Snow will begin around 3 on Tuesday afternoon but will shift to rain on Wednesday and is generally expected to be messy.
Snow’s been plowed around here, but I haven’t seen anything about snow removal yet – maybe they’re waiting to see what the rain does?
Update: Local news is slow Tuesday morning, except for warnings about the impending storm. Everything’s charged up to the max at Blog HQ, and I now have a tiny sterno stove for making coffee in case of power outs. Priorities.
CBC’s headline says teachers are hopeful but weary as the students return Tuesday, but do they mean “wary”? Union votes are still to be held.
Ah, the accursed weary/wary/leery confusion.
Wary as Dennis Leary’s weary leer, to be sure.
It isn’t surprising to read that ice has been slow to form on the river this year – and it’s like this for the fifth year in a row.
Are kids really impatient to get back to school as this headline implies? Even without their phones?
I would bet there are many mixed feelings… my daughter didn’t like missing so much school (and she’s in the EMSB, so half as much as the CSDM etc) and missed the social aspect, but she wasn’t exactly tripping over herself to get back.
During the pandemic lockdown I marked down on a calendar the dates on which each of my kids said they wanted to go back to school. We’re not quite there yet during this strike, but getting close…
A man was stabbed downtown early Monday, not a homicide, and no arrests yet.
Seven Laval households suddenly lost their living spaces late last week when it was discovered that one of the building’s tenants had damaged and weakened the whole structure by excavating a bunker under it.
and some wonder why no one wants to be a mom & pop landlord anymore…
Most of us are not excavating bunkers, Chris.
Seven households is hardly a mom n’ pop landlord either, for that matter.
Feeling very literal today Kate? No kidding this is the craziest example ever of a horrible tenant. But for one, rare freak occurrences have a disproportionate influence on the irrational human mind, but more to the point, it’s just an extreme example of the many kinds of crazy things (some small number of shitty) tenants do that turns potential landlords off. Soon we’ll be like the USA with Blackrock being the landlord.
No, I wasn’t feeling literal. By “excavating bunkers” I meant, metaphorically, making any radical changes in properties that don’t belong to us. Most tenants are well aware of the limits of what we’re permitted to do to our living spaces.
Chris, by your logic all landlords are like Blackrock so we as tenants should despair.
There may be some option other than the extremes, ‘sayin. Sure tehre are shitty landlords and shitty tenants but on the bell curve there’s jsut as many excellent ones and a whole spread of ones that are good to ok.
The Rockland bridge over the Met train tracks is one of the busiest in Montreal and gets busier all the time. It dates from 1966 and has to be rebuilt starting 2030, but a plan to sustain the level of motor traffic is meeting resistance from Outremont residents weary of so many vehicles transiting their residential streets daily.
And yet, people still think opening up Cavendish to highway traffic would be beneficial.
The Rockland overpass goes over the Van Horne tracks, not the Met. Rockland ends at Côte de Liesse.
I find that the lack of connections in that area actually creates a sort of cut off feeling. And concentrates traffic. You have the Rockland bridge, Park Avenue and Wilderton. Like maybe there should be an underpass at Picard/Outremont avenue to Beaumont.
I wonder why we never required the train rails to actually be lowered about 10 feet so that neighbourhoods didn’t end up completely split by the rails. (Could the city tax property differently if streets can pass over them, vs if they block the city streets, so make it advantageous to have below grade railway lines financially.)
FWIW I’ve noticed houses on the first block of Davaar after the overpass heading south going up fir sale very regularly. It must be a real drag trying to use the space as a resident when it’s bumper to bumper for a couple of hours at evening rush every weekday.
Ian, thanks for the correction. I was thinking of l’Acadie, of course.
@Ian I’ve had the same impression over the years. Always lots of for-sale signs on Davaar (not so much McEachran).
The limited number of ways north and south on the island are why places like Rockland and Decarie are overwhelmed by cars.
Imagine you were in Little Italy and wanted to head downtown, but had to go around the Olympic Stadium to get there. That’s what life is like west of the mountain.
When there is something like this that involves several boroughs and unamalgamated former boroughs, how is the jurisdiction figured out?
Serious question.
I was thinking about this the other day, thinking about Jean Talon getting turned into another REV + tramway as it passes through TMR …
@Ian Major thoroughfares on the island fall under the jurisdiction of the agglomeration.
All on-island municipalities have representatives on the agglomeration council but Montreal effectively controls the thing.
@carswell that makes sense, thank you.
@Ian that was a favourite talking point of the previous Plateau PM leadership when pressed on why they hadn’t improved the borough’s major streets (even minimally) – they could simply and credibly blame the city, which at the time was controlled by PM opponents.
Good point..
Now if they can explain away why parking permits in the Plateau east of St Denis are half the price, lol
I think that could easily be explained with the laws of supply and demand.
How convenient that it follows the traditional English/ French split of the Plateau. Utterly coincidental, I’m sure.
The population density east of St Denis isn’t half that of west of St Denis.
Are the yearly passes different, or the daily? Because the articles I read recently about the new permit costing in the Plateau didn’t have two prices per car weight. I know the daily/tourist parking costs differ east/west of St Denis though that does seem to fit supply and demand.
The daily pass for residential street parking. How do you figure? Is Hutchison really twice as “in demand” as Boyer?
“meeting resistance from Outremont residents weary of so many vehicles transiting their residential streets daily”
I wonder how many of the resisting residents own a car? How many own two or more vehicles? (In the late ’70s and early ’80s, I lived on McEachran north of Van Horne, so I know not everybody does. But most do.) And this has been an issue since at least the 1970s, so it’s not like these residents didn’t know what they’re getting into. To some degree, this smacks of NIMBYism: we want the convenient north and southbound access the overpass provides but we’re not happy about others having it.
On the other hand, even 40 years ago, McEachran was to be avoided during evening rush hour. And it’s true that there are lots of young students around at exactly that time due, among other things, to Collège Stanislas being on VanHorne and McEachran. Also, the number of cars has grown enormously in recent decades. Can’t cite the source (or the time frame, not that it matters but please provide it if you can) but a few months back I read, possibly here, that in the recent decades-long period during which Montreal’s population grew 22%, the number of on-island car registrations grew 60%.
So, I sympathize and I don’t. And, as someone who lives on Édouard-Montpetit, I worried about a similar uptick in vehicular traffic once Camillien Houde is closed, the EMP REM station opens and the huge luxury condo complex in the former convent is fully occupied. But society, in its collective death wish wisdom, has decided to make personal vehicles the primary and, for most, preferred way of getting around and until that changes, we’re pretty much forced to accept the consequences. The best the residents of Outremont and EMP can hope for is traffic-calming measures and maybe, in a distant future, congestion pricing. Once again, ticketing traffic cameras could make a big difference, not that the car-addicted province and provincial government seem likely to make widespread use of them.
And while electrification will make the streets quieter and eliminate most vehicular greenhouse gas emissions, it won’t eliminate vehicular air pollution. That grimy black dust that forms on street-facing windows (but not on backyard-facing windows) is largely tire dust. Maybe it is a good idea to wear a mask outdoors after all.
All good points. FWIW I suspect that it is precisely the cluster of schools around McEachran and Van Horne that prompted Lajoie being a 20 kmh street so it didn’t get turned into a “shortcut” for people trying to dodge congestion on Van Horne. Honestly I suspect the constant school buses and delivery vans generate more exhaust than personal vehicular traffic especially as they run at all times of the day, are constantly left idling. Many of them are in bad shape and clearly burning oil – but I digress.
Sadly the back of my apartment faces onto a commercial alley (amusingly dessignated a green alley by the borough but not closed off so I’m not sure what they mean by that) so it’s quite a bit dirtier than the street-facing side.
@carswell: the residents claimed in the article that some vehicles are going 60-70 km/hr on a 30 km/hr street: that does not sound like NIMBYism to me.
There has been a lot of changes to streets in this area in the past few years. The latest, which I really do not understand, was to change Pratt such that it has become a one way street in opposite directions that both empty out onto Van Horne. It is really weird (and IMO unsafe) when being forced to turn onto Van Horne and the car on the opposite side is also turning the same way. Who has right of way? I guess that the city is trying to prevent through traffic, but it just adds more traffic onto Van Horne for a block until the cars can turn up another side street.
Speeding is an issue on McEachran, especially in the block before the overpass. But it’s an issue on nearly every thoroughfare and semi-thoroughfare in the city, including Édouard-Montpetit, which has some very long blocks with no stop signs east of CDN and few stoplights. (The city recently installed a stoplight at McKenna and Édouard-Montpetit, which seems to be helping a little, especially with eastbound traffic.) Again, ticket-issuing traffic cameras would go a long way toward solving this problem but we have to assume, curb-bulges aside, it’s a problem the powers that be don’t appear to be very serious about solving.
However, most of comments in the article don’t pertain to speeding but to the number of vehicles. And for these affluent Outremont households, nearly all of which have a car and many of which have two or more and few of whose adult residents take public transit (to go by the passengers at the Outremont metro station and on the 160 and 161 buses), that smacks of NIMBYism.
Considering you haven’t lived on that strip for 40 years I’m going to make a wild guess that your insider knoweledge of Outremont demographics block-to-block is mostly speculation. For one, at least 35% of the population of Outremont is Hassidic and since they average 3-5 kids of course they all have minivans and SUVs. Your stereotype of the drivers of Outremont being mostly affluent older people is off the mark. You go ahead and try to take a twin stroller on a city bus with a couple more kids in tow or up a flight of stairs when the escalator is out in the metro.
Haven’t lived on the strip in years. But I’m back there almost every week. Frequent user of the Outremont metro. Shopping and diner at VanHorne boutiques and restaurants. My bike repair shop is at VH and McEachran. Regularly travel over the overpass on the 119 and occasionally, when I feel like living dangerously, on my bike. Also end up taking the 160 and 161 several times a year. And until recently I had friends who lived on Davaar and Rockland and still have others who live on nearby streets (like Lajoie, Stuart and Outremont, tho’ the last is trying to sell because he’s begun to feel like he’s living in a Hassidic ghetto). So, no, I don’t think I’m talking through my hat.
And, since you appear not to know, there are very few Hassidim living on McEachran, Davaar and Rockland, though they have begun venturing into the area.
The Hassidim do tend to live the other side of Ducharme, but I was talking about the population of Outremont as a whole – as were you before you started trying to flex at me about how well you know the area..
“… for these affluent Outremont households, nearly all of which have a car and many of which have two or more and few of whose adult residents take public transit (to go by the passengers at the Outremont metro station and on the 160 and 161 buses), that smacks of NIMBYism.”
I cross the Rockland overpass pretty much every day and yes, I do avoid it during rush hour, and yes, I drive the speed limit. I know precisely what it is like. I live on Hutchison between Lajoie and VH, this is my neighbourhood, not just an area I visit now and then. That you give taking the bus a couple of times a year as a bona fide for your insight into the neighbourhood’s transit use is high comedy – and if you do use the Outremont station regularly, you also know what an accessibility mess it is. You are making a lot of assumptions based on some pretty isolated observations – Outremont is not just the few blocks that you seem to frequent between Van Horne and Lajoie, Stuart to McEachran. Further, it would be remiss of me not to comment on your friend’s description of Outremont Avenue as a Hassidic “ghetto” – that is edging on racism. It’s also hilariously inaccurate, Ste Madeleine d’Outremont, the Catholic church the parish is named after & Justin Trudeau got married in takes up an entire block on Outremont, for one.
Again, at least 35% of the population of Outremont is Hassidic and since they average 3-5 kids of course they all have minivans and SUVs. Your stereotype of the drivers of Outremont being mostly affluent older people is off the mark.
Since this discussion appears to be devolving into name-calling and since you have such an obvious chip on your shoulders, I’m not going to continue bothering to reply other than to say I henceforward expect you to have nothing to say about any neighbourhood you don’t currently live in. insert eyeroll icon here.
There are 48,355 dwellings in Outremont according to the 2021 Census (https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&SearchText=Outremont&DGUIDlist=2013A000424054&GENDERlist=1,2,3&STATISTIClist=1&HEADERlist=0). Of these, only 820 are single family homes and 990 are semi-detached. There are ~ 42k apartments.
Let’s not forget that a good chunk of Outremont is upper Outremont where it’s safe to say everyone has cars as there isn’t any bus service.
Carswell, it’s one thing to have opinions or comments but quite another to make broad authoritative blanket statements, denigrating residents as NIMBYs. And yeah saying a neighbourhood with an increasingly Hassidic population is becoming a “ghetto” is racist.
I refer you to https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-camps/ghettos-an-overview
One third of the city’s workers earn more than $100,000 a year, a figure mostly explained by police overtime.
But is it so shocking? Consider the calculations recently made in a comment here by reader Mozai: “rentals.ca monthly report says the avg 3½ in Montreal is $1805/month. If we go by the “use one third of your take-home income for paying for renting a home,” then a person living alone in Montreal needs a $102k job.” Not to live in a palace, but in a 3½.
The first “sunshine list” of public employees making over 100k was from Mike Harris in 1996.
It should come as no surprise that over 28 years the shock value is lessened – $100,000 in 1996 is worth $177,538.71 today.
“A middle class income in Canada can be defined as an after-tax personal income between $53,359 and $106,717 annually. More specifically, a middle class income is anything that’s between 75% to 200% of the median household income after tax – and this after-tax number for Canadians is $66,800.”
Of course it goes a little further in Montreal than Toronto but the difference is not as significant these days as it was in 1996 either.
“You would need around 8,358.3C$ in Toronto to maintain the same standard of life that you can have with 6,700.0C$ in Montreal (assuming you rent in both cities). This calculation uses our Cost of Living Plus Rent Index to compare the cost of living and assume net earnings (after income tax).”
I think the 40+ years of relatively low inflation in western societies has obviously influenced our societal discourse about certain “symbolic” amounts. The million dollar home, the 100k salary, fed by the media, hollywood, etc, became these mythical crowns of financial achievement.
There is no doubt that 100k a year and a million dollar home means you’re better off than most, but it doesn’t mean the same as it used to. Even 10 years ago, those were levels reserved for a select few, and now, not so much. A lot of people earning 100k who bought homes in the last 5-7 years were probably approved for mortgages well above 500k, and are now getting slaughtered with interest.
Having lived in a few other countries with much higher inflation (30-50%), it was hard to pin down much specific “I’m rich” amounts, because the goal posts kept moving.
I agree with Mark regarding the discourse about symbolic amounts. If you’re over 50 years old you probably grew up thinking of 100K as a rich person’s income, practically unattainable for regular people. By the 90s it was just a really really good salary. Now it’s just a good salary (it’s only 3x minimum wage). But the symbolic aspect persists for those of us of a certain age.
Ian 19:32 on 2024-01-08 Permalink
If previous years are anything to go by, the snow will soak up the rain then freeze solid, in an immpenetrable bumpy layer until spring.
Kate 20:27 on 2024-01-08 Permalink
I would not bet against it.
MarcG 12:56 on 2024-01-09 Permalink
Hopefully the trees won’t get brutalized AGAIN.
Ian 10:12 on 2024-01-10 Permalink
With the rain ending in another hour or two it looks like the trees are off the hook this time. Pretty good chance of the sewer drains freezing up overnight, though.