working conditions and a decent living, laid blame on them and on the government but made not a single reference (that I heard) to the owners (the Supplicans? oddly not mentioned in the Wikipedia article or on the NDN website).

    He also said that he and others have snuck into the cemetery to visit and tend graves. And he lamented the “horrible,” overgrown, unkempt state of the grounds, with downed tree limbs blocking roads. What struck me as interesting was that he seemed incapable of seeing the beauty of nature reclaiming the place. (“Bet he lives in the ‘burbs” was my first thought).

    And it is beautiful. Years ago, I did a stint with a company located in the Lachine industrial park. I usually commuted there by train. The office was about a block northwest of Lachine station and to get there, we commuters had to walk through a field once a golf course but allowed to go wild. That short walk was my favourite part of the workday. There are few things more beautiful than nature having her way with a former garden, even when it’s only a garden of sorts. Mature trees, some covered in vines, grassy meadows, swaths of wildflowers, an abundance of wildlife including flocks of Monarchs in season — probably the most pastoral place I’ve seen on the island.

    That’s what NDN is becoming and, from a nature-lover’s perspective, it’s glorious. One of the other groups of people sneaking into the cemetery is birdwatchers, as the place has become a haven — unprecedented in the central city for at least half a century — for all kinds of species, including some that don’t normally set up shop around here. Living close to the mountain and cemetery, I’ve also noticed an uptick in bird activity and am hearing and identifying species I’ve never encountered here before or not since the HEC monstrosity destroyed that city block’s worth of wild protected forest. Golden-crowned kinglets, red-eyed vireos, kestrels and more (if you haven’t downloaded Cornell’s Merlin bird ID app, do!).

    I’ll be sad when NDN reverts to a more sterile, boring, pesticided, artificial and less natural place.

  • walkerp 13:22 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    Beautifully written, Carswell. You’ve clinched it for me, I’m going in.

  • Kate 13:40 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    The Sulpicians. They used to quite literally own the entire island of Montreal. I don’t know whether their current real estate holdings are public knowledge.

  • carswell 14:05 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    Thanks, walkerp, but please note it’s carswell, with a lowercase c.

    And thanks for the correction, Kate. My ignorance of Catholic orders is showing. Having now read the Wikipedia entry, I understand they’re named not after supplicants but rather St-Sulpice, the Paris church where the order was founded. Priest members of the order are said to have numbered only 293 in 2010. Among the listed “notable members,” the only two I recognize are Marc Ouellet and, triggering a vague memory, John Francis Cronin, a staunch anticommunist who advised Richard Nixon in his early days as a US representative and cohort of McCarthy and later as VP.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Priests_of_Saint_Sulpice

  • Ian 15:56 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    The two cemeteries have the best collection of trees and flowering shrubs outside the Jardin Botanique. I’ve seen many varieties of owls and hawks, pileated woodpeckers, a gajillion varieties of tits …
    As carswell notes the wildness has greatly increased the wildlife. Also keep your eyes open for dozens of species of mushrooms, not in aspic of cauliflower 😉

• Kate 09:00 on 2023-07-10 Permalink | Reply  

  A new weather warning says we should expect heavy rainfall through Monday into Tuesday morning.

  CE and Ian are discussing. Toggle Comments

   

  • Ian 21:31 on 2023-07-10 Permalink

    A nice, consistent light rain is a welcome substitute.

    I can see the trees on my street visibly perking back up.

  • CE 10:18 on 2023-07-11 Permalink

    I live near a park and it’s been nice seeing the green coming back with all the rain.

• Kate 08:57 on 2023-07-10 Permalink | Reply  

  There were two incidents of stabbing on Sunday, an isolated one in Côte‑des‑Neiges and a group brawl in St‑Michel among teenagers during a Dominican festival in Frédéric‑Back park. Four boys were injured.