Rents in Montreal have risen by 70% over ten years. The Gazette blames “population growth, gentrification and a game of catch-up with other markets” in the deck to this piece, the first of a two‑parter, but it doesn’t note the utter failure of the TAL to keep rents reasonable.
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Kate
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Kate
A police car was set on fire downtown early Sunday, and the Canadiens hadn’t even won a game. Nobody got hurt in the blaze.
There were a lot of people downtown Saturday night, and there will be a lot of people for the watch party at the Bell Centre on Monday.
Chris
“hadn’t even won” is quite the understatement. 🙂
JP
I was walking to the McGill REM around 9 pm…It was soooo quiet outside walking down McGill College. If you didn’t know it was a hockey game night…you would have thought there was nobody downtown….
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Kate
La Presse has a possibly useful list of summer festivals.
jaddle
Too bad none of the classical music festivals are mentioned. Off the top of my head, there’s the Chamber Music Festival, Classica, Montreal Baroque, Lanaudiere (a little far to be considered Montreal, but many make the trip), Virée Classique…
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Kate
The West Island branch of the REM opens for a free preview Saturday and Sunday till 6 pm.
Agitation for a branch to the east end of the island is only bound to grow now.
Uatu
As someone who grew up in the South Shore, the idea of taking one train from Brossard to the West Island is pretty amazing
Kate
I think you do have to change trains at Bois-Franc, no?
LJ
No, you just need to board the right train from Brossard, so the A3 line rather than the A4. If you board the wrong line you can transfer at Bois-Franc. I have already taken the REM downtown and back from the Kirkland station twice, and it is fantastic (assuming it does not break down, I guess). Unlike taking the EXO commuter rail with its very limited schedule, we can now leave and return at any time from 5:30 AM to past 1 AM. A long-awaited game changer for those of us who prefer public transit to cars.
Kate
Excellent, LJ. Just as I had assumed you couldn’t take a single train all the way from Brossard to Deux‑Montagnes – I thought it meant changing at Central Station – I was mistaken here too. A3 to the West Island, A4 to Deux‑Montagnes, and – when completed – A2 to the airport.
Too bad I never need to go to these places, but I may have to take the REM as a jaunt this summer just to see it all.
LJ
Not much to see as the downtown portion runs underground and the rest is rather bland unless you like industrial rooftops. The stops from Sources to L’Anse a L’Orme are elevated so you can get an overview of that part of the island, but it is not exactly spectacular either. So useful transit but not very touristic. May be worthwhile to see a few stops once. At least it is quick, you can go from downtown to the end of A3 and back in about an hour.
Kate
I’ve only taken the REM for one stop – McGill to Édouard‑Montpetit. Basically a metro ride. But I do want to take it across the bridge sometime soon, since I have not been on the new Champlain yet. I’m also vaguely interested in walking around Île Bigras. So my idea was to take a day off this summer, buy an all-zones ticket, and just go have a look around.
As I’ve noted here before, if only from looking at the placing of stations and their surroundings, the majority are simply plunked down near a big parking lot, and not much else. They’re mostly not intended to be walked to and from, but rather driven. So – as you say – not very touristic, and no pressing reason to get off the train for a look around most of the stations.
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Kate
Linda Gyulai has a long, well considered piece about the decline of Milton Park. As she reports, “the entire neighbourhood makes up just six per cent of the area of the Plateau and a tenth of its population [but] accounts for 24 per cent of all crimes reported in the borough.”
DeWolf
“But at some point in the last year or two — no one can seem to peg exactly when — the individual dealers that prey on unhoused people in the area turned into conspicuous groups of criminals that roam the neighbourhood.”
That’s the big difference. You feel it even if you’re just passing through. The crowd at Milton/Park was always relatively chill and it was usually the same people you’d see day in, day out. Then at some point there was an influx of dealers — really nasty-looking types — followed by a lot of strung-out people from outside the neighbourhood.
Kate
Looking at the situation coldly, how much profit can drug dealers make off the homeless?
Chris
“Force” the addict to steal something expensive in exchange for their fix. There are lots of valuable things to steal, then you sell those for profit.
Ian
One guy I knew who became a crack addict but managed to get out of it put it this way – crack is appealing not only because it’s a fast, intense high, but because it’s super cheap. Only 5 b bucks. Everyone has 5 bucks. Until all you want is more crack and you used up all your 5 bucks. Then you need to boost something you can sell to a fence or trade to a dealer. A lot of people turn to prostitution because if you look ok you can make some money fast as long as no pimps come after you and eventually when you look not so great even homeless people that aren’t on crack can scrape up 5 bucks for a screw, so it doesn’t really matter if you’re homeless or in decent condition or not.
This is also why you see so much petty crime like stealing copper or breaking car windows for loose change (for instance) … you just need a few 5 bucks, like, NOW.
Joey
About nine years ago I had a chance to spend some time with a pharmacist operating in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, basically Canada’s skid row. His pharmacy served many addicts, given their location. We were talking about Naloxone, the overdose-reversal drug, and I asked him how often he had to administer it – he said at least several times per week, often multiple times a day (imagine what happens when a bad batch circulates). I suggested that a lot of his patients must be very grateful to him for saving their lives; he said they were more likely to be pissed that the Naloxone, which had literally saved their lives, had robbed them of their high. Feels bleak.
Kate
Jeez, Joey. The logical conclusion is they’d rather be high then dead, than sober and alive. That’s definitely bleak.
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Kate
La Presse investigated what it’s like for city workers to clean up after the crowd that watches a playoff match outside the Bell Centre. The strange part is how many workers choose to do the job. It’s a very optimistic story.
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Kate
Two brothers were found guilty of murder in the second degree on Friday, in the stabbing of another young man two years ago. Details of their sentencing will be announced later.
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Kate
Pleas were made this week for a safer Park Avenue for pedestrians and cyclists, eleven of whom have been killed on the street since 2013.
Ian
Until they normalize the intersections and get rid of the switch lane nothing is going to work, even bike paths.
Knowing this city though they will keep it all as-is including the switch lane and parking lanes and put a st-urbain style bike path on the southbound side.
FWIW right now there is a pothole at the NW corner of Parc and Bernard that actually has a piece of rebar from the road bed sticking out of it – Car, truck, bus or bike, if you hit that it’s going to cause damage. Yes, I called 311.
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Kate
TVA talks to one of the women shot in the École Privé nightclub last weekend. She was competing at a high level in soccer and studying nursing; her leg injury will interfere with both. There have not yet been any arrests.
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Kate
The city will see 52 road construction sites this summer. (What was SMF saying about eliminating cones?)
TVA has a list and map.
Nicholas
All (or nearly all?) of these are provincial/regional roads or projects. Mostly highways and some transit. So not the city, which has its own projects (how I know, as one is nearby and already started but not on here).
Kate
That was one of the reasons SMF’s cone promise was so pointless. Ensemble used to slam Projet for cones too, perfectly well aware most of them were not placed by city hall but it gave them leverage with their motorist supporters.
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Kate
Fagstein has compiled a line-by-line guide to changes in the STM bus routes that will take effect on Monday.
(Augh! They took away the 15 not long ago, and now they’re abolishing the 30?!)
Nicholas
Steve’s point regarding public consultation is very well taken. The initial consultations were very vague, asking about values. And then they just put the routes online and that was it. I actually went through them making comments, and then tried to find a place to send them and there was nothing. I don’t think they need to deal with every concern, but there are some things they did that they could have done better that I was going to suggest (and which would inconvenience me, personally, but I still support them!), but they didn’t care. (Also, Steve, if you’re reading this, you forgot the 485.)
Kate, while the 30 is going away, there’s more than enough service with other buses. The 31 will run on St Denis. The 56 will run on St Hubert (and Chateaubriand southbound in the Plaza). The 13 will run on Christophe-Colomb. And all this is right on top of the Orange Line. That’s one of the comments I had: the buses are too split across too many streets. The proposed service is each route runs about every 30 minutes (couldn’t make it exactly 30, could they….). Instead if they combined all the buses onto one street, they could run that route every 10 minutes. So people walk a little farther but get 3x the frequency.
I don’t really care which route they pick (though it should probably be Christophe-Colomb, farthest from the metro and least commercial slow traffic), but instead everyone gets infrequent service that sometimes comes at the same time: for example, northbound at Rosemont metro weekdays the 56 comes at 10:35 am, the 31 at 10:42 and the 13 at 10:45. Three buses in 10 minutes, then a 20 minute break until the next bus. The least they could do is time these to perfectly alternate so you always have some bus every 10 minutes, you just have to figure out which main street to walk to.
DeWolf
When I was in Chicago a couple of years ago (twice in a few months), the L was a disaster but the buses were surprisingly good. And it’s because they run their system exactly like Nicholas is suggesting: buses run every 10 minutes on big arterials. Each of the big arteries tends to be a 10 minute walk from each other, so you have more of a distance between bus lines than we have in Montreal, but the service is more frequent and reliable.
Nicholas
Yah, ten minute max was the way to go, and this is something you can see around the city. The distance between D’Iberville and Papineau is about the same as the one between D’Iberville and Saint Michel, but the former pair also has a bus on de Lorimier. NDG has east-west buses on almost every street [omissions]: St Jacques, [de Maisonneuve], Sherbrooke, Cote St Antoine/NDG Rd, Monkland, [Terrebonne], Somerled, Fielding, CSL Rd (yes it’s diagonal). You could also consolidate some east-west routes in the Plateau/Rosemont; especially for longer distances going to the Green or Blue extension is often faster than say the bus on Bélanger or Rachel.
We could also use some stop consolidation especially on the east-west routes, which really slow buses down. I look forward to seeing the results with the 18 Beaubien and 161 Van Horne.
vasi
I’m pretty disappointed about the 30 going away, it was so convenient to jump on near my doorstep and get straight to Mile-End or the Plateau. I guess I’d might trade that for easy access to the REM, but I’m not getting that either, the buses from ViSaMiPex to the REM remain pretty bad. I’m not really sure if this reform makes anything better for me, personally, so I hope it at least helps other people.
Joey
@vasi does the extended 31 help at all? I think the decision to merge the 30 and 31 was motivated more by the work around Berri-Uqam than the REM…
Kate
The 31 will stop at Sherbrooke metro at its south end, whereas the 30 used to go all the way down to Viger Square. So it’s less useful for accessing both the Grande Bibliothèque and the archival library on the square.
The old 30 would also have brought people close to the CHUM, so I wonder whether they thought of people being inconvenienced by losing that part of the route.
Joey
I thought they chose to stop because of the planned construction, but my memory on it is fuzzy.
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Kate
A REM train with passengers aboard, South Shore bound, instead was diverted into the train wash and held there some minutes.
There are train buffs who would’ve been thrilled by this view of a backstage feature, but apparently not everyone was.
Major Annoyance
Count me among the “thrilled to get the opportunity to see some of the back of house stuff” crowd.
Speaking of train washers, has anyone else noticed that the STM doesn’t wash the roofs of their MPM-10s, like, ever? They’re downright grimy on top. What’s with that?
Chris
Thank god they’re not wasting any of the cleaning budget on that when so many entrances stink of piss.
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Kate
The REM has seen record numbers of passengers because of the hockey playoffs, and the opening of the West Island REM this weekend is also bound to be crowded.
EmilyG
I live in the West Island and if this were pre-pandemic times, I’d like to check out the weekend’s festivities, but I suppose the pandemic has made me a bit nervous about spending a lot of time in large crowds. Will definitely check out the new REM stations a bit later on, though.
And most of the local buses will have their routes changed, and there will be some new bus routes.
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Kate
A driver somehow crashed into a terrasse on Sherbrooke Street in NDG, early Friday. He’s in critical condition.
MarcG
It looks like a pretty minor crashed from the photo (he’s lucky he didn’t hit that light post), and whatever has put him in critical condition is the cause of the accident and not a result of it – heart attack or stroke?
Kate
Or fell asleep at the wheel.
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Kate
Weekend notes from Le Devoir, CityCrunch, Journal de Montréal, the Gazette, CultMTL.Nice weather in the forecast.
Mozai
I’m going to the Bandes-Dessinees / Comic-Book fest on rue St-Denis. whole street is like a con’s artists’s alley from Sherbrooke to Mt-Royal
Kate
Why do you say con artist? I walked down there Saturday afternoon too, and while not everything for sale is to my taste, the sellers don’t seem like con artists.
Joey 09:40 on 2026-05-17 Permalink
Feels like they are setting up the next instalment in the series to deal with the public policy failure here (which includes, but is not limited, to the TAL’s conduct).
Kate 10:41 on 2026-05-17 Permalink
I find the mention of “markets” also tone deaf. If you live in Montreal it doesn’t help you if the “market” in some other city is “more competitive” or whatever. You work here, you live here, the rental situation is what it is, it isn’t a “market”. You can’t easily pick and choose between global cities like buying veg in the market. Must everything be seen in the language of business college?
steph 11:15 on 2026-05-17 Permalink
At least the Montreal market comes with higher salaries…. right? right??
Nicholas 16:24 on 2026-05-17 Permalink
Yes, disposable income is higher in the Montreal area than it is in the rest of the province. Urban area agglomeration effects make this a standard pattern worldwide that big cities (and suburbs) have higher incomes than small cities and rural areas. Whether it’s enough to counteract higher housing costs varies, but it absolutely did not surprise me that incomes are higher here before actually checking.
Kate 16:39 on 2026-05-17 Permalink
Higher than the rest of Quebec maybe, but seen from a global point of view, not so much.
Chris 17:16 on 2026-05-17 Permalink
Wait, what? Montreal/Quebec/Canada absolutely have higher wages, income, wealth, and disposable income than the global average (or median). Surely I’ve misunderstood what you’re saying?
Kate 17:20 on 2026-05-17 Permalink
Context, Chris. Do you really think the Gazette was comparing Montreal’s market with Port‑au‑Prince or Lagos? If you look at our income levels compared to London, Paris, New York – even Toronto or Vancouver – they’re lagging, while our rents catch up to these bigger and more prosperous cities.
Chris 18:59 on 2026-05-17 Permalink
Kate, I see. But still, you can’t just exclude the places around the globe that are poorer, and point to the remaining and say ‘see, they’re all richer’.
Kate 19:16 on 2026-05-17 Permalink
If we’re “playing catch-up with other markets” – the direct quote I plucked from the Gazette – that isn’t going to mean poorer cities, is it. By implication it means places where things are more expensive.
qatzelok 21:59 on 2026-05-18 Permalink
Most commercial media is tethered to the landlord classes so they are likely to suggest that there is no alternative to what we have now.
It’s working out great for the people who fund commercial media.