The Journal’s Michel Girard alleges that the federal government handed off nearly a billion dollars to Quebec at the height of the pandemic with the intention to help out postsecondary students, but the Legault government used the cash for other stuff. Was Legault afraid that a Trudeau bonus would sway a generation to favour federalism?
Updates from August, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
On Monday night, some people planning to take the REM home to Nuns’ Island after a movie in Brossard found themselves on a train shunted into the REM train garage instead. An employee eventually drove them home.
Uatu
I guess the non compete clause will ensure a steady revenue stream because this guy said he’ll never use it again and just drive to dix30 next time. I hope this doesn’t dissuade anyone else from using it on evenings and weekends because I don’t want to have to pay for any shortfall later.
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Kate
Grim scenes in a Montreal courtroom Tuesday when Tommy Bradette copped to the 2020 killing of Bardia Gorji and thus avoided trial. Bradette is the son of a recognized Hells Angel, Gorji was a drug dealer to whom Bradette meted out a beating which Gorji initially survived, but which proved fatal a month later.
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Kate
There was a second REM breakdown on Monday evening, but the Gazette reports that things are running OK on Tuesday morning – so far.
Anton
I thought they ran tests for years.
Kate
They did. But we never had any reports about how many glitches the test runs encountered.
Blork
Tests based on simulations are very different from real-world tests. The trains in the previous tests were always running empty. Now they’re running full of people. That shouldn’t make any difference, but “should” and “does” are not as distant as we’d like to think. Does the added weight of all those passengers make a difference? Maybe there’s some kind of radio interference from there suddenly being dozens of active mobile phones on the train? Maybe some idiots are pushing the emergency buttons or doing some other dumb shit that wasn’t anticipated?
I have the greatest respect for people who test systems, but good testers know that testing isn’t completed until real-world usage has been tested.
Tim F
I have a hard time understanding why they didn’t keep the bus service running in parallel while they finished their “rodage”. Exclusivity contract aside, it’s in CDPQ’s best interest to make the launch as smooth as possible.
On another note, I posted on Reddit what happened we cancelled electric commuter service to the south shore in 1956. People didn’t adopt the new bus service and congested the limited diesel train service from St. Lambert instead!
Kate
Blork, when they ran the Azur trains in the metro for awhile before putting them into service, they had sandbags aboard to simulate passenger weight. Surely something like this must have been done with the REM?
Spi
They did do sandbag testing and all the other test you’d expect, but there’s a limit to how much you can replicate real world usage without actually operating in real conditions. Sandbags don’t move around while in motion and then crowd around on certain sides.
Some hiccups were to be expected but 1:30 on the very first day is pretty serious. I’m not quite satisfied with their contingency planning, I’d have expected a better bus shuttle system ready to go for this kind of situation at least for the first couple of months.
Anton
Overlapping service on the 45 and 90 for two weeks or so is really not too much to ask? Call it a beta run…. I guess that would be pretty expensive.
qatzelok
I took my first ride from Panama to Gare Centrale today. I was the only passenger with a bike, and the only one wearing a life jacket in case the whole thing crumbled into the river.
*not the second part*
Daniel
Oh Spi, are you not quite satisfied with the contingency planning? Are you sure we aren’t still being “overdramatic” as you repeatedly accused commuters just the other day? You were singing the praises of the “incredible amount of freedom and flexibility” we’d all have! I guess all the “disinformation and uninformed opinions/complaints” maybe had a little validity to them after all? Who could have possibly seen this coming?!
Spi
Daniel, one doesn’t contradict the other. You can have contingency plans in place that are satisfactory without having to run a completely ghost doubling of service. But hey if you can’t see the nuance between the two that’s fine.
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Kate
Brendan Kelly briefly looks at Beaubien Street East with the apparent intent of having it spoiled like Mile End has been.
Wellington Street was named the coolest in the world last year, and now landlords are hiking commercial rents so hard that some businesses are closing or moving.
Ian
It’s funny that everyone is “discovering” Beaubien now, it was the hip and happening neighbourhood years before covid, often touted as “the new gay village” and the “latino district”. Pupusas and nightclubs are a great mix – great daytime and night-time culture.
Mile End is rapidly becoming a Disneyfied hipster zone full of nothing but office workers, tourists, and tattooed yuppies, true, but as we have seen in St Henri and Verdun, it doesn’t take long for the gentrification to come into effect. Enjoy it while you can.
I think this is kind of like the graphic design adage “If Starbucks uses the font it’s played out” – if the Gazette has heard about it, it’s not “cool” anymore.
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