Updates from March, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 20:39 on 2025-03-13 Permalink | Reply  

    The new Maison Radio-Canada is for sale, although the national broadcaster has a long lease that remains in force regardless. The coda to this piece is that if we elect a Conservative majority, the CBC will cease to exist for the most part anyway.

     
    • Josh 11:12 on 2025-03-14 Permalink

      For what it’s worth, Pierre has not made the same noises about Rad-Can that he has made about the CBC. I think he’s explicitly said he’d treat the two differently. (Seems weird to me that his base would be fine with government-paid French-language reporters in Edmonton and Iqaluit but opposed to government-paid English-language reporters in Quebec City but I’m not a conservative.)

    • Kate 13:11 on 2025-03-14 Permalink

      But are they not essentially the same organization?

  • Kate 20:25 on 2025-03-13 Permalink | Reply  

    Two areas of notable danger to cyclists will be remedied this year: the intersection of Park and Mont‑Royal, and a stretch of Hochelaga Street which will be reduced by a lane in each direction to calm traffic.

     
    • Joey 21:05 on 2025-03-13 Permalink

      Finally!

    • Meezly 11:41 on 2025-03-14 Permalink

      Haven’t read the article but saw the Arrondissement du Plateau-Mont-Royal’s FB announcement re: this initiative. Looks like there’ll also be a protected bike lane both ways along Ave du Mont-Royal between Côte-Sainte-Catherine and Saint-Urbain. I like what they did with Ave des Pins so looking forward to this.

    • CE 12:02 on 2025-03-14 Permalink

      This is what’s being proposed for Mont-Royal in front of Jeanne Mance park. This has never been a particularly nice nor safe stretch of the street so this upgrade should help with both.

    • Kate 13:10 on 2025-03-14 Permalink

      Thank you, CE. That looks OK.

    • walkerp 13:46 on 2025-03-14 Permalink

      Let’s hope they also fix up that weird spot on the corner of Mont-Royal and Esplanade where there is always a gigantic puddle.

  • Kate 20:05 on 2025-03-13 Permalink | Reply  

    The OCPM is demanding a complete rethink of the Ray‑Mont logistics project that’s been a hot potato in the east end for years.

     
    • Kate 19:48 on 2025-03-13 Permalink | Reply  

      CBC has an item on the St Patrick’s parade to be held Sunday (which isn’t St Patrick’s Day, which falls on Monday this year). The parade is generally being touted as the 200th, although CBC cites four historical cancellations in the piece, and I found evidence of a cancellation in 1918 which CBC doesn’t cite.

      So maybe it’s fair to say it’s been 200 years since the first parade, rather than that it’s the 200th parade, if it matters.

      And so, we have this parade with a big effigy of a Roman Catholic saint, but don’t anyone dare pray to it…

       
      • Blork 15:14 on 2025-03-14 Permalink

        Also, unless there are twice as many fleurs-de-lys as shamrocks, and they’re twice as big, and every Guinness reference is dominated by a Caribou logo, then funding will be cut and we’ll all be deported.

      • Kate 09:50 on 2025-03-15 Permalink

        It would be quite a scene to be sent back to Ireland after four to five generations here. Plague ships and all. I must see if I have something that would serve as a shawl.

    • Kate 11:30 on 2025-03-13 Permalink | Reply  

      Free rides on the REM are to end on Monday.

       
      • Meezly 15:58 on 2025-03-13 Permalink

        If we try out the REM this weekend for a day trip to Brossard or something, what are the chances it will bring us home? Serious question!

      • MarcG 16:36 on 2025-03-13 Permalink

        They could work it into their marketing. REM: Live dangerously. REM: Feeling lucky? REM: I hope you brought some water.

      • Nicholas 16:44 on 2025-03-13 Permalink

        Meezly: zero. The REM is not running on weekends. It was scheduled not to run on weekends from late January to the summer (with a month and a half of no service all week long), and that was before all the problems that caused a shutdown, then rush hour-only service. Service now is only on weekdays, until 8:30 pm. It’s arguable that the REM has worse service than exo trains right now.

      • Meezly 16:54 on 2025-03-13 Permalink

        Thanks Nicholas!

      • Nicole 18:14 on 2025-03-13 Permalink

        I’ve heard it said that REM stands for Rentrer En Marchant

    • Kate 09:36 on 2025-03-13 Permalink | Reply  

      New Ensemble chief Soraya Martinez Ferrada is promising to cancel the Camillien‑Houde plan should she be elected.

       
      • James 10:19 on 2025-03-13 Permalink

        Very predictable from Ensemble ! Never hear about any proposals – only opposition.
        Even though I am in favour of the overall plan, has anyone actually experienced the new intersection at Remembrance / Cote-des-neiges? Now there is a traffic light with protected pedestrian timing. Very few cars per cycle can turn onto Remembrance. If nothing is done, I predict a lot of congestion here.

      • Orr 11:55 on 2025-03-15 Permalink

        30 minute traffic jam to exit the park on a busy day! This corner redesign is a total fail for cars exiting Remembrance onto Cote des Neiges.

    • Kate 09:18 on 2025-03-13 Permalink | Reply  

      Taras Grescoe writes a paean to our urban agriculture for the Food&Wine site.

      For the same site, cookbook store Jonathan Cheung proposes five Canadian cookbooks.

      The Toronto Star praises our oldest and best bars. But the writer is wrong about Quebec avoiding prohibition completely, as this article on the SAQ site explains.

       
      • Kate 09:15 on 2025-03-13 Permalink | Reply  

        The Weather Network is predicting a wild ride for spring weather. So long as we can avoid ice storms…

         
        • Kate 09:11 on 2025-03-13 Permalink | Reply  

          TVA is really pushing the dangers in the metro these days, although we’ve discussed this on the blog and many of us use the system often without any issues.

          However, La Presse reports on a fresh resolution by the STM to end loitering in the metro. They’ll be closing off certain areas, like the Place‑des‑Arts mezzanine, which have become day shelters, and some exits will also be closed, at least till the end of April, when people will presumably be in less need of a warm place indoors.

          There isn’t much in the La Presse piece about doing anything to help the dislodged loiterers. It’s explained that Montreal is only doing what Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa have already done, and that loiterers will be “directed to other resources”.

          Update: No sooner announced than denounced: community workers respond to the new plan.

           
          • Joey 11:35 on 2025-03-13 Permalink

            The city’s commitment to fitness: high-level cyclists get a $90M training course built *on the mountain*; the homeless are forced to walk laps. Healthy choices…

          • Chris 12:51 on 2025-03-13 Permalink

            Oh please. Shall we stop filling potholes too until every homeless person is housed? If we want to redirect government spending to the homeless from elsewhere, let’s start with subsidies to oil companies, or subsidies to rich people to buy electric cars, etc. etc.

          • Joey 13:13 on 2025-03-13 Permalink

            Fine with me.

          • Orr 12:02 on 2025-03-15 Permalink

            I presently have to cross 9 lanes of high speed car traffic to enter Parc Mont Royal on foot from the northeast. Part of the money is to build a better prestigious entrance to the park from this side of the park and de-autoroute-ize the area, as has been done at parc/des pins and cote-des-Neiges/Dr Penfield.
            Although I use the road over the mountain as a shortcut, I agree it is folly to have a quasi-autoroute through “the jewel of Montreal. Even Camillien Houde was against it, but Drapeau was cars-cars-cars and this finally fixes this second biggest of Drapeau’s mistakes.

        • Kate 09:02 on 2025-03-13 Permalink | Reply  

          A total lunar eclipse is coming overnight, viewable in totality from 2:26 am to 3:01 am Friday – if the sky stays clear. Environment Canada is predicting only “a few clouds”.

           
          • Kate 08:41 on 2025-03-13 Permalink | Reply  

            Injured author Salman Rushdie is to be the star guest of the Blue Metropolis literary festival at the end of April.

             
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