New York has finally got their Bixis out.
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A report is still to come on why things went pear-shaped at the Atwater filtration plant. TVA says it was human error (link plays video) which would seem to confirm the quote from a fire department honcho who spoke of a whoops moment. Someone at the plant is looking pretty sheepish at the moment if this is true.
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The Port of Montreal is doing pretty well considering the sluggish world economy.
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Qatar has withdrawn its offer and the ICAO headquarters will stay in Montreal.
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Ephraim
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david m
^ hah, exactly.
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David Tighe
A very good thing if they do. The monopoly of a state-protected airline that more or less ignores Montréal while preventing other lines serving it should be broken
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Peter McGill
YUL could definitely use the competition. Prices here are atrocious. On the other hand, if prices attenuate air travel demand, then that is a good thing for that whole we’re doomed because of that impending CO2 climate change end of life as we know it but we hate to be told we (as a species) are arrogant planet trashers thang.
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William
I <3 Peter McGill's comment.
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Ian
Prices in the last couple of year have gone up because of industry-wide fuel surcharges to offset new taxes. I work in the industry and I can tell you for a fact that far fewer people are considering flights for casual travel. The days of $100 to NYC from Montreal are over. The prices are not dictated by individual airports.
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Via Zeke, a blog entry on the old Bonaventure train station and a crash between a train and a tram in 1927 that led to the construction of the Guy Street viaduct, now itself one with the dust of history.
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ant6n
Historic Bonaventure train station and Guy overpass from above.
The station is gone, although there is a building across form the planetarium that is angled wrt to the street grid, because it must’ve been right next to the train station. The former ROW that lead to the train station is is almost completely overbuilt. But there are some hints of it, at Lionel Groulx station, which was built in the former rail ROW. just West of the metro station there’s a bike path that follows the former rails. -
david m
it’s truly horrific the scale of devastation suffered by that part of the city, from chaboillez square all the way up to the gauchetiere. i can hardly even look at old images anymore, it’s just too painful.
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SMD
That nice bicycle path is called Piste du premier chemin de fer (www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzWdT_8z7c8).
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Rosemont borough is the first to ordain a public art budget to bring more art to its parks and public spaces. The photo shown is of a piece in Victoria Square though.
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Andy Riga looks at the issue of the metro car gaps after a second fall between cars was reported within a month. He also puts up some photos showing the size of the gap.
We’ve noted here that other cities have simply put physical barriers between their subway cars so you couldn’t so easily make the mistake. I’m hoping Montreal’s balking on this isn’t simply based on worship of the pure designs of the MR-63 and MR-73 trains.
I have to admit I’m not crazy about the platform doors idea, because it boxes things in and I think would make the stations feel claustrophobic. The best stations in Montreal’s system have high open volumes that would be spoiled by this boxing effect, and its vast expense would mean cutting back on other improvements like adding elevators to make the system more accessible.
Here’s a piece about platform doors from the perspective of the New York subway, and a more general Toronto Life piece on subway suicides and attempts in that city, and calls for platform barriers there too.
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mare
The new cars have different door locations, so screens on the platforms will be really hard or impossible. Just attach some rubber barrier between the cars would suffice.
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Bill Binns
I was recently in Chicago and they simply stretch some big coil springs between the trains. Looks cheap and effective to me. Agree on the platform doors idea. In many stations the only time you will feel the hot air move is when a train is coming and pushing air out of the slightly cooler tunnels. Do anything to make the system hotter and you may as well close it down for the summer.
We should also remember that although there were two freak accidents rather close together, many billions of passenger trips have been made without someone falling between the trains. I wouldn’t be surprised if more people have died of heat stroke or heart attacks in the Metro over the years than falling between trains.
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Chris
It’s sad that one or two people die because of this, but really, many other things kill many more people. How about we put up walls along all sidewalks so that they have to cross more safely at intersections only? Just tie some rope between metro cars to make a little barrier; done.
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carswell
Am not convinced this is a problem that needs addressing but if it is, since the gaps between the cars of stopped trains – like the doors – are always at the same points on a given platform, why not just install a one- or two-metre guardrail on the platform at those points? Pros: low cost, inconspicuous, not likely to interfere with traffic and easily removable once the Zephyr trains go into service. Con: in emergency situations when the train is not stopped at its regular position, the guardrails could partially block some doors (but no more than one in four doors and the rails could probably be designed to minimize this drawback).
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Stephen
This is really not a public safety issue. Reporters are trying to spin it into a sort of scandal because of the statistical anomaly that caused it to happen twice in two months, but this sort of incident rarely ever occurs. People do not need barriers or special cars to avoid walking onto train tracks. They need a level of prudence and attention that can be reasonably expected of every thinking individual.
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Taylor C. Noakes
There’s a simpler solution. The idea of a full plexi-glass divider with synced-up automatic sliding doors (like they have in some Paris Métro stations) is overkill and wouldn’t do the stations justice on the aesthetic front.
Why not simply install waist-height metal barriers with gaps for where the doors are. It may not seem like much but it will prevent these kinds of accidents from happening and, perhaps more importantly, act as a deterrent against suicides. It’s subtle but it would work – anything placed between passengers on the platform and the electrified open rail pit is a good idea. Barriers like this could also prevent knuckleheads from ‘riding’ on the outside of the train and further stop people from falling onto the tracks accidentally.
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Blork
Riga’s article implies this happens about once per year, which surprised me. Presumably there are usually just minor injuries or we’d hear more about it. We probably only heard about the Plamondon incident because of the fatality at Monk a month earlier.
That said, I agree that it’s pointless to implement very expensive solutions when we’re on the verge of introducing new trains that will eliminate the problem.
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Bert
I agree that this is not really a problem to be solved and more hype than anything. Wake up people, pay attention to what you are doing.
However, remember that the new trains are only scheduled to replace the MR-63s currently running on the Green and Yellow lines (I think). AFAIK the MR-73s are not scheduled for replacement. (i.e. there are no orders for replacement trains.
Now, if the MR-63s are completely refurbished and put back in service (say to augment capacity on the Orange line), sure spend some time-and-effort.
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Noah
I hate that people died – very sad. But this is a problem that doesn’t need to be addressed save for asking people to look where they’re walking. Worst case, Taylor’s got the right idea.
Also, the problem will be solved by the new cars: “New subway trains, which are to start carrying passengers late next year, have an open interior, allowing passengers to walk from one end to the other.”
This reminds me of a client we have at work… their forklift operators were hitting the walls, so instead of training the forklift operators not to hit the walls, they covered the walls in plywood… addressing the symptom instead of the disease.
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Le Devoir sees a gradual meltdown for Vision Montreal as the election approaches.
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William
I think (and hope) all the parties will end up going the way of Union Montreal, because they simply don’t make any sense. Montrealers are fed up with business as usual at City Hall, and I think the party system generally has come to be associated with the problems of recent years.
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David Tighe
I would like to hear William elaborate on why he thinks Projet Montréal does not make any sense. What does he propose?
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William
It’s the party system that doesn’t make any sense, although if you want to get into nonsense at Projet Montréal, there’s plenty to work with. One tidy way to do it would be to compare Peter McQueen’s opinions on transport with those of Luc Ferrandez. I propose we vote for independent candidates at the next election, which is what I’ll be doing.
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William
*tidy way to do it by way of a single example
By the way Kate, when are you going to get a modify/delete comment function?
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Luc Ferrandez would love to create better links with Rosemont-La Petite Patrie for cyclists and pedestrians, but Canadian Pacific is not interested in allowing crossings over its tracks.
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Chris
Being a corporation, CP’s main interest is making profit, how would adding level crossings help them do that? No, the government will have to force them.
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Beeg
I’m kinda hoping that one day Luc just shows up with a construction crew and builds the damn crossing. Let the chips fall, etc.
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walkerp
Such utter, infuriating dog in the manger. For years, they didn’t care and citizens made use of the pathways with little or no negative impact to either citizens or the CP. Now, some idiot decides to make an issue of it and years later we have frustrated citizens and thousands of dollars in fence repairs and patrol man-hours. So stupid and unnecessary.
How much does CP pay to the city to have the railroad go through it? Maybe that relationship should be re-looked at?
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William
It’s not interested in allowing *level* crossings. The difference is very important.
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Mathieu
They’re not interested in paying for the structures either.
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Peter McGill
CP also delaying the V2.0 re-routed Route Verte #1 linear path being built alongside train tracks between the current bike path’s dead-end beside the Home Depot at Beaubien Ouest, and the Pont Perry bridge between Montreal and Laval. This is despicable, but not surprising, given their corporate policy of we own this and will never give it up.
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William
Why should CP pay for structures? CP was there before the condos! haha.
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William
And the metro, for that matter.
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SMD
Peter, the CP not only delayed that linear path across from the Home Depot but actively hindered it, by selling the land to a condo developer months after the city released a report stating the City’s own intention to buy it and turn in into a park: http://www.radio-canada.ca/regions/Montreal/2013/05/20/004-rosemont-vente-promoteur.shtml. The borough only found out about it when the developer bulldozed all the trees, early last week.
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As noted in a comment below, Montreal’s water was declared tickety-boo by Mayor Applebaum after tests showed it was free of dangerous bacteria.
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cheese
Tickety-boo :). I hope that means healthy and tasty too.
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The UPAC carried out a raid on city hall again on Thursday morning.
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CBC warns that the boil water advisory won’t end before 10 p.m. after water sampling results, but CTV says it will stretch to Friday morning.
There’s been some grumbling that nobody spoke for the executive committee until today – the mayor is sitting shiva for his brother and Christian Dubois, responsible for public security, finally spoke to the media today. Louise Harel has made hay, people are scrambling to buy water – and environmental groups are agitating against PepsiCo profiting by bottling the city’s water as Aquafina – city water which it buys for 10 cents the 100 L is resold for between $3 and $6 the litre. This is one of the must-reads from the advisory.
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qatzelok
In much the same way as Enron destroyed power generation capacity in California in order to sell power from other sources at an emergency price, perhaps Pepsi will eventually be forced to poison our water supply in order to please its shareholders.
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Marc
@ qatzelok: Your discourse is old and tired. You should find something else.
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Mark
Looks like we’re good to go: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2013/05/23/montreal-boil-water-advisory-second-day.html
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Kate
I haven’t read this opinion anywhere yet, but this incident suggests to me that the Atwater plant is something of a bottleneck. It’s not great if 2/3 of the island depends on one filtration plant with no fallbacks.
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Bill_the_Bear
Actually, the rebottling of tap water as Aquafina caused such an uproar in the UK that PepsiCo was forced to withdraw the brand from the market. If only that could happen here!
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Bill Binns
Molsen has been rebottling Montreal water and selling it back to us for 200+ years. Nobody is mad at them.
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Kate
Yes, but arguably Molson makes certain improvements in the water.
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cheese
@Bill_the_Bear, yeah I was living in England when the Aquafina thing went down. Note that Disani is coke’s water brand and it too was found to be regular tap water which has been put thorugh reverse osmosis to clean it up. Reverse osmosis is a genuine method and I see nothing wrong with it, but if you really are going to buy bottled water (which as we know is not a good idea) why pay Coke or Pepsi to for some filtered tap water when alternatives are available.
@kate, I agree with the notion of improvements to the water. Beer was much safer to drink than fresh water for a long time, and it seems that sometimes it still is today.
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So when do we hear that they got landing rights in YYZ?