Here’s an arresting headline: not only has last winter’s snow not yet melted in the old Francon quarry, a part of it hasn’t completely melted in ten years. But what remains is not pretty stuff.
Updates from August, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
One hundred mature trees are on the chopping block on Pie‑IX for the construction of the rapid bus lane extension.
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Kate
The media are already dreading the weekend traffic blockages.
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Kate
The Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM) is studying the possibility of an east-end tramway which would not be automated like the REM.
Meanwhile, the ARTM is working fast on the REM ticket machines, despite problems that have been experienced by some passengers trying to pay their fares.
I still haven’t found time to go ride the REM. Maybe this weekend.
Forgetful
The PSE as a tram is an odd choice for a +20 km line. The capacity and speed just seems inadequate, especially if the PSE is projected to be operational around 2040 and act as a relief line to the green line by 2050. I’m not saying the metro/light metro like the REM is THE solution for the east-end (hello! regional rail need some love too!), but it just feels like the ARTM never believed in the metro option and presenting a ridiculously inflated $36B price tag as well as deprecating elevated insertion was just their way to tank the proposal.
The ARTM played themselves when they proposed to put a metro underground along 10 km of what is mostly industrial land marked for new housing. They will probably go the way of the dodo. Their work on fare integration, collection and ticketing has been egregious and left many dissatisfied. We already know the CAQ is planning to move PSE planing to a new agency anyway.
bumper carz
Contrast all the food-dragging regarding mass transit with the quick “gift” of 600 million dollars to the multinational Ford Motor Company to build electric batteries:
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/2003698/ford-becancour-environnement-automobile-quebec-vert
I guess Legault and company are applying to work for Ford once their “government of QC” gig is over.
Kevin
There will be a lot more subsidies coming for battery and car makers in Becancour. The CAQ wants to turn that city into a continental industrial hub.
Forgetful
I was expecting Projet Montreal to be fully on board with this, PM being the “tram fan party”, but they seem to acknowledge that it might not be the best mode for this alignment.
« J’aime les tramways, notre équipe aime les tramways. Mais il ne faut pas oublier que c’est un mode de transport plus lent. Ça remplit d’autres fonctions », a dit Valérie Plant
There’s a more basic issue here; yes we need to build trams, but we’re also paying too much to build metros. $1B per km are New York prices, and we can’t count on CDPQ to flip half the bill on every new metro line. Trams can’t be marketed as interchangeable with metros. What I’m seeing here is really just revising project objectives downward, but nothing addressing underlying problems with building transit in Quebec.
bumper carz
Forgetful, the recent commitment of Legault and the feds to subsidize yet another car-related factory… means that they are still counting on cars to make a comeback. SUVs have proven themselves very reliable for fleeing forest fires and floods as of late, so I guess this is why our leaders are still living in 1974.
Next up: A new “lite” cigarette factory for Valleyfield to cash into the latest health craze.
Joey
Writing is on the wall for the ARTM, no? Legault is itching to create a transit agency (presumably, like the health agency, because he would rather work around the established and unionized bureaucracy) + the ARTM has bungled the REM de l’est options (out of spite/bitterness?) + even Projet Mtl isn’t falling for this half-baked tram idea. In the meantime, time’s a-wastin’…
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Kate
CBC has an item about Dawson College and the coming difficulty about teaching core courses in French instead of English. I had remembered that this aspect of Bill 96 was scrapped because of the organizational difficulty of making sure an English‑language school had enough teachers capable of teaching a core course exclusively in French, but I suppose it came down to this: “Students attending English CEGEP will be required to take at least three 45-hour courses in French. For those with English eligibility, those can be French second-language courses — so, classes that just teach how to speak and write in French. For those without eligibility, it has to be three courses from their core curriculum.”
Why are students without eligibility even allowed to go to CEGEP in English? Why do English CEGEPs even exist any more?
Forgetful
The motivation behind the bill irks me, but at the same time can’t you just take a “commandite” course at a nearby CEGEP or uni (or remotely through CEGEP a distance)? Basically no additional fees if you take the course at another CEGEP. As for the uni option, sure it’s more expensive but at least you know that course can count towards a bachelor’s degree. I’m guessing it’s more of a concern for the CEGEPS themselves than for the students; complicated to find teachers, maybe less internal course registration means less funding. Also wondering if Physical Education can be used to fill the requirement since they’re core course. Leg Day, but en Français s’il vous plaît.
Mark Côté
Although it’s been, purposefully perhaps, pretty vague, the wording we’ve seen recently implies that even people who officially have English eligibility might not be able to go to an English CEGEP, since (a) they are going to cap enrolment and (b) they are giving priority to those already in English high schools. So if you have an eligibility certificate but you decided to go to a French high school (to, say, improve your French), you might have a hard time getting into an English CEGEP.
But none of this has been tested yet.
jeather
They haven’t defined what “priority” will even mean (do you need to accept every person with eligibility before anyone without? can you just have different eligibility requirements?), but currently there aren’t enough spots for everyone to go to English cegeps who want to. The cap is fun, because there are fines if they go higher but if they go lower, that’s the new cap — and there are always some people who just don’t show up.
Note that a core course cannot be a language class, because apparently you can’t learn a third language in French, only in English. I believe that phys ed is excluded from the requirement but don’t quote me. I believe that the non-eligible students ALSO need to take the regular 3 French classes, and that Indigenous students have been exempted from most of these requirements.
Kevin
Part of the unintended consequence of Bill 101 has been to create three tiers of education in this province, and two of them are extremely competitive.
And Cegep is probably the best place in Canada for young adults to find out what they want to do as their first career without going into massive debt.
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Kate
A woman who fell off the roof of an SUV in motion early Thursday in Hochelaga is in critical condition and police are seeking the driver, who left the scene. How the situation came about is not known.
jeather
I’m betting on drugs or alcohol being the reason someone was hanging on to the roof of a moving car at 4 am.
Kate
Plus a fight or messy breakup.
jeather
Yeah I’ll give you that add on.
walkerp
I don`t know, stupid instagram stunt is on the 21st century darwin awards bingo card.
Kate
Four in the morning might not offer the best conditions for video.
Blork
Also, the woman is 40, which is outside of the typical age for stunt videos. (Not unheard of, but not likely.)
MarcG
40 (years) + 8 (drinks) = 20
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Kate
It feels like everyone’s been surprised by Pierre Fitzgibbon’s recent statement that Quebec should have half the cars it currently does. Not surprisingly, François Legault is temporizing like crazy, saying he doesn’t want to force this on people. Gabriel Nadeau‑Dubois points out that people need alternatives, but even where there are alternatives, there’s a strong tendency for people to drive for their own convenience.
I’ve always said we were mad to issue unlimited numbers of driving permits from the beginning. Now that seems normal. There’s no reason why it should be.
In related news, Quebec and Ottawa are making a generous gift to Ford to persuade them to build an EV battery plant in Bécancour.
Marco
Roughly 100,000 cars are added to Quebec roads every year, year after year. He’s not wrong but we not only need to reduce or at least slow down the increase in the numbers but the size of cars as well. The number of large SUV’s have increased 25% in 5 years (statcan.gc.ca). I’m glad he recognizes that this isn’t sustainable but there are no solutions that will be popular with the CAQ base.
Anton
A friend of mine used to drive from the Plateau to his office im the old port near city hall.
Daisy
Unlimited driving permits is fine (assuming competent drivers). Unlimited cars is not.
Kate
OK granted, limit the number of plates available.
Blork
Transit and cycling improvements are definitely the main thing that can be done to improve that situation. But there will always be exceptions and dead zones.
Like Anton’s friend, I used to drive from the Plateau to work in the Cité Multimedia back in the 90s. Not because I was a car fan, but because these were my options:
-> Walk = 45-50 minutes.
-> Public transit = 35-40 minutes (of which almost 30 minutes was walking).
-> Drive = 12-15 minutes.
Transit has probably improved a bit since then. Bike path infrastructure certainly has. If my live/work situation was the same now definitely wouldn’t drive. I’d probably bike in the summer and WFH in the winter. My point being that there are situations where public transit and other non-car situations just don’t work.
Ephraim
And let’s not mention that this city has not sat down and done a comprehensive rework of bus routes in a LONG LONG time. Maybe the 24 should end at the Sherbrooke Metro and the 185 start there… but we haven’t don anything to see where and why a route is the way it is, today.
Forgetful
@Ephraim every transit agencies are working on a bus network redesign. it’s an ongoing project. https://parlons-en.stm.info/
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Kate
Montrealers produced an average 972 pounds of trash each in 2022. This is down a bit, but we’re still not composting enough.
In related news, the bylaw against single‑use plastic isn’t getting much traction, as fast food chains are not finding any easy way to obey the law.
Ephraim
Gotta love the restaurants that changed to compostable wood cutlery… only to put them in a plastic bag!
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Kate
La Presse visits the pedestrianized Duluth Avenue and finds it quiet.
DeWolf
Quiet in a good way. It’s always busy with people, but never mobbed like Mont-Royal.
This is really a street that should be pedestrianized year-round. There are hardly any parking spots on the street anyway and no good reason for anyone to drive there unless they’re making a delivery. At the very least, add a deviator at Laval to prevent through traffic.
Kate
As I recall, the reason why Duluth is paved with those stones was a plan to make it a pedestrian mall all the way from Jeanne-Mance park to Lafontaine park. That plan was abandoned long before this blog began, and I don’t recall why. Somebody decided it was better to make Prince Arthur pedestrian, I think. (Why not both?)
Joey
That idea has been revived with the latest plan directeur for Jeanne-Mance Park. I suppose it has a certain conceptual appeal, but it strikes me as a very odd thing to focus on. Nothing against making one of the east-west Plateau streets fully pedestrian for its own sake, but the logic that the two parks need to be ‘linked’ somehow, as if the connecting bit were virgin forest, is just silly. Better to figure out how to safely link JMP to Mount-Royal first, no? Or to keep the bass-heavy bluetooth speakers out of the park all weekend.
Walking downtown this weekend on a nice sunny day, I noted that the temporary furniture installations on Duluth adjacent to JMP were hardly used – it’s not a very interesting place to sit, given all the other very nearby options. Seems to me that stretch of road could have made for a temporary (or permanent!) dog park, but the Plateau Projet leadership has adopted this knee-jerk attitude of never giving any group of constituents what they politely and legitimately ask for (i.e., not a lecture). Time for a new slogan – Project Montreal: Eat Your F’n Vegetables.
David S
Duluth was always my favourite street in the city and I was lucky enough to have lived on Laval St. just to the north. I remember in 2001 overhearing Nantha (of Kitchen fame) who was late to a meeting he had with another restaurateur at the brew pub on the corner of St. Laurent. I remember it vividly because he bowed his head in shame and said softly that he was late because he had been doing blow off a stripper’s ass. What a scene we had back then!
richard
@Joey From what I remember a fenced in dog park is part of the Jeanne-Mance makeover. It will be where the volleyball courts are right now and they will shift up.
Joey
@richard I couldn’t remember if the plan was there or further south (which was my impression). In either case, it’s not happening anytime soon, hence the idea of a temporary park on Duluth for this summer. There were rumours of a temporary fenced-in park along Parc this summer (the dogs seem to be sort of permitted off-leash on the baseball diamond in the winter), but that obviously hasn’t materialized.
I think the dog park should be a lot closer to the “Plateau” end of the park than the “downtown” end… I would imagine the vast majority of users would be coming from St Denis, as far north as the limits of Mile End and chunks of Outremont. Basically anywhere that’s closer than the dog parks in Laurier and Outremont. Choosing to place the dog park on the southern end of the park is probably the most inconvenient choice, though it does preserve the views of the mountain for the homeowners on Esplanade, which has always been priority number one for this gang of decision-makers. The area of badly maintained grass facing the playground would be ideal for a dog park, but I guess the borough leadership is unwilling to add more fencing to that part of the park.
DeWolf
@Joey I walked past the Duluth picnic benches on Tuesday and they were all full.
Also, a dog park is coming, but you have to understand why nobody but dog owners would been keen on having one. Even many dog owners don’t like them because they aren’t good places for a lot of dogs.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/smarter-living/the-dog-park-is-bad-actually.html
Joey
@DeWolf all fair points (though I don’t really think that ‘take an obedience course’ is a realistic alternative to taking your dog to the dog park). I do think having a dog park accessible to this part of the city would help reduce the number of off-leash dogs in the park, though I by no means expect that behaviour to ever disappear. The Plateau is super dense and enclosed outdoor spaces are either tiny or non-existent for most residents. Having the option of an additional enclosed park where dogs can run around off-leash seems like it would do more good than harm for all involved.
Kate
David S: good and entirely credible story.
DeWolf
I’m definitely not disputing the need for a dog park or equivalent off-leash area, just saying why I can understand why it hasn’t been a priority. From what I understand the closure of Duluth and its incorporation into the park will make up for the loss of publicly accessible space to a dog park. (And yeah, I know dog parks are publicly accessible, but nobody without a dog wants to hang out in one.) And I don’t think the long-standing PM objection to more fenced-off spaces in the park is unreasonable. One of the worst things about parks in many big cities in Europe and Asia is that every last inch of space is fenced off for some prescribed use.
Personally I would love to see dogs welcome in more ordinary spaces. Every time I go to Italy I’m reminded of how dogs are seen as an ordinary part of life there, but they’re also extremely well behaved. I’m not sure if that’s compatible with North American dog culture.
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Kate
A crash involving seven vehicles including a police cruiser Wednesday evening in Tétreaultville sent four people to hospital, and is now being investigated.
Around the same time in Montreal North, two women were hit by a taxi as they walked through a parking lot. Both are in critical condition.
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