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  • Kate 20:15 on 2024-04-18 Permalink | Reply  

    Here’s a Journal piece headlined L’écostupidité de l’administration Plante. In this brief piece, Nathalie Elgrably assumes that city hall’s intention to limit wood‑fired ovens is about greenhouse gas emissions.

    It isn’t. It’s about particulates. Here’s a page from the American Environmental Protection Agency that explains some of the health effects of wood smoke.

    I still tend to feel that in a city this size, we can deal with a few bagel bakeries and pizza places that burn wood, given all the other sources of crap in the air, but some people clearly do not agree.

     

    • DeWolf 20:39 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

      There are certain sacrifices to be made when living in a big city. A bit of noise, a bit of filth, a bit of pollution – all within reason, of course. And I think that having a handful of woodfired ovens for culinary purposes is entirely reasonable.

      If Paris, Tokyo, London and other big cities much larger and denser than Montreal can handle restaurants with wood ovens, why can’t we?

    • Ian 20:55 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

      I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if the city was serious about this they would make the police enforce the existing anti-idling laws against delivery trucks.

      Going after bagel ovens is just misdirection that will do almost nothing to improve air quality, and in so doing, destroy one of the things Montreal is actually famous for.

  • Kate 16:16 on 2024-04-18 Permalink | Reply  

    Metro service is back to normal Thursday afternoon after a second pepper spray attack in two days, this one at Villa‑Maria. Parts of the orange, green and blue lines were down for ventilation.

     

    • carswell 16:25 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

      Had a dental appointment downtown late this morning. As has been the case for several months now, whenever I have to be somewhere, including concerts, at an appointed hour, I took a slower bus-only route instead of risking the metro. What good is a public transit system that is increasingly unreliable? If I’d missed my appointment, I would have been charged a hefty fee too, so such outages are not only inconvenient but potentially costly.

  • Kate 14:26 on 2024-04-18 Permalink | Reply  

    CBC has a podcast asking what happened to Belmont Park, the amusement park in Cartierville that closed in 1983.

     

    • Kate 14:22 on 2024-04-18 Permalink | Reply  

      Parts of the fencing that separates the SRB Pie‑IX from the rest of the road are going to be replaced because they block the view of pedestrians at intersections. They’re now 1.5m high and will be 70 cm in future. La Presse got a disobliging snark from Ensemble, but this is the kind of thing you have to adapt when risks become clear.

       

      • Blork 17:49 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

        I wonder if they’re not just swapping one risk for another. 70cm is pretty low. Most people can just step right over a fence that low, so will this bring a rash of people not crossing at the proper end points and instead jaywalking and hopping over the fence? (And all the risks and hazards that brings…) If they made it 100cm it would still be low enough to not block the view of pedestrians but it would be too tall to step over unless you’re a basketball player.

        I’d like to think this was thoroughly studied and 70cm was arrived at via consultations with different experts but I suspect it was because they found 70cm fencing pre-made somewhere and cheap instead of having to custom make it to 100.

      • Kate 19:20 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

        It sounds like they’re only lowering the fences near corners, to give better visibility at crossings.

    • Kate 11:01 on 2024-04-18 Permalink | Reply  

      The REM will be running short trains on weekends and statutory holidays.

      Transit generally is sinking into debt.

       

      • Francesco 11:48 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

        REM was designed and planned to run two-car trains during off-peak hours, they have not yet done so while still breaking in the system; uncrewed switching from four- to two-car trains and back again would add an unnecessary layer of complexity during these live tests. Nothing to see here.

      • Kate 13:00 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

        La Presse thought it was a story.

      • Francesco 15:28 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

        True. Like the Devoir thinks modern (nearly silent, compared to just 30 years ago) planes at 5000 feet over Montréal-Est approaching YUL are making life Hell for some dude in RPP.

    • Kate 09:23 on 2024-04-18 Permalink | Reply  

      It was a bit of a fuss in anglo media recently that some anglo parents of children with learning difficulties were given an information session in French only, with the ministry people saying they were not permitted to give it in English. Now it turns out that in this case, English should have been allowed. Bit of anticipatory obedience there on the part of the flunkies.

       

      • jeather 11:14 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

        But that’s the problem everyone predicted — and that has happened in a few other ways as well — people refuse to speak English just in case they might get in trouble even if the person has the right. I’ve heard examples with the SAAQ.

        I continue to have never had issues with medical professionals, though.

    • Kate 09:20 on 2024-04-18 Permalink | Reply  

      François Legault still doesn’t know the price of a 4½ in Montreal.

       

      • Blork 10:12 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

        No surprise, but it’s not like there’s only one price. It probably ranges between $1200 and $3500 and that’s before you even go looking at the fancy places.

      • Kate 11:26 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

        At the risk of sounding like Legault, is $1200 really the low price now?

      • carswell 11:44 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

        In CDN, not a wealthy borough, the average price for a 3 1/2 last year was just under $1,200, Kate.

      • Blork 12:51 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

        I’m sure there are cheaper 4-1/2s on the Plateau than $1200, but those are edge cases I think, such as places with the same tenant since 1992 or whatever.

      • Ian 12:54 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

        Just checking padmapper now the only 2 bed under 1200 on the entire island is on St Jacques in Upper Lachine. Kijiji gave me a couple of 4½s in Repetigny, a place in Deux-Montagnes, and a basement apartment in Pointe-aux-trembles.

        Légault is serving real Lucille Bluth vibes.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl_Qyk9DSUw

      • Andrew 15:06 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

        I’d never heard of Upper Lachine as a neighbourhood, just a street so I checked the listing. Funnily enough it’s a block away from the police shooting yesterday, that’s what Padmapper calls that corner of NDG.

        560 sq feet for a 4-1/2 is absurd though, the rooms are minuscule.

      • mare 16:59 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

        There’s a huge difference between what people pay for a 41/2 and the prices of the ones that are advertised. The ones that have a normal rent, with landlords who have raised the rents with 1-2% every year like the regie allows, can still be in the $700 range. My neighbours rent 4 4 1/2s in that price range. And really, those aren’t that scarce. But you will never see them being advertised on Kijiji, because even if the current tenants don’t transfer their leases, the landlords won’t have any problems finding tenants through word of mouth. Or if they do put it on Kijiji, they’re inundated with potential candidates. Not all landlords illegally raise their prices with hundreds of dollars between tenants. The prices of the ones you see advertised are either ridiculous high for their size or state, or are new construction, where landlords are corporations with hundreds of free units.

        Rents of newly constructed 4 1/2s are obviously much higher than $700. And the kicker is that their rents *can* be legally raised with hundreds of dollars in the first 5 years after construction, even when they’re rented. So sometimes tenants have to move out because they can’t afford a 15% rent increase.

      • DeWolf 20:51 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

        I wonder what effect Bill 31 will have because we really do have two parallel markets in Montreal. One is the “market-rate” or open market which is quite expensive. Then you have the somewhat impenetrable lease-transfer-and-nice-landlord market — the “friend” market — which is way more affordable. With the CAQ’s new law the latter market will shrink, but how quickly I don’t know.

        I have friends who’ve had to move within the past year and for whatever reason they weren’t able to tap into the “friend” market, and things are dire for them.

        I moved a little over two years ago and got a 6 1/2 for a price that was reasonable on the open market but is vastly more expensive than what the “friend” market can offer. But the open market keeps going up. If I were to move again today, I wouldn’t be find anything comparable. That’s pretty messed up.

    • Kate 09:07 on 2024-04-18 Permalink | Reply  

      The Université de Montréal possesses excavated indigenous remains of 49 people, and its anthropologists want to return them to first nations – but to which ones? They don’t know which nations are involved, and there’s no official mechanism for doing this.

       

      • Kate 19:02 on 2024-04-17 Permalink | Reply  

        Police fired on a car thief Wednesday evening at Addington and St‑Jacques (Radio‑Canada calls this Sud‑Ouest but I make it lower NDG). The man caught boosting a car is now in critical condition and the BEI is investigating.

        (I added the TVA link later, and they do make it NDG.)

         

        • Tim S 21:57 on 2024-04-17 Permalink

          Yeah, the escarpment, train tracks and highway are a pretty unsubtle dividing line between NDG and Sud-Ouest. Though the incident occurred just past where St Jacques goes under the 720 and up the escarpment, so I guess a writer unfamiliar with the area might have made a bad guess.

        • Mark Côté 22:35 on 2024-04-17 Permalink

          They didn’t capitalize Sud-Ouest in the article so I guess geographically it’s still accurate…?

        • Ian 07:17 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

          Isn’t that Côte St Paul?

        • Meezly 08:56 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

          There was locally viral video about a week or so ago where a car thief smoothly reversed onto a sidewalk to escape two policemen who were on foot, who kind of stood there and cursed loudly. Commenters were pretty harsh in their criticisms, ie. cops are so incompetent, stupid, useless, etc. I wonder if that shooting was a reaction to that…?

        • dwgs 08:58 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

          Cote St Paul is just down the hill, near the Gadbois sports complex.

        • MarcG 10:25 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

          It’s just inside CDN-NDG according to the official city borough map, but Mark is right that they didn’t capitalize it so the charges won’t stick.

        • Ian 13:09 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

          @dwgs ah, I didn’t realize N-D was the border, thanks for the clarification 🙂

        • MarcG 15:48 on 2024-04-18 Permalink

          Since it’s not an official borough the neighbourhood’s borders are fuzzy, but the historical town of Côte-Saint-Paul started on the other side of the canal (of course there’s a Ch de la Côte-Saint-Paul in St-Henri to confuse us). I highlighted the current imprecise borders described on Wikipedia here.

      • Kate 15:58 on 2024-04-17 Permalink | Reply  

        The mayor made the point Wednesday that everyone needs to make an effort to keep the city clean.

         

        • Kate 15:54 on 2024-04-17 Permalink | Reply  

          There was a brawl with pepper spray at Berri‑UQAM Wednesday midday, then the eastern branch of the orange line went down mid‑afternoon.

           

          • Kate 15:20 on 2024-04-17 Permalink | Reply  

            This account of an ongoing murder trial will provide you with enough details of sordid lives to be getting on with.

             

            • Kate 11:20 on 2024-04-17 Permalink | Reply  

              A new count of the homeless will be made this month, as shelters are full to bursting. But it won’t be done census‑style as has been done twice in the past, but a head count and summary done by people and organizations operating homeless services all over town.

               

              • Kate 09:01 on 2024-04-17 Permalink | Reply  

                A man who directed a community group that helped new arrivals in Anjou is also accused of having solicited vast amounts of child pornography from Mali. Now he’s on trial.

                 

                • Kate 21:29 on 2024-04-16 Permalink | Reply  

                  The removal of trash cans along the Lachine Canal is proving unpopular already.

                  I don’t know why Global recruited Alan DeSousa to make a bland negative Ensemble remark, right after they emphasized this was a Parks Canada decision and thus nothing to do with city hall. I don’t even know whether the city would have the right to replace the missing trash cans with ones of their own.

                   

                  • Ian 07:46 on 2024-04-17 Permalink

                    It does seem like kvetching for its own sake, you might as well be mad that the city doesn’t mow the lawn around Silo no. 5.

                  • carswell 08:16 on 2024-04-17 Permalink

                    Wonder whether the powers that be at Global (owned by Alberta-based Corus) are not fans of lefties like Projet and Plante, in which case potshots could be mandatory regardless of their relevance.

                  • qatzelok 12:00 on 2024-04-17 Permalink

                    If Parcs Canada maintains this “garbage awareness campaign” for the entire summer, it will be giving the city a good pretext to seize control of the park, finally.

                    It’s not like the canal is a major commercial shipping corridor anymore, so why is the Fed still there? To keep the signs bilingual?

                  • Ian 12:34 on 2024-04-17 Permalink

                    As I understand it, it’s because of the locks.

                  • steph 15:39 on 2024-04-17 Permalink

                    If Corus want to take pot-shots at the left… might as well make it a Liberal/Trudeau issue.

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