Updates from April, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 20:01 on 2025-04-03 Permalink | Reply  

    Last year there was quite a little scandal about a local teacher accused of putting his students’ artwork up for sale on a website. The case against him has been dropped and it’s being called all a big misunderstanding.

     
    • Kate 18:36 on 2025-04-03 Permalink | Reply  

      An NDG resident received a parking ticket this week, five minutes after the STM had passed by and planted a temporary detour bus stop on the spot. The family plans to challenge it.

       
      • Ian 07:28 on 2025-04-04 Permalink

        That hardly seems fair but while the Plateau has a reputation, NDG is a quick draw on tckets, too.

      • Tim S. 07:33 on 2025-04-04 Permalink

        It’s ridiculous that a journalist spent a whole day reporting this story, but on the other hand my wife and I got 30 minutes of conversation out of it.

        One thing we really want to know (that it didn’t occur to CTV to ask): was this stop designed for the world’s smallest bus?

      • Kate 09:08 on 2025-04-04 Permalink

        Tim S., that’s one of the criteria I use for the blog. If something’s a curiosity rather than major news, but it interests me enough to read the whole story, I’ll do a post.

      • Joey 11:03 on 2025-04-04 Permalink

        I doubt the journalist spent a whole day reporting the story… anyway, I agree with Kate and Tim S.’s wife that this warrants discussion LOL

        Anyway, regardless of the temporary bus stop pole, the white car isn’t parked legally; at least half of that space should be kept empty since Quebec law states that you may not park within five metres of a corner. Some boroughs (Plateau) built curb extensions to make it physically impossible to park or stop close to intersections. Others (Rosemont) paint the curbs yellow to indicate where you can park. NDG seems more interested in not enforcing its own rules. I wouldn’t be surprised if the judge agreed that the ticket was bogus but nevertheless upheld the fine since the car shouldn’t have been parked that close to the corner.

        I sincerely wish the city had decided to focus its revenue-from-car-owners collection on bad driving instead of bad parking; this piece from September didn’t get much traction, but it makes clear that the city and the police have given up on enforcing traffic rules (outside of exceptional cases, like for a few days after a child walking to school is killed by a driver): https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/chroniques/2024-09-16/tickets-en-chute-libre-des-policiers-du-spvm-inquiets.php

      • MarcG 11:06 on 2025-04-04 Permalink

        Every other car in the images is parked right up to the corner – tickets for everyone! Normally there’s yellow paint on the curb to indicate you can’t park there.

      • MarcG 11:10 on 2025-04-04 Permalink

        Also funny that in the non-security video footage there’s a different car parked in the spot.

      • jeather 11:25 on 2025-04-04 Permalink

        It sounds a lot like the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing kind of mistake. That said “waste my time to contest the fine” is usually pretty minimal — I once got a ticket in the time between parking and paying at the machine, so I just mailed in my parking receipt marked a minute or two after the ticket and it was gone.

      • Joey 11:47 on 2025-04-04 Permalink

        @jeather I would imagine for cases like this you actually need to see the judge, or at least the prosecutor in the moments leading up to your court session. Has anyone here ever had a ticket cancelled by the prosecutor *not while at the courthouse* – i.e., by phone prior to the hearing?

      • jeather 11:51 on 2025-04-04 Permalink

        I mean I’d start by mailing it back with a not guilty plea and some screenshots and maybe a printout of the story, I think that would solve it.

      • dhomas 13:52 on 2025-04-04 Permalink

        I’ve contested parking tickets before. The last one I contested was for being towed for snow removal out of a spot that was not marked as scheduled for snow removal operations on that day. Screenshots of the Info-Neige app were enough for the prosecutor to dismiss the case before I even went before the judge. But I still needed to present myself to court. Luckily for me, the court is walking distance from my house, but that’s not the case for everyone.

      • Tim S. 08:50 on 2025-04-05 Permalink

        So, a theory: could it be that the sign is really not for a bus stop, but to tell people not to park to close to the corner, but the bus stop sign is the one the blue collars had on hand? Of course, you’d think yellow paint would be cheaper, if not as effective.

        @Joey. So they reporter + cameraman (if they can still afford those) had to contact the guy, drive out to NDG, film, set up interview with SOS ticket guy, contact STM, write script, edit. I don’t know enough about journalism to say how long those tasks would take, but even if not a whole 8 hour day, enough that there wouldn’t be a lot of time left over for something else, no?

    • Kate 18:33 on 2025-04-03 Permalink | Reply  

      The ruling that found that the law that abolished school boards is partly unconstitutional was upheld in the Court of Appeal this week. It was found to violate English-language minority education rights.

       
      • Kate 09:44 on 2025-04-03 Permalink | Reply  

        The Tour de l’Île has announced the cancellation of the 25 km route in its main event this summer because of construction in parks and on roads they had planned to use. The 25 km event was new last year.

         
        • Ian 21:45 on 2025-04-03 Permalink

          If construction planning affects even bicycle event infrastructure we can only hope the popular will exists to do something about it.

        • Kate 10:21 on 2025-04-04 Permalink

          The last time I walked through Jarry Park, a big piece of it was fenced off for alterations. If those continue this summer, I can well imagine the park won’t be able to host thousands of cyclists on the day.

        • Ian 10:35 on 2025-04-04 Permalink

          True, and similarly lots of work still ongoing in Parc Jeanne-Mance.

      • Kate 09:29 on 2025-04-03 Permalink  

        McGill students are in the middle of a three‑day strike for Palestine.

         
        • Kate 09:27 on 2025-04-03 Permalink | Reply  

          A plan is afoot to build 25,000 new residential units around the blue line extension, and also add public parks and bike paths

           
          • Kate 09:14 on 2025-04-03 Permalink | Reply  

            The REM was stopped in both directions on Thursday morning between Panama and Central Station.

             
            • Blork 09:27 on 2025-04-03 Permalink

              To be fair, it is RAINING. What do people expect? Be reasonable!

            • Ian 21:48 on 2025-04-03 Permalink

              It’s ok, they have better availability stats than the exo, or so I’ve heard. Not so much lately but that’s no reason to not hand-wave user concerns, right?

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