Montreal will have to adapt to more extreme weather in coming years, especially facing the risk of floods as we saw on Thursday. Various experts chip in here with their points of view.
Updates from July, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
I mostly don’t do Laurentians news, but the death of a gondola passenger and serious injury to another at Mont Tremblant on Sunday is all over our news. Both victims were from Ontario. What actually happened will take some time to investigate.
Trust TVA to find out the pair were having a week‑end en amoureux.
CBC tells us the man was a member of the Armed Forces.
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Kate
TVA says there will be two days of free rides on the REM after it opens in two weeks’ time, but Radio‑Canada says two weeks of tolerance will be allowed for riders without a ticket.
Metro runs down what we need to know about the operations of the first segment of the REM.
The STM explains how the Nuns’ Island bus routes will change on July 31 to bring people to the REM to get into town. I don’t imagine that commuters who used to take just one bus to go downtown will be thrilled with the extra transfer, but it is what it is.
Forgetful
Some people are making jokes that until the fare gates are installed, it’s free. Personally I wouldn’t want to be brutalized by a fare inspector.
Kate
Has anyone here ever been caught without a valid fare on an Exo train?
(Has anyone here even ridden on an Exo train?)
Nicholas
I took the train regularly when it was still AMT and there were rarely inspections, about as often as on the metro, but I did see some people get caught. Of course they actually checked people on the train or as they got off where you could get surprised, rather than standing in uniform right behind the metro faregates in view of everyone, catching only people passing through the turnstiles knowing they didn’t have a valid ticket but being too stupid to look for inspectors first. The train inspectors are best able to catch people coming into Lucien L’Allier, where once you get off you have no where to hide or run and it’s too late to buy a ticket. When I took the train regularly I did not travel into LL nor was I travelling in the rush hour direction, so the trains were fairly empty, so there were fewer inspectors. I’m sure the REM will want to ensure people are paying these first few months and will set the tone by being out in force.
DeWolf
The only time I’ve taken a commuter train (back when it was AMT and not Exo) I didn’t have a ticket because the machine was broken, so I just got on and hoped for the best. Nothing happened.
However, I grew up in Calgary where the C-Train has an honour system and ticket inspections are pretty common outside of the jam-packed rush hours. I also spent a lot of time in Vancouver before they installed fare gates and it was a similar story. if you didn’t have a ticket, there was a good chance you’d get caught.
Blork
Despite all the problems, I’m looking forward to the launch and I hope it goes well. I was driving across the Champlain bridge on Saturday and saw three REM trains zipping around and it was great to see them.
I only regret that I have absolutely no use for it. I don’t live anywhere near any REM stations. Even after the lines are built out more it will be like the West Island commuter lines for me; nice to see them but will never use them. 🙁
mare
Inspired by @Blork’s comment I just tried to look something up in their FAQ to see if there’s a chance I’m ever going to use the REM (apart from trying it out in the first weeks) until the airport stretch is done. So I went to their English website. Illegally because I’m not covered by the exceptions of the new language laws (yes, that’s what a big banner says).
Anyway, can someone explain to me what this means: “You can purchase either an All Modes fare or one of the special bus fares related to the REM’s commissioning, which allows you to use the REM, as appropriate to your situation and location.”
I don’t think it’s written in a language that I understand. Fortunately (or unfortunately) the French version is not much clearer, so they also need better writers, and not only better translators.Blork
“You can purchase either an All Modes fare or one of the special bus fares related to the REM’s commissioning, which allows you to use the REM, as appropriate to your situation and location.”
That PROBABLY means you have two options: Option 1 is an “All Modes” fare which you can use on REM, bus, and Metro. Option 2 is a special fare (presumably cheaper) which only works on the REM.
As someone who writes instructions for a living, this kind of written sludge just kills me. I’ve never taken a Bixi because I could not get past the crushing ennui and sadness that reading its instructions imposed on me. (Maybe it’s better now, but in the beginning it was absolutely impenetrable.)
Kate
mare, you realize we will have to transmit your confession to the OQLF.
Uatu
Well I’m forced into taking it and my fare was raised to 190 bucks a month so this thing had better work. I’m hoping there will be more local service between the Panama station and my house but I’m not holding my breath. When they started the 45 express bus it should have made more buses available for weekend service yet I was still waiting at the Panama station in -20c for 30min on a Sun night because I just missed my connection. I’m also worried because they said they shut down the service during last week’s rainstorm. I’ve waited downtown during bad weather closures of the old Champlain bridge and I’m not looking forward to the angry, tired mob forced to wait in a confined space for delayed trains.
Blork
Uatu, you have my sympathy. Curious: how long a bus ride is it from the Panama station to your place? In my case it’s MORE THAN ONE HOUR. As in, more than an hour just to get to Panama, not including the REM connection. Which is crazy considering I can drive downtown in a bit more than 15 minutes.
Ian
There’s still no bus schedule for Ste Anne. Long walk from Ste Marie north of the 40.
https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/kramberger-parking-and-bus-routes-for-west-island-rem-stations-are-unresolved
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Kate
Radio-Canada talked to Serge Lareault, the city’s homelessness czar, who ran L’Itinérante for 20 years. He says the demographic of the homeless has changed: it used to be mostly men over 40 with substance abuse issues and now it could be anyone – new immigrants, elderly women, Indigenous people. The effects of the pandemic, with its loss of jobs, and the arrival of new drugs on the scene are both major factors.
A new rooming house opened in the Plateau on Monday with rooms for 28 people. After the other piece it sounds like a drop in the bucket, but they have to start somewhere.
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Kate
Eighty grounds workers are back on the job at Notre‑Dame‑des‑Neiges. They’re starting by tidying up from the April ice storm, and the cemetery won’t open to the public yet.
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Kate
Another smog warning has been declared in town Monday through Wednesday.
From the start of the pandemic in March 2020 and for more than three years I never got sick, not even the merest head cold. But over the last month I’ve caught two things, first one mostly a nagging sore throat, and more recently a hacking cough that hasn’t entirely gone away.
Those may not be ascribable entirely to bad air quality, but no other variables have changed. It feels like the bad air has got into my lungs, and I don’t like it.
Update: La Presse says we’re experiencing smoke this time from forest fires out west.
EG
Damn. And I’d wanted to go outside to enjoy the summer during the next few days, because I hadn’t done that as much as I’d wanted to lately. You know, because of the smog.
Myles
I’ve had very similar experiences with respiratory illnesses this summer. I’m not looking forward to this and worse becoming the norm.
walkerp
Did you test yourself, Kate? Because I had similar symptoms and turned out it was covid. I’m still coughing.
Mark Côté
I noticed there was no mention of forest fires in this announcement. I wonder if it’s still the major contributing factor, or if it’s just “regular” city smog this time.
Kate
walkerp, I did, both times, and both times it came up negative, although my tests are oldish and I must admit I’m not a terrific lab tech.
walkerp
In any case, dark, dystopic times. If it’s not a zootropic disease going after your health, it’s the forest fires.
Tim S.
Alternatively, walkerp, the era from 1945-2020 in the western world was a kind of golden age, and we’re just slowly returning to normal human baseline.
Kate
I have thought similarly, Tim S.
War has always been lurking at the edges, but we didn’t have to worry about most other risks that humans have had to face for millennia.
I’ve read how polio was a nightmare in summertime in some cities in the mid 20th century, and my mother told me how mobile Xray machines were brought into her factory periodically to check who had tuberculosis, and always a few people were taken off work and ordered to go stay in a sanatorium in Ste‑Agathe.
I’m old enough to have had the smallpox vax and the oral polio vaccine, but never to have had actually to fear these things.
Having a pandemic take over our world was a warning most of us aren’t listening to. We are not masters of nature, not by a long shot.
walkerp
That may indeed be. The big difference is that while humans suffered in toil, deprivation and war for most of our history, we were not also taking the planet with us.
Chris
The planet will be fine walkerp. It has been through many mass extinctions before, the next one won’t be so different.
walkerp
Such a loser mentality.
Ian
To be fair it’s still nothing compared to the Devonian mass extinction. Tough time to be a trilobite.
Not sure what that has to do with anything though…
But as George Carlin once pointed out, “The planet’s going to be fine. It’s HUMANS that are f*cked”.
Chris
In case it was not clear, my point was exactly that of George Carlin.
Ian
I kind of thought so 😀
The full performance from 1992: https://youtu.be/Kmo8sh77G6Y
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Kate
Cyclists held a mild-mannered demonstration Sunday in Nouveau‑Bordeaux because churchgoers have been parking in the bike path during services and they would like it to stop.
Thomas
Haha wow I hadn’t heard about this at all. I’m guessing there is a generational and linguistic barrier that has led to all those elderly, anglophone churchgoers parking in the bike path as if ’twere the most natural thing in the world.
I’m actually there all the time and I can tell you that stretch of Dudemaine is the only place for miles where it is reasonably safe and pleasant to cross highway 15 (be it on foot or on bike), the other one being on Gouin where the highway passes overhead.
So this is actually a critical piece of cycling infrastructure in our borough for getting from one side of the gigantic barrier that is highway 15 to the other while not being inside a car. I’m sure Jesus would understand.
Thomas
I also enjoy the complete lack of analysis from TVA. They mention that the church has its own parking lot and that there is plenty of parking on the side streets, but it doesn’t go any further than that. LOL
steph
With the address on Filion, I’d start by openly contesting the ‘la Ville permet aux véhicules de se stationner devant l’église’. Don’t give them an inch.
carswell
The city has recently been doing some welcome work on the paths I often take to bike out to Lachine and points west.
On Édouard-Montpetit up to CDN, the painted path has been widened and now has two additional lines marking a buffer zone between parked cars to the right and traffic to the left. West of CDN, the path has been moved to between the curb and the line of parked cars — a generally safer arrangement as the descent is quite steep and a lot of the vehicular traffic is rushing to the Décarie. Of course, lots of the parked cars impinge on the path, the drivers obviously more concerned about the possibility of their vehicles being struck by passing cars and trucks than bicycles. Also, a few residents are using the bike path as a dumping ground for yard trimmings (on purpose?) and garbage bins. Movers and delivery vans also sometimes park in the path, forcing cyclists to go onto the sidewalk, since parked cars now block access to the street.
The through path stops a few blocks east of the Décarie and doesn’t pick up again till Fielding just west of Côte-St-Luc. (The route through Hampstead — Ellerdale along that strech — is particularly unfriendly to bikes, I suspect on purpose.) From Walkley westward it’s just been changed to the between-curb-and-parked-car arrangement all the way to West Broadway. However, for the few blocks before West Broadway, residents continue parking their cars next to the curb, blocking the path, despite its being painted with bike symbols and directional arrows. Have yet to see a car ticketed.
Blork
Thomas is correct that the church has its own parking lot, accessible from the side streets. There is no excuse for parking in front of the church for normal services.
It’s a bit different for things like weddings and funerals, where there is usually a procession of three or four vehicles for the immediate family or whatever. Traditionally, that procession is assured of immediate access to the main entrance of the church (this applies to pretty much all churches everywhere).
That said, surely something can be worked out. While the church has a parking lot, it’s BEHIND the church, and requires walking around the building on a narrow sidewalk; hardly elegant for a funeral procession or a wedding party. But that isn’t more important than the safety of cyclists, so maybe the church needs to enlarge that sidewalk that goes around the building so as to make it better for processions. I think the Pope can afford that small reno job.
Thomas
I don’t even think anyone is calling into question their God-given right to block the bike path for funerals, the locals just don’t want it blocked every single Sunday morning. I do wonder how they manage during snow clearing season — do they just flip off the snowplow operators, or do they somehow, miraculously, find somewhere else to park?
John B
I’ve been following this a bit in some of the cycling FB groups. The main guy who’s spearheading this, (the one who had his family frolé by traffic while going around cars parked in the bike lane), has tried every official avenue possible – he’s talked to the borough council, police, and Mobility Montreal, and they’ve all said there isn’t anything they “can” do. “Can” is in scare quotes because I find this hard to believe, it is illegal to park in bike paths, if there’s nothing the police can do to enforce the law then I may have some banks to rob. This is definitely about the weekly blocking of the path on Sundays more than any special events like funerals.
I finally looked at the church on street view just now. The church is set way back from the street, so much that the walk from the parking lot is probably closer than the walk from the street, blocking the path seems like pure assholery, maybe because it feels nicer to walk up to the front door of the church than to walk around the building. The church is also on a corner lot, the cross street also has a bike path, but with parking, and there is a walkway from the church doors to the side street, which seems closer than the street in front of the church. It may actually make more sense for funerals to use this side street, since it would be less far to carry the casket. For weddings, there’s an argument for using the street that’s the object of protests so you can get better pictures, but… take a look at the church, it’s not a church you choose for its looks.
There’s a huge front yard in front of the church, they should just build a driveway for weddings/funerals/Sunday drop-offs and park in the parking lot or on the side streets. That’ll create some conflict crossing the bike path, but that’s better than blocking the path completely. I bet the city would even pay part of the cost.
dwgs
Neither weddings nor funerals are scheduled on Sundays to the best of my knowledge.
jeather
If they ticketed cars parked in bike lanes, they would have to stop parking official cop cars in bike lanes.
mare
I have called (514) 868-3737 (the dedicated phone number to report cars parked in bike lane) a few times when I encountered cars on the bike path. At least once, when I passed the spot again on my return trip, the
Green Onionsparking enforcers had put parking tickets under windshields. I hope other cyclists call this number too.On this particular street it’s possible the parking enforcers fear being struck by lightning if they give tickets to churchgoers.
(I still think that parked cars in NO-STOPPING zones, like bike paths and bus lanes, should be towed, not just ticketed. Bus lanes are much less effective in Montreal because there’s always that one car and then the bus has to merge into traffic…)
Thomas
@mare OMG, it seems like almost everyone feels entitled to use the dedicated bus lane in front of Sauvé metro as a dropoff/pickup location. Every time I come out of the station I see a car stopped there.
I think in Montreal there is a comprehension issue, where people literally don’t understand the difference between no parking and no stopping, and also a civility issue, where people are aware of the rules but can’t imagine that they would possibly apply to them.
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Kate
Silver maples and ash trees were hardest hit by the ice storm in early April, at least in the streets of Rosemont‑La Petite‑Patrie, where La Presse did an assessment.
Also, it was the older and bigger trees that were most badly damaged.
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Kate
In 2016, Frédérick Gingras murdered his friend, then killed a random woman at a gas station in the east end and stole her car. He then attempted to kill several more strangers. His recent attempt to not be considered a dangerous offender has not been successful because he’s still hearing voices and threatening violence.
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Kate
A woman was stabbed on Sunday afternoon in the Plateau, allegedly by her ex. She is not expected to die. A man has been arrested.
CTV also notes a non‑fatal shooting in the Quartier Latin early Monday.
Mozai 09:00 on 2023-07-18 Permalink
The first few summers I lived here, I remember seeing rainstorms where the water on rue Ste-Catherine would rise above the curbs, even if just for a few minutes. Was that the norm? Then many summers passed without seeing it, and I don’t believe it was because the drain system was rebuilt — we merely had less rain.
Kate 09:28 on 2023-07-18 Permalink
Yes, there were a couple of summers of heavy rains here, ten or so years ago. I live in a ground-floor flat and there were a few instances when the water in the toilet slopped over because the rain was so heavy. (Clean water, thankfully.) That didn’t happen last Thursday.
I’d have to dig through weather records to figure out exactly when it was.
JP 09:52 on 2023-07-18 Permalink
I think 2009 was a heavy rain year. Just remember non-stop, day after day of rain.
JP 09:53 on 2023-07-18 Permalink
Heavy rain summer rather ( don’t remember the whole year but that summer was rainy)
Paul 11:35 on 2023-07-18 Permalink
We don’t hear about it, but Montreal has become quite proactive in terms of water management. All new developments need to accommodate water run-off on-site through retention basis to avoid overloading the system.
Is it enough?? At least our officials a conscious of the issue and being proactive.
Kate 12:04 on 2023-07-18 Permalink
There have been news stories about water squares like the Fleurs de Macadam on Mont‑Royal which was designed to handle heavy rain, and the article linked above says the city is building “three new underwater reservoirs to help drain heavy rainfall into water treatment plants [and] more greenspaces, which naturally absorb excess rainfall.” So I’d say it’s acting on it, besides digging to replace century-old sewers.
Here’s a current news story about a park renovation in Lachine meant to turn the area into a water retention park and a story from April about a project in Point St Charles.
CE 15:08 on 2023-07-18 Permalink
I remember that summer in 2009. It seemed there wasn’t a single day without at least some rain. As a result, the vegetation was extremely lush that year. I’d be interested to see the tree rings from a city tree and see how big that year’s ring is.