Traffic congestion lost regular commuters 63 hours this year – but, not to be too prissy about it, if you’re in traffic congestion, you’re part of the congestion.
On X, Sergio Da Silva quipped “It’s must be all the bike paths on the Décarie.”
Updates from December, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The STM’s 800 professional employees are planning an overtime strike from December 17 to January 11.
Meantime, the STM and the maintenance union can’t agree on which essential services to maintain on December 25 and 26 and January 1 and 2.
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Kate
As I’ve mentioned, I’m a regular customer of Lufa, and was just sorting out this week’s order, when I noticed that the Portuguese bakery that offers pastéis de nata on the site is listing a new variation made with maple syrup. This might be gilding the lily, I thought, so I skimmed the comments.
Reviews are positive, then I found this one:
Merci M. & Mme Moreira d’avoir intégré une petite touche de chez nous à vos douceurs portugaises, c’est un grand signe de respect et une preuve de bonne intégration parmi nous.
Were the bakers really using maple syrup as a sign of respect? Does it mean they have been more fully integrated chez nous? Or is it, you know, simply the kind of idea that an inventive cook might try out, with no political angle involved?
Bob R
Yeah, I would say that “comment” es no bueno.
Meezly
Cringey.
JP
Very cringe.
JP
I’d even say it’s micro-aggresive and very othering. Probably the same type of person who asks where you’re really from and comments that someone has an impeccable accent.
Ian
We use maple syrup instead of sugar for pastries because as a liquid you get an even distribution and it doesn’t add dryness. But then again we might be sneaky foreigners trying to ingratiate ourselves with the “vous” crowd as a sign of respect for their condescending othering, which they are very good at.
Kevin
The dessert was delicious.
The insecurity is just another sign that Parizeau should have sent people to a therapist instead of the dentist.Blork
It’s amazing how choice of words can change the perception of a comment. If it had just said something like “pastéis de nata with a local touch” nobody would blink. It’s a completely un-loaded statement. But phrased that way….?
Uatu
Sometimes maple syrup is just maple syrup…
MarcG
Wow condescending!?
They threw some of those badboys in my basket as a freebie last order and I gotta say they were fucking delicious, if a bit too sweet. Almost wanted some pork in there to make it a full cabane-à-sucre experience.
dhomas
Just as an aside, “no bueno” is Spanish. In Portuguese, you might say “nāo é bom”.
But yes, the review was quite condescending.DavidH
If it’s from patisserie du Rosaire (formerly on the Plateau, now on Plaza St-Hubert), they’ve been making maple syrup and chocolate natas alongside the classic ones for a long time.
That phrasing is weird and ick but such are the times.
CE
The comment is stupid and cringey and all the other adjectives used here but it’s one comment. Why so much focus on a single comment that might represent a small proportion of people and how they might look at an “ethnic” food that uses local ingredients?
Kate
CE, it struck me as echoing some of the political tendencies that insist on having newcomers integrate with traditional Quebec society. That is all.
Ian
Regardless it was First Nations who taught settlers how to make maple syrup so it ain’t “une petite touche de chez nous ” or “un grand signe de respect et une preuve de bonne intégration” unless they meant respect for Natives which I sincerely doubt.
@CE it’s the passive-aggressive version of othering more recent newcomers. It’s not as obvious as yelling “speak white” to congratulate someone for speaking white so prettily for a foreigner.
Uatu
And if they’re like the Portuguese I work with they’ve been here for generations, are perfectly fluent in French and some have married into francophone families. So the comment assumes that they’re recent immigrants because of their name and sounds really condescending.
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Kate
Useful links for finding out about transit status:
Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:cwpb6y34f3jxox56gw6nxavy
REM direct: https://rem.info/en/travelling/network-status
REM via X: https://x.com/REM_infoservice
STM via X:
https://x.com/stm_Orange
https://x.com/stm_Jaune
https://x.com/stm_Bleu
https://x.com/stm_VerteThanks for a couple of these to Uatu and Heliomass
j2
Mastodon amalgamation: https://mstdn.ca/@MTL_Transit_Status_en/
Kate
Thank you, j2.
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Kate
Some taxi drivers are illegally inflating their fares, seemingly to match what Uber is charging at any given moment.
jeather
Look, if you want to charge half of what Uber charges, fine, but we all know drivers don’t get more than that on average.
DeWolf
This Wild West (sorry, Far West) deregulation is another legacy of the CAQ: Montreal has become the kind of place where you need to be hyper-vigilant about taxi scams. A bit like a city in a developing country with a lot of corruption.
This government has damaged so much of the basic infrastructure of Quebec society that it will take a generation to fix things — assuming we ever get another government that is interested in fixing things.
MarcG
Fixing things is so 2019.
dhomas
The CAQ has done a lot of shitty things, including deregulating the taxi industry. But the PLQ allowed Uber to operate for years before that, from 2014, when Uber first arrived in Quebec, until they lost power in 2018. Both are equally shitty here.
Kate
Yes, it was definitely a Couillard-era PLQ choice to deregulate taxis.
It was Jacques Daoust who oversaw that change in Quebec. Daoust was not Couillard’s economy minister for long. He was appointed in 2014, and his time was marked by two almighty fuckups: he got Quebec to lend a billion dollars to a doomed Bombardier plane project and oversaw Rona being sold off to Americans. Then in 2016 he was made transport minister and allowed Uber to wreck the taxi industry, presumably based on some neoliberal worship of economic disruption. He quit politics abruptly after that and died in 2017.
dhomas
To be fair, the Bombardier C-Series (if that’s what you’re alluding, Kate) was actually a great plane and was poised to sell like gangbusters. It was already selling well, especially to Delta airlines in the US. Boeing did not like this. Through some backroom dealings, they got the Bombardier-made planes slapped with something like 300% tariff. (Guess which tariff-loving president was in power at the time). This essentially rendered the C-Series dead in the water. This was a “bet the company” kind of gamble for Bombardier and they lost the bet (though I would say the other players cheated). The C-Series should have been a crowning achievement for Bombardier. Instead, it was almost given to Airbus.
As for allowing Rona to be sold, I agree that was a fuck-up. If it’s any solace, Lowe’s took a bath on Rona. They bought it for about 3 billion dollars and sold it for 400 million a few years later.
Kate
Yes, it was the C Series. Now aka the Airbus 220.
DeWolf
Allowing Uber was one thing, but dismantling the entire system to regulate licensed taxis, which happened in 2020, was quite another.
Uber operates pretty much everywhere in the world and yet there are still licensed taxis with inspectors who make sure they are compliant.
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Kate
Saveur magazine has a list of what it calls the thirteen best under‑the‑radar restaurants here, but although I’ve never eaten at any of them, I’ve heard of and seen positive reviews of most of them. But to be fair, they may be secret if you’re from out of town.
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Kate
An entrepreneur is reviving the moribund idea to create a major league baseball team in Montreal.
Journalists shouldn’t be flimflammed into calling this “bringing back the Expos” because the Expos are dead, and phrasing it that way is an appeal to boomers who have fond memories of fifty‑cent hot dogs in the stands at Jarry Park.
Whatever could happen in this instance would mean the waste of vast sums of public money to put up a team for which it was proven long ago there is not enough of an audience. Nostalgia is not enough.
Please let this just be a random bit on a media site. I hope people are smart enough not to let this idea snowball.
bob
True fact: If you built a ball park at the old Blue Bonnets, a game would choke the Decarie Expressway so completely that according to quantum mechanics cars would actually start to move *backwards in time*.
Kate
bob, you’ve made me start a file of “quotes for 2027 calendar”
Kevin
Anyone who makes a decision based on a social media poll made by a sports booster deserves to lose every penny.
Kate
The file is off to a good start!
Mozai
Weird, I was downtown today minding my own business when someone with a cameraman stuck a microphone at me asked “What do you think of the Expos?” I told them to get that damned camera out of my face.
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Kate
Weekend notes from Le Devoir, La Presse, CityCrunch, Montréal Secret, CultMTL.La Presse is also running daily cultural suggestions now.
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Kate
The REM is partly down Friday morning, and I’m not seeing indications yet that it’s back.
The X account REM_infoservice is probably the best bet for following how it’s doing.
Normal service was posted a bit after 10 am.
Uatu
I’m not on X so I just go here:
https://rem.info/en/travelling/network-statusI was worried that the entire system would be down but it’s just the section from de Riusseau to McGill. Also the announcement this morning said McGill as the final stop which means real time updates to the system which is interesting
JP
So does this mean that people could get on at Pierrefonds and get off at Gare Centrale (It just skips the affected stations)?
Kate
CBC radio news more or less implied that you’d board the train and ride for several stations, be told to get off the train, be put on a bus, be shuttled to the next operational station, then be put back on the train. But I’m not 100% sure I gathered this correctly.
JP
Thanks Kate i think the Rem needs to be more clear about it. This is one of the reasons why I won’t use it to get to anything important or time0sensitive for the time being. I’ll only use it for weekends for now, for less important activities.
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Kate
La Presse talks to Stéphane Guay, who was feet from Marc Lépine on December 6, 1989. He was the first to call 911, and still wonders whether he could have stopped the killer before the massacre began. He has written a book about it and tells about it in his own words.
La Presse also has a long piece first giving the circumstances of the 20‑minute attack, and then details about each of the victims.
Blork 22:14 on 2025-12-05 Permalink
Even if you’re on a bus?
W 22:32 on 2025-12-05 Permalink
Other cities are much bigger, have worse public transportation, have fewer bike paths, and yet they have less congestion than we do. So, what are we, who are “part of the congestion” as you say, doing wrong that other cities aren’t?
Kate 22:32 on 2025-12-05 Permalink
Blork: Especially if you’re on a bus. Have you seen the size of those things?
Kate 22:35 on 2025-12-05 Permalink
W, the item says it’s badly designed roads – there’s some details in the item I linked. I don’t drive so I can’t speak of it personally, but I’ve heard people complain about Decarie Circle and other aspects that are mentioned in the piece.
Nicholas 23:13 on 2025-12-05 Permalink
Oh, INRIX! They will get data every which way: buy it from any cell phone app you’ve given permission to. Also they have a deal with Ford: any Ford vehicle built since 2017 will report where it is, and how fast it’s going, every 5 seconds while the engine is on. They say it’s opt-in, so I once asked one of their execs doing a talk on this if the opt-in is just when you first turn the car on you click agree to the 27 page user agreement, and she said she wasn’t sure but would get back to me (she never did). Anyway, INRIX is probably tracking you right now.
Anyway, “badly designed roads” is code for “not enough lanes”. We need to double up the Met and Decarie, build a north south highway east of the Mountain, and widen anything that ever has traffic even for one minute a day. That’ll create free flowing traffic, which will absolutely not induce any new demand, and all our traffic problems will be solved. As that classic Onion headline says, “Report: 98 Percent Of U.S. Commuters Favor Public Transportation For Others”.
jeather 23:38 on 2025-12-05 Permalink
We do have badly designed roads but for a moment I took the rest of your comment seriously until I read far enough and thought wait, that’s not how it works.
I’ve been trying to explain induced demand to people who want to open Cavendish (which I am actually in favour of) but no one believes me.
jeather 23:41 on 2025-12-05 Permalink
I am stuck in/part of traffic, yes, because despite all that where I work takes 50% longer via public transit in the morning and more than twice as long in the evening, and if anything goes wrong I miss the “rush hour” only bus and have a very long walk. I sometimes get a pass for a month, but mostly miss working near a metro stop.
dhomas 05:07 on 2025-12-06 Permalink
Hey you! Yeah, you. The guy sitting alone in his Ford F150 complaining about traffic on your commute down from Blainville. You are not IN traffic; you ARE traffic.
Let’s describe what traffic (congestion) is. It’s when there are more cars on the road than there is capacity to move them efficiently. So, what happens if we add more roads? More roads means more cars. More cars means, you guessed it! more traffic!
The solution to traffic is not more roads. It’s giving people alternatives to driving.
We need to improve transit options and encourage people to use them (sometimes this encouragement is at the expense of discouraging people from driving, like by adding tolls to the bridges).
We need to NOT tear up bike paths. If cyclists don’t feel safe commuting by bike, where will they end up? Likely in a car. Remember what we said about more cars? (Hint: it means more traffic)
There is one thing that I think needs to be done to road infrastructure that might improve traffic. We need a proper ring road for travellers passing through. I see it every day. There is an endless barrage of 18-wheelers going down the 25 to the south shore, despite the immense delays caused by the tunnel repair. They do it because there is no other option. But it’s not only there. There are tons of them on the Met as well. We do need to get stuff delivered into the city, but a lot of these trucks must be passing through Montreal to get to other destinations because it’s almost impossible not to pass through Montreal. If you look at Google maps, you can see that there are other highways that ALMOST let you avoid getting on the island as your going from east-west, but not quite. Look at the 640 and the 30 as prime examples.
Kate 10:59 on 2025-12-06 Permalink
I don’t watch TV, but I do play a five-letter game on the La Presse app. To start the game you have to screen a 15‑second commercial.
At least three quarters of these little commercials are for cars, mostly shot on empty highways, or in wild locations. The big sell is freedom – you’re alone in your vehicle and going as fast as you like with nothing in the way. That kind of visual has been used to flog cars for years, so the idea must be implanted in many drivers’ minds, even if reality means being stuck in the Decarie Circle for half an hour with a child wailing in the back seat.
So in a sense, buying into this scam is one of the causes of traffic congestion.
(I have a bigger beef with some of these ads, mostly from Honda, which is that they often show the car coming right at the camera. As a pedestrian it’s my biggest fear, the sight of a vehicle coming straight at me at high speed. But it must be proven to sell cars.)
Chris 12:12 on 2025-12-06 Permalink
jeather, maybe you can explain it to your friends this way: we’ve been adding roads like mad for the last century and yet somehow it hasn’t solved traffic.
Joey 12:51 on 2025-12-06 Permalink
I’m guessing part of the reason why Montrealers spend more time in traffic than residents of Toronto and Vancouver is that we have snow, slush and ice on the roadway for 1/3+ of the year and they don’t.
Kevin 17:54 on 2025-12-06 Permalink
Some roads ARE badly designed. Decarie and Jean-Talon is a mess of a chokepoint because of train tracks, a highway exit, and people trying to turn east. But fixing requires agreement and creativity from three jurisdictions. Which is why nothing will ever be built at Blue Bonnets.
W 18:14 on 2025-12-06 Permalink
@kate I know it’s badly designed roads, but you were underlining how people in congestion cause congestion, and that was irrelevant.
Kate 18:34 on 2025-12-06 Permalink
I disagree. There’s no point in complaining when you’re in a vehicle on a congested road that the road is congested.
But we can agree to disagree.
jeather 18:46 on 2025-12-06 Permalink
Complaining doesn’t have to have a point, we can do it for the joy of it.
Ian 22:59 on 2025-12-06 Permalink
If your neighbourhood becomes suddenly popular and gentrifies to the point that your rent is unaffordable, as a renter, are you part of the probelm? Maybe so, but yeah, you do have the right to complain, and maybe even point out that better urban planning could have avoided gentrification and is necessary to fix it.
Much like traffic congestion.