Urbania with five easy ways to get killed on a bicycle.
Updates from May, 2026 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The long-awaited city pound was finally inaugurated on Friday, although it has been in operation since January. A veterinarian on staff is quoted as saying they will keep animals while trying either to return them to their owners, or euthanizing them. There isn’t anything about animal adoptions.
CTV’s report mentions pet adoption in passing, so that’s good.
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Kate
Carney’s Liberals are pondering privatizing airports. What would that do for us? Notice the slickness of Finance Minister François‑Philippe Champagne saying “it’s about modernizing how Canada views its public assets.” If private ownership is viewed through a neoliberal eye as modernizing, maybe. That’s not a given.
Champagne and Carney talk persuasively about “making sure that Canadians get the full value of these federal assets” but it’s smoke and mirrors because once something is sold, it’s sold. Some money goes into a few pockets and the asset no longer belongs to Canadians. It can be sold to forces outside our borders and controlled for corporate profit, not for the benefit of its users.
How is this equivalent to modernization?
Nicholas
The argument is that private owners are more likely to invest in upgrades, which is empirically true worldwide, as governments tend to skimp, as who wants to invest money in airports when it could go to health care? And it’s also empirically true that private ownership leads to more flights and more passengers. In particular, upgrades that increase revenue: things that bring in more flights, more passengers, more restaurants, more lounges, better transfers. Sometimes this is more utilitarian infrastructure like more gates, sometimes it is things that make the experience nicer so people spend more money or prefer connecting here. But they tend to be more ruthlessly focused on ROI than governments, who might care more about a golf course. That’s all modernization.
The trade-off is fees tend to go up a fair bit, as the extra revenue from the sources above is often not enough, and they aren’t constrained. You could also argue that flights are bad, and we should be building a fast train to Montreal, but we may not even end up doing that, building it to Laval instead.
As for finances, the pockets that the money goes into is the Treasury, which can help bring down the debt, which is high. I’ve also seen people suggesting Canadian pension funds could buy the airports, as they already own some airports overseas, which alleviates the private concern for some, though I think that’s too cute by half, just look at the REM. And if you’re worried about a future sale, you can ban foreign ownership, something Canada loves doing, including in aviation. You would get less money for it though. You can also regulate fees if you want, among other things.
I don’t have many opinions on whether this is a good idea or not; I’m just answering the question on how it leads to modernization.
PatrickC
Changi airport, considered the best in the world, is owned by the government of Singapore. It’s a question of political will.
Tim S.
“The argument is that private owners are more likely to invest in upgrades, which is empirically true worldwide,”
A few years ago I asked a colleague in the UK for his thoughts on the railway privatizations there. He said “Well, the trains don’t run on time anymore, but you can get a nice cappuccino.”
Upgrades that bring in revenue are not necessarily upgrades that fulfill the actual purpose of the thing in question.
bob
Privatization is a mechanism for people close to the government to suck the juice out of a public asset, and leave us with the skins. A pure form of legislated corruption. Fees go up, service erodes, because they are only interested in profit.
Canada does not ban foreign ownership at all. They sold the wheat board to Saudis and Americans. The Canadian Pacific is merged with a US company and run out of Kansas. The largest shareholder in the Canadian National is Bill Gates. Air Canada’s largest shareholder is Black Rock. And even when a company is partly, even mostly, owned by nominally “Canadian” entities, it is effectively owned by some collection of equity funds, asset management funds, trusts, etc. run by global neoliberals who are as loyal to Canada as the Westons and Irvings.
jeather
Elbows up!
Tim
@bob, you hit the nail on the head. The entire country has been sold right out from underneath us. The only national beer left is Moosehead. You bought a Molson, Labatt or Sleeman product: that money is going to the US, Belgium/Brazil or Japan respectively.
R T
I’m extremely ambivalent about airport privatizion, but UK railway privatisation was very successful in increasing ridership, especially during off-peak periods through cheaper tickets; the train operating companies did not control the tracks or the major stations, and the attempt to privatise the tracks was undone quickly, so most concerns about investment level are due to the government. (The trains themselves got a lot nicer!)
“Canada does not ban foreign ownership at all.” is simply a false statement as a matter of fact. Foreigners aren’t even allowed to acquire controlling stakes in bookshops. (When it was still considered a bookshop, Amazon had no physical presence Canada, hiring Canada Post to do all their logistics as a workaround.) Foreigners can’t control Canadian airlines. Canada does allow foreign ownership of coffee shops, but required that Tim Hortons maintain a separate, Canadian-controlled board, lest cruellers be unduly Brazilian influenced. BlackRock does not have any of its own money invested in Air Canada; the BlackRock funds that have shares in Air Canada are owned by the fund holders, many if not most of whom are Canadian. (Moreover, the largest shareholder in Air Canada is RBC, again on behalf of its fund holders, almost all of whom are Canadian.) Oh, and CPKC? Headquartered in and run out of Calgary, not Kansas.
Joey
There’s a reason the Liberal Party of Canada grabbed a bunch of erstwhile Conservative Party voters the instant Carney replaced Trudeau as party leader.
Kate
Nicholas, on rereading you, this stood out: “Private ownership leads to more flights and more passengers. In particular, upgrades that increase revenue: things that bring in more flights, more passengers, more restaurants, more lounges, better transfers.”
I hate to be the party pooper for tourism and its attending commerce, but we really need to be reducing flights. Isn’t a major reason for spending billions on Alto, the fast train, to cut down the number of flights between Toronto and Montreal?
Yes, the prospect of persuading people to travel less has the concomitant risk of reducing the open‑mindedness that comes from experiencing other cultures directly, but we can find ways of replacing that kind of pragmatic education if we need to. We don’t need to be making air travel nicer and more popular.
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Kate
The Guardian has a strong piece on Angine de Poitrine.
EmilyG
I enjoyed that article. Thank you!
Kate
Do you like the music, Emily? I queued some up on Youtube but it hits me the same as very cerebral jazz does, i.e. I can admire the intellect but it doesn’t grab me.
EmilyG
I love the music and can appreciate some of the way it’s constructed, the harmonies and rhythms and such. I like their use of microtones and unusual time signatures, and the masterful use of the looper pedal. Though I’ve studied music and I’m a musician myself. But I think a lot of people like the overall sound.
MarcG
Their sound reminds me of Okara from Ottawa.
EmilyG
According to a fan club on Facebook, their music is getting played at hockey games: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2650026258716737/posts/2707507382968624
CE
I heard it on TV during a stoppage in play at the Bell Centre the other day.
Chris
I heard it on CBC 6 when play paused, maybe 4 seconds worth.
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Kate
The Walrus has a report on the last batch of fortune cookies from Wing’s Noodles. Walrus may impede you with a paywall, so here’s an archive link too.
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Kate
Weekend notes from Le Devoir, CityCrunch, the Gazette, Journal de Montréal, CultMTL.Weekend driving issues et en anglais.
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Kate
A plan to turn McGill College Avenue into a pedestrian square, first announced in 2018, has been put on hold by SMF.
Tim S.
That’s really frustrating. I keep looking for signs of progress on this every time I’m downtown. Guess I’ll give up now.
Joey
I’m a little surprised SMF didn’t canvas her business pals and get those with a significant downtown presence around McGill College to kick in enough money to finish the project or manage it in perpetuity (or for at least for a long stretch). I was also surprised to learn the plan includes an urban pond…
DeWolf
The design that won the competition isn’t great. It was very of its moment — bring nature into the city, which is a great idea, but not in the heart of downtown in a spot where you want an open view towards McGill and the mountain.
Hopefully there will be a redesign, but my instinct is that SMF would rather just axe this whole project and keep McGill College as it is. When a mayor is worried most of all about the cost of collecting garbage in a new downtown square (?!) and not making sure it’s a nice public space that everyone can enjoy, you can’t expect any big vision or ambitions.
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Kate
Emergency rooms at some hospitals are less crowded during Canadiens playoff matches.
CBC has a brief info video on how to watch the matches of not only the Canadiens, but other teams from the city. Between streaming platforms and sports channels, a serious fan needs to have several subscriptions.
Longtime Canadiens barber Ménick talks about hockey fever.
mare 10:46 on 2026-05-09 Permalink
I’ve encountered them all, but managed to survive.
Missing: going over the handlebars and landing on your head because your front wheel disappears into a pothole. Potholes are often at the side of the road where water in the gutter damaged the surface, and where snow scrapers hit the kerbs. And potholes or big cracks on the bike paths don’t get much attention even though they can cause major damage to *people*, not just to tyres and shock absorbers.
On top of that is the fact that it happens quite often that drivers suddenly move sideways into your path to avoid potholes. Drivers aren’t looking at traffic or in their mirrors anymore, they’re just preoccupied by the state of the road surface. So far I managed to avoid being body checked, but it scares the hell out of me.
Meezly 12:37 on 2026-05-09 Permalink
Yup me too. With 20+ years of cycling in Montreal, I’ve been doored twice and had innumerable close calls with terrible drivers.
Drivers don’t like to use turn signals here either. They’ll use it at busy intersections to signal to other cars, but they don’t use it on side streets, or when there are no cars around. They don’t consider how a turn signal would be helpful for pedestrians and cyclists. If I’m approaching a moving car at an intersection and they’re not using a turn signal, I usually assume there’s a 50/50 chance they’re going straight and I look at their wheels. More often than not, they’re about to make a turn without bothering to signal.
Also, cars will pass me, then turn right without signalling thus forcing me to slow down or stop. They can’t be bothered to wait 3 seconds for me to cross the intersection before making their turn. I’m only alive and in one piece because I’ve been fairly lucky, careful and don’t trust the drivers here!
DeWolf 14:13 on 2026-05-09 Permalink
One thing I’ve noticed happening more often these days is very aggressive drivers on narrow side streets.
For example, I’ll be on the Plateau, cycling up St-Dominique when a car zooms up behind me and starts tailgating Sometimes the driver even revs their engine. The thing is, St-Dominque only has one narrow lane, with parked cars on both sides, so there’s absolutely no room to pass. This has happened a few times on St-Dominique specifically but also on some other narrow streets around the Plateau. One I turned around and gave the driver a “what are you doing” kind of look — she was in an Audi SUV — and she made an exasperated gesture with her hand that implied I was wasting her time.
Sometimes it feels like you can’t win. If you’re on a major street like St-Laurent, you’re dealing with speeding drivers who aren’t paying attention, which forces you too close to parked cars, where you risk getting doored. But if you take a side street, which should be more relaxed, you’ll get drivers who want to do 50 in a 30 zone.
All of this is why we need extensive traffic calming on side streets — to get rid of the impatient rat runners — and REV-style bike paths on all major streets.
DeWolf 14:18 on 2026-05-09 Permalink
Oh and another thing to get off my chest — drivers who absolutely need to zoom past cyclists on little streets like St-Viateur or St-Zotique, where there is a stop sign at every corner. They’ll often pass too close, or veer dangerously into oncoming traffic, but the cyclist will inevitably catch up with them at the stop sign because on these types of streets, everything moves slowly.
On these minor neighbourhood streets we need signs like they have on small streets in the Netherlands: “auto te gast” — cars are guests.
We also need better driver education.
Joey 10:32 on 2026-05-10 Permalink
I’ll keep posting this article every chance I get – it’s been a year and a half since Maxime Bergeron reported in La Press that the SPVM basically doesn’t enforce driving offences: https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/chroniques/2024-09-16/tickets-en-chute-libre-des-policiers-du-spvm-inquiets.php. All the things documented in this thread happen all the time; somehow after two PM terms the behaviour of Montreal drivers has just gotten worse.
DeWolf 12:27 on 2026-05-10 Permalink
@Joey All due to a change in administrative policy in 2019, according to Bergeron. Pretty astonishing.
The other week I was surprised to see two police officers in a car parked the wrong way on St-Laurent just below Duluth. I wondered what they were doing and my best guess is they were watching the crosswalk at Bagg, where drivers almost never stop for pedestrians. That said, maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part and they were doing something else entirely.
Tim S. 15:39 on 2026-05-10 Permalink
Not quite a cycling thing, but over the past year or two, when driving I’ve noticed an increasing number of people honking at me for doing legal things – waiting for an opening to do a left hand turn, for example. This morning it was a guy annoyed at me for going straight in a lane in which it was possible, but not obligatory, to turn right.
azrhey 11:01 on 2026-05-13 Permalink
as a pedestrian I was hit (just a light tap, but enough to scare the heck out of me) by a side mirror this morning while on the sidewalk waiting for the light by a car turning right fast enough and tight enough that his wheel got ON the sidewalk. It is not the first time that this happens or almost happens. This time it was a car driving like crazy down on Muir turning right on Cote-Vertu, making the corner close enough to tap my arm. I wasn’t even that close to the edge, but the car got on the sidewalk to turn right and catch the light…
That intersection is a menace, and cars turns right really tend to clip the sidewalks… Don’t know how it was before, but with the REM station at that corner the sidewalks are full of people and idiots drivers think they are in a Formula 1 circuit….
Tim S. 12:45 on 2026-05-13 Permalink
Jeez azrhey, glad you’re OK.