Cyclists are feeling the pain of potholes, with falls and damage on the rise.
But it’s not only motor vehicles and bicycles. There’s a big pothole in the middle of a pedestrian crosswalk near my place, where I nearly twisted my ankle the other day, and I can’t be the only one who’s fallen foul of it.
Half a million people are expected to visit Montreal in September for the Championnats du monde de vélo sur route, described here as the biggest sporting event the city has hosted since the Olympics. Radio‑Canada is already dreading the road detours.
It’s a pretty time of year here – people will be charmed.
I don’t really care about cycle racing but this is a huge event, potentially on par with Grand Prix.
Don’t we always have a cycle race here in September?
There’s a Grand Prix every September that goes over the mountain many, many times, but I gather this is more important – world championships – and the route is different.
Looks like some of the races will be going over the mountain 12 times. Not sure why they couldn’t just route them into the Laurentians or Townships instead, though that would require considerable road repaving as well. Still, it’s an election year, always a good time to fix rural roads.
The road to Tremblant is actually in way better shape than any city road. Tire-eating potholes will cause major accidents on a highway.
The 15, yes. Not the smaller roads that would be most fun for a bike race.
Does the Tour de France cause better road repair in small French towns?
It’s been announced that the branch of the REM towards the West Island will open on May 18.
Looking at the map, it seems the stations on that branch are far apart. Shouldn’t there be a station at St‑Charles at least?
A station at St-Charles would be nice.
I live fairly near the Fairview station. And I live a bus ride away from the Roxboro-Pierrefonds station. So I don’t live right next to any REM station, but I live near enough to some of them that I’ve been using the REM sometimes.
I somehow only recently discovered that if you’re travelling between REM stations on the island, you can just use your OPUS card with the monthly STM fare for the bus/metro.
There should be more stations, but stations are expensive and every extra station increases the travel time and the number of trains needed to achieve the same frequency. The REM is bundled with the highway because that land was already in government control, but CDPQInfra and Ivanhoé Cambridge probably want (much) more land around a future extra station so paid parking lots can be built and they can develop commercial or residential buildings. That’s where the money is made, public transit is just a conduit. That land needs to be acquired first and I’m not sure a private company can appropriate land as easily as the government can. So they probably have to pay market prices.
They also could have put the Fairview station near St John and the current bus loop. But instead they put it far away, meaning the STM has to build a new loop and all of their buses on St John have to detour further west and then back, adding time to trips and costs to the STM. Typical planning in a silo rather than for a network.
At some point this summer, I’ll take the REM to Des Sources and wander around Pointe-Claire. I’ve been there a number of times before, but only by car, which limits the kind of open-ended wandering you can do by foot.
My dad moved there as a kid from the Maritimes and went to St. Thomas, so it would be cool to check it out. I’ll have to ask if he still remembers the address of where he lived.
All the station locations west of Sources are meant to create development opportunities, not serve existing populations. Anse a l’Orme is a 20 minute bus ride from Ste Anne.
Does anyone know if they’ve built or have plans to build a nice way to get from the Fairview–Pointe-Claire station to south of the highway? Currently it looks like a lovely 20 minute walk through a parking lot and along a narrow sidewalk next to a busy road.
MarcG: Yes there is a plan for the Kirkland station :
https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/grand-montreal/2022-10-18/une-nouvelle-passerelle-fera-le-lien-entre-le-rem-et-le-rev-dans-l-ouest-de-l-ile.php
This news is 3 1/2 years old. Not sure if progress has been made since.
EmilyG: The original plan was to build the Kirkland station in the NW corner of St-Charles & Hwy 40 but the city of Kirkland wanted the station further west where it was eventually built
Also, since the fare unification done by the ARTM, all travel on the island of Montreal is zone A. This includes bus, metro, REM, and even suburban trains.
Thank you, James.
I wonder if Fairview will be losing business when the buses are rerouted to the new REM station. Where the bus terminus is now, it’s easy to just pop into Fairview before catching the next bus. I admit, I’ll miss being able to get a coffee easily before taking the 207 home.
Some will win, some will lose. The Kirkland station has a Timmy’s just beside it that will probably be bonkers. I am sure that whole mall that is currently deep in the doldrums will experience a renaissance.
Yes, agree with Ian. I’m noticing the Eaton Centre seems really busy these days. I wouldn’t be surprised if data show it’s busier and doing better sales than before the pandemic. Similarly, I suspect Fairview will experience a similar spike.
@MarcG, I used to do that walk on St Jean daily for 3 years between 2016 and 2019. I hope they improve it.
The list of services to be maintained during the three‑day strike by city blue collar workers is so complete that I doubt anyone would notice a thing. The only standout is the promise that nobody will be ticketed for not moving a car for street cleaning.
These “essential services” are the kind of thing you’d miss if the strike went on for weeks, but over three days – pfft.
Concert promoter Donald K. Donald has died. He was 82. The notices about him are brief, social media giving terse accolades about how he brought major acts to town. (But see later items linked in comments below.)
How much are the tickets? And how much are the scalpers charging?
Hard to overstate how strongly he seemed to run the entire concert/sports/event promotion scene in Montreal for decades. Feels like the kind of person who would have a really interesting obit in the Globe or the Gazette, which has not reported his death yet.
(BTW am I obtuse or does the Gazette’s website not have a search function?)
Joey, I can’t find a search feature on the frontend either and it seems like they also intentionally disabled WordPress’s built-in functionality. You can do it with google though, querying like this: “[search-term-here] site:https://montrealgazette.com/“.
I was wondering if search is only available for subscribers.
@MarcG, that’s what I did, but it’s kind of insane that they wouldn’t have an obvious search function. At least the ad blockers I used worked reasonably well…
Anyway, this is a lot more interesting than those local notices: https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2026/04/14/donald-tarlton/
Thanks for sharing that, Joey. Some older articles about him in the Gazette are posted on Facebook here.
Wednesday, Bill Brownstein eulogizes DKD in the Gazette.
Re Bill’s piece, I had not realized that he has “postmedia” and not “gazette” in his email address. No doubt the same is true of the paper’s other writers. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but it struck me, since the article was about the corporate homogenization of the concert business.
@Joey: Post Media is hiring a web developer if you want to roll up your sleeves and add the search back yourself 🙂
Considering the job is a senior php developer for only 85k at a “news” company that is advertising for journalists at 45k and has an overall approval rating of only 3.2 (glassdoor info, all) …
Looking at their job postings the one that gets the highest pay, starting at 115k, is “Team Lead, AI Operations”. No journalism jobs for more than 65 k. Says a lot. Not applying is probably dodging a bullet.
I built the first Gazette website ever, for the 1995 referendum. But I doubt they would hire me back 🙂
The federal Liberals have locked down a majority till 2029. Even Terrebonne, which was teetering between the PLC and the Bloc, went red for Carney.
Ok great so this means they cam stop skewing right in policy since there’s no further need to woo Conservatives?
Or perhaps most Canadians themselves have moved right after the decade of Trudeau’s left wing government? Maybe Canadians just don’t want carbon taxes, wokeness, etc.
We can look at the NDP’s byelection results too. An exciting new leader, fresh off a campaign, promising ever farther left ideas that Trudeau. How did they do? 19%, 6%, 0.5%, an average of 8.5%.
Not sure why the libs would tack left with those numbers.
What is wokeness, Chris?
The cons are down almost 10% since the federal election.
Considering Poilievre couldn’t win the PM role with pretty much the most perfect chance since Harper, I guess Canadians don’t want the same old whining about carbon taxes and wokeness either.
That Carney is now buds with Harper must be making PP super mad haha
Perhaps relevant, today on the Beaverton:
Liberal tent now encompasses any political beliefs anyone has ever, or will ever, have – The Beaverton https://share.google/JRI2HUHELo4pdYtEh
DeWolf 19:10 on 2026-04-14 Permalink
It’s really bad. Just for example, Mozart/Bélanger has never been great, with recurring potholes that are filled at least once a year. But this year the entire street is a minefield from about Saint-Laurent to Christophe-Colomb. It’s not good in a car, worse on a bike — and as you mention, even on foot you have to watch your step because there are some giant holes right in the crosswalks.
I’ve also noticed that 311 isn’t as responsive as it used to be. Maybe it’s the enormous number of potholes but usually the ones I report are filled within two or three weeks, but so far nothing I’ve reported has been dealt with this year…
Kate 19:13 on 2026-04-14 Permalink
By September, will the route of the cycle race mentioned in the previous post will be smooth as silk?
Ian 14:24 on 2026-04-15 Permalink
I still remember when Doré promised that any citizen showing evidence of a pothole big enough to accomodate a chicken woudl get a free chicken. There were no free chickens, unsurprisingly.
I feel like “Personne n’a de poulet gratuit” should be the Montreal Department of Transportation & Public Works motto.