Public transit fares will be going up by an average 3% on Tuesday.
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Kate
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Kate
Even though more is written about the housing crisis around Moving Day, the effects of the housing crisis are felt all year, as this Radio‑Canada piece says.
I’ve just paid my 5.9%-hiked rent myself for July 1st. I felt it.
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Kate
A class action suit has been authorized against Tim Hortons in Quebec after a “roll up the rim to win” contest promised a boat and trailer each to half a million customers across Canada.
Could be worse. Thousands of people in Norway were informed they had won big jackpots in their national lottery. They hadn’t.
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Kate
The REM will soon close for a month and a half so the new sections can be slotted in. It will be tricky for people who depend on it.
Nicholas
The old line has been closed for 4.5 years, and they need 1.5 months to slot this in for tracks that already had the capability to through run. In Japan they had an 85-year-old rail line that ended at ground level that they wanted to lower down with jacks to connect to a metro line, so they could through run it. The slot in happened in 3.5 hours. That’s not a typo. Watch the video, where the last train rolls in at 1 am and the first train through runs to the metro at 5 am. This is how far behind we are.
Joey
Shame the journalist didn’t explain why the South Shore REM line has to shut down to get the north & west lines running. Maybe someone here can explain why the former can’t stay operational while the final touches on the latter are completed.
anton
Originally they said about the Deux-Montagnes line that there will be no shutdowns, “maybe a weekend or two”, and anybody who said that seemed unrealistic was shouted down.
Joey
That tracks. What’s the actual reason? Is it just that they have to deploy too many staff to bringing the new lines on board to manage the existing one?
Nicholas
Joey, the answer is they’re bad at their jobs. But don’t worry, the head of the CDPQ when this project was being designed, the former CN executive, who was leading the charge against people making reasonable points such as anton, is no longer in his job. Instead this month he was appointed to be the Clerk of the Privy Council, the highest civil service job in the country.
Robert H
Haha,failing upwards is the best policy.
Ian
Shit floats.
Uatu
Just want to make a note that my ABC pass is now 200$ a month. 200$ to take a bus to a train station to take a bus. Wish I had my express bus back. At least that felt worth the money.
Ian
2400 a year to get to wait in the rain and snow and still have to deal with the bus. Ugh. I’m lucky enbough to be all in zone A, but still…
It takes me roughly 2 hours to get from Mile End to Saint Anne de Bellevue by STM. Even when the REM is completed, the “Saint Anne” stop is Anse à l’Orme, north of the 40 near Morgan… so I will take a bus to the Outremont metro then the metro to Edouard Montpetit REM, take the REM to Bois Franc, transfer to the line going to Anse à l’Orme, then a shuttle bus from the REM to the town… which will take about an hour and a half total, minimum – assuming the REM is up and running, LOL.
REM or no REM, it will take me between 1.5 and 2 hours each way, for what is normally a 45 minute drive, door to door. 3 or 4 hours out of my day on public transit as opposed to an hour and a half if I drive certainly offsets the cost and inconvenience of driving.
Robert H
I don’t drive, don’t have a car, I’m a firm believer in people ditching their vehicles as often as possible for public transport. But good god! With a trek like that day in and day out, even I’d get my license and drive.
Ian
I never owned a car before I’d been doing the trek for a couple of years. Considering my classes at the time were only 4 hours long, the 4 hour commute was just too much to rationalize.
I know commuting to the west island is an edge case but lots of my students and fellow teachers do it, some from even further. It’s ridiculous that on-island transport is this bad.
MarcG
Ludicrous that they’re not offering rebates to inconvenienced users.
Ian, assuming you work at McGill’s Macdonald campus, the shuttle bus doesn’t do you any good?
Ian
I wish, it’s only for McGill students and employees. I’m at Abbott.
Joey
Presumably one could enrol in a continuing ed class (or even a non-cont ed class) to get a McGill ID to be able to board the bus for a lot less than $2400/year…
Ian
Hmmm cunning… I like your grift 😀
I’d still need an STM pass to get downtown and back, but still.
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Kate
You’ve probably seen the video by now in which the felling of a huge and magnificent tree ended up destroying a house. This happened not far from town and has been tragic for the tenant, but this piece still does not explain why that tree had to go.
(Link to video in comment below.)
Nicholas
I don’t understand this. He says he can’t insure the house because he’s in a flood zone. But I know people who’ve lived in flood zones, and they can insure a house, but they get no flood protection. So theft, fire and falling trees are all insured, just not floods. Also he’s a tenant, he can get renter’s insurance, but it’s the landlord who insured the house. And, as the article says, the company will be liable here, though if they don’t have insurance or were negligence they could go bankrupt.
MarcG
Here’s a video on Twitter https://x.com/_fluxfeeds/status/1938844879620383203
Nicholas
That video is embedded in the original article, though from a content aggregator. Kate, maybe you have no tracking on so you didn’t see it?
Kate
My brain may have omitted seeing it. Happens sometimes.
walkerp
Holy crap, that is a screw up. I’ve never chopped down a tree that big, though was part of a group that took out a front porch in a similar instance (fortunately the home was set to be demolished, but still did not go the way the guy directing us wanted it to).
Kate, I think your question is the most prescient one. There is this weird default to cut trees down and when you ask why, you rarely get a solid answer. There is always vague talk of danger and destruction to the house. Well they got the latter!
CE
Poplar trees aren’t supposed to get that big or live as long as they do when they’re cared for by humans. When they do grow that large, it’s because they grew very fast and the wood is weak and rots easily (especially since large branches can fall from the weakness of the tree and water can infiltrate). Eventually they start rotting from the inside and can be dangerous if they fall during a wind storm or ice storm.
People made a big deal about the big poplars being cut down in Parc La Fontaine but I went and took a look at the trunks and they were completely rotten in the centre. We look at them and see mighty trees but they’re actually weak and overgrown.
Kate
CE, is the tree in the meme video a poplar?
…I had another look. Big poplars usually have deeper‑grooved bark at ground level, but those look like poplar leaves. And few other trees get so big here.
nau
From the leaves, it looks to be an eastern cottonwood, i.e., Populus deltoides, so yes. Apparently, another name for eastern cottonwood is necklace poplar, though that’s news to me.
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