An anglo who was cursed out by an STM ticket taker in a high-profile incident last year received some sort of unstated settlement over the issue. Doesn’t say he received an apology, though.
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A demonstration involving marches from four neighbourhoods converged at Phillips Square Saturday in support of giving immigrant status to everyone who wants it.
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Ian
According to one of the organizers the police are lying about having been provided an itinerary – for political reasons all the organizers agreed not to, and the police are insisting they did. Something fishy is going on. https://www.facebook.com/99media.org/posts/510730765641488
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William
How meta.
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After some disqualifications, only three consortiums remain as bidders for the huge Turcot project. SNC-Lavalin is part of one of them.
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Another story on the city archives points out how much material has been digitized and put online on the official site.
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Workers at Hôtel-Dieu demonstrated on Thursday against the conversion of their hospital buildings into deluxe condos, after they move to the new CHUM.
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Ephraim
What did they want done with the buildings, made into a monument of hospital employees?
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jeather
A company doing theatre for kids, or a home for the aged? Or something else that is a social good instead of more condos.
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steph
The only people I feel bad for in this situations are those buying the condos.
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Kate
Ephraim, if you read the article (which is brief) you’ll see they mention the union wants a guarantee that at least part of the building will be used as a CHSLD, a long-term care facility.
I know I’ve said this more than once before, but we face a wave of aging baby boomers that will need to be looked after in the next couple of decades, and the hospital buildings being decommissioned are exactly what the government and social services should be converting for that purpose. In the long run it would be more expensive to build new institutions than to reuse these older buildings as essentially dormitories for the elderly, and while we know the government has been quite keen to build new facilities so’s to provide the right people with juicy contracts, let’s hope that trend has been squelched at least for the moment.
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Ian
When my father in law need to be put into a home 5 years ago, I saw how slim the pickings are in Montreal first hand. He got early onset Alzheimers so needed care in his early 60s – the thought did cross my mind that when the majority of his compatriots find themselves in a similar situation we are going to be collectively shocked how few spaces in decent homes are available, and how much it actually costs. Long term palliative care facilities we need – condos, not so much.
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Ephraim
Kate – Many of these buildings aren’t optimal for this kind of usage, either. And I certainly don’t think that unionized nurses should be the ones making this decision, either. A few engineers, especially in the design for aged living might be the best people to look at this and see if selling the buildings at a premium for their location and building new to suit the aged might be the best bet. But I’m pretty sure that either way, the unions would be the LAST people I would ask, they understand very little of the reality of the situation.
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Kate
Ephraim, if they’re not optimal for housing the elderly, what would make them better for conversion to high-zoot condos? Basically, for housing the very elderly and infirm you want a sort of low-tech hospital setting – many of the features of hospital rooms without the additional medical facilities. Those buildings are largely already kitted out that way.
Not saying anyone wants to end up living that way, but a lot of people do, if they can’t look after themselves but nobody else is on the spot to look after them.
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Le Devoir looks at the city’s plans for quartiers verts and what they mean for us.
I happened to walk by the bit of Laurier near St-Denis and the metro station yesterday that’s been turned into something of a neighbourhood square. And it seriously works. People are hanging out, sitting on the benches, taking the air. Very good move there by Projet.
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William
Disagree. Closing one lane of Laurier was nothing more than a pointless step away from ever having Saint-Joseph restored to this. It could have become a bus-only/active transport lane. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/Boulevard_Saint-Joseph_1945.jpg/280px-Boulevard_Saint-Joseph_1945.jpg
If the goal was to make a public square, why not do it at the OTHER entrace to Laurier station, which was/is already a sea of ugly and useless concrete.
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Ian
I have to agree, the south entrance just screams “unused park”. There’s even a green area on the west side of the entrance that goes essentially unused.
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Ant6n
@William
“Restored”? A linear “park” made inaccessible by car lanes; more like sterile grass for drivers to look at; essentially useless greenery – why would you want that? -
Tom
@Ant6n
Perhaps William was referring to reducing the number of lanes on St. Joseph, not a linear park. Considering the highway that St. Jo is now, that is an admirable goal. I, however, am not sure that Laurier’s reconfiguration will have much to do with that. -
ant6n
Reducing traffic on St Joseph, and also Mount Royal would be nice. I wonder where all that traffic is coming from. One theory is Camillien-Houde – it provides an easy/fast way across the mountain, but dumps a lot of cars into plateau.
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John Oliveros
I just can’t picture the mini-festival I saw at the new square on Laurier yesterday happening in the middle of St-Joseph.
Seriously, what makes the location of that square more appropriate at the Laurier entrance/exit to the Metro rather than at St-Joseph is its situation in an already existant active street life environment. There is a civic centre on the square and a school nearby, and further along Laurier (Eastward) a large park and a village-like neighbourhood.
Anyway, there’s nothing to stop the city from refurbishing the St-Joseph Metro entrance/exit area. In fact, the success of the Laurier square would serve as an example of how it can work. -
Chris
Folks, St Joseph is an artery, therefore under the jurisdiction of the central City, the Plateau borough can’t do anything to it. Laurier is a local road, so under their jurisdiction.
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Ian
So how is it that the Plateau was able to change the rules as to where trucks are allowed at different times of the day? Also, while i applaud the lane narrowing at the north entrance not just for the civic space but also to slow traffic in a school zone, the point to using the south entrance is that there is already a a fairly large unused space attached to the metro – a lane narrowing wouldn’t be necessary.
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William
Oh yeah, more useless trees and greenery, why would anyone want that? Herp derp.
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William
Chris, it’s utter nonsense to suggest that the borough has no sway at the Ville-centre. At the very least, if the boroughs can’t bring themselves to collaborate with the Ville-centre in order to respect our best interests, they shouldn’t be taking half-measures that only aggravate the situation.
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Chris
Ian, the new truck restrictions are also being done on roads under the borough’s jurisdiction, ie not arteries. William, of course they have sway, but they don’t have jurisdiction. Sometimes they and central agree, sometimes they do not. I suspect they implement what they can, while continuing to lobby central.
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A somewhat meandering Gazette piece looks at Montreal’s affection for terrasses, taking in the reasons why we like them and a bit about neighbourhoods kicking back against them.
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William
I haven’t figured out why nobody has thought of opening a winter terrace – a nice big glassed in area where you can enjoy the abundant winter sun without freezing.
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Ephraim
Because windows are enormously inefficient and heating the area would be expensive. Plus of course you can’t smoke, which is why many people sit on terraces in the first place (though it would be nice if some of them were actually smoke-free for the rest of us.)
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Ian
While I do find it funny that people that sit on terrasses complain about smokers while they are exposing themselves directly to all the exhaust from vehicles on the street, the main reason terrases are designated smoking-allowed is to accomodate smokers, who do still go to bars, restaurants, and cafes. If you want a non-smoking terrasse, nobody’s stopping you from opening a bar or restaurant that is entirely non-smoking. Good luck with that, though, it’s very competitive business. I find it telling that there aren’t any smoke-free terrasses, or at least none that I’ve seen.
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William
I can’t recall ever having bothered by cigarette smoke on terraces. Maybe the places I go attract only classy people.
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Ephraim
@Ian – Some terraces offer non-smoking sections, you just have to ask. You are going to expose yourself to exhaust everywhere in the city. But sometimes I do sit inside to avoid the smoke. And sometimes… I just don’t go out. Which doesn’t really help the restos pay the bills either.
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Two religious buildings in Centre-Sud are to be converted – and not to condos. A church becomes the home of a company doing theatre for kids, and an old nunnery becomes a home for the aged.
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Ian
Excellent news. I’d love to see a moratorium on condo conversions for old church properties but realistically without the political will to make that happen it’s an uphill battle, especially since condo conversion hypothetically pays for itself. When our governments start to see what aging boomers actually mean for our society they will probably complain that there just isn’t any vacant space available since most of the old churches were already converted, and that their hands are tied.
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Kate
I thought, after the huge St-Jean-de-la-Croix church on Saint-Laurent at Saint-Zotique was converted to condos at huge expense that there was some kind of moratorium, because I don’t think we’ve seen another church building treated that way – but whether it was from respect of heritage buildings or simply panic at the cost I don’t remember.
Buildings like the Clercs de Saint-Viateur building at de Castelnau seem to be fair game because they were not huge cavernous church buildings to start with – that was a sort of combo residential school and monastery residence, teaching deaf people while, not surprisingly, sexually abusing a lot of them too, but that’s another story.
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François Cardinal, who’s been trying to stir things up on the mayoral campaign front for awhile, suggests maybe Michael Applebaum’s surprisingly high poll percentage could still persuade him to go for city hall, possibly partnered as chairman to Michel Labrecque so he wouldn’t actually break his promise not to try for the real mayoralty if we let him be mayor for a year.
Henry Aubin is very keen on Denis Coderre at least for the moment. I’ve been trying to find a tweet I saw that alleged that Coderre, despite saying he wasn’t paying anyone yet, was accompanied by people from several high-profile PR firms at his launch. There’s a constant grumble against Coderre for having been too close to the sponsorship scandal, but that’s part and parcel of the tendency against him solely for being a federal Liberal, I suspect.
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Possibly useful list of holiday closures for the May two-four, whatever you like to call it.
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A venerable group called the Montreal Camera Club has done a book about the metro. The STM has some sample photos up on their Facebook, but I think generally viewable.
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Noah
If ever there was something for Montrealers to be proud of, it’s our metro.
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The big Masonic temple on Sherbrooke Street is holding open house for a day on Saturday; buried here is the factoid that Mayor Applebaum is a Mason, and lightly handwaved is the other factoid that the group still bars women.
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denpanosekai
Thanks for the headsup, going now, missed the open houses for the past couple years.
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mare
I lived in a Masonic temple for a few days. A squat in The Netherlands, I had to give up my room for someone who was more “urgent” since he came back from a year long travel. They lived there for 10 years rent free before the city bought the building and converted it into student housing.
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Ian
The established masonic lodges do bar women from becoming members but there have been female breakaway lodges and there are groups associated with the masons that are open to men and women, such as the Order of the Eastern Star, amongst others. There’s no female shriners but the shriners do a lot of good. Food for thought.
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qatzelok 12:22 on 2013/05/19 Permalink
It’s great that CTV or any other commercial media can’t find ‘the resources’ to follow the banking crisis, environmental collapse, or all the wars we’re dragged into, but they had a reporter sent to “the scene of the incident” for this huge scoop.
Ian 14:17 on 2013/05/19 Permalink
You might almost think local news was easier to cover and required fewer resources.
Alex L 16:08 on 2013/05/19 Permalink
Language is always a winning topic when one wants to start controversies, and those things pay in terms of viewers. Sensation.
Bert 16:18 on 2013/05/19 Permalink
The Ceeb had reported that an apology was issued. However it was not clear if the apology was from the STM or from the ticket taker.