The Royal Bank plans to vacate its grandiose digs at 360 Saint-Jacques, and the beautiful interior is not a protected heritage site. I have my account there (even though I don’t live nearby) because I figured this was one branch they’d never close or move, and I liked going into the building. Sic transit, as the bus driver said. Andy Riga has some interesting vintage photos of the building’s construction and its interior.
Updates from June, 2010 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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This afternoon’s earthquake was greeted in Montreal by a lot of 911 calls but no appreciable damage. Gracefield, a small town in the Outaouais, sustained some damage, but it’s a lot closer to the epicentre than Montreal is. Some explanation of the fault line near Montreal; today’s was the strongest quake felt here in a long time.
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Nice piece on the retirement of a crossing guard who did a faithful job in the Plateau for twenty years.
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Metro offers some reasonably good advice on how to move house July 1 and not get burned. But the best advice is always to borrow a time machine and go back three-four months to reserve a mover…
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I have no link, but there are multiple tweets about AMT commuter trains not running at this hour. I’m not sure whether it’s earthquake damage or something else.
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Archives de Montréal has posted a fascinating photo set from the 1954 Saint-Jean-Baptiste parade, a reminder of the pervasiveness of Catholicism here on the eve of the Quiet Rev: The Botanical garden (“Hommage à Marie”) – “Nos artistes au service de Notre-Dame” – “Notre-Dame dans l’Extrême-Nord” – “La croisade du chapelet en 1954″ and more. Catholicism was unquestioned; bringing missions to other countries and fortifying the practice here was at least as important as, say, health care or education. Amazing.
Also a smaller but equally interesting set from the 1947 parade with Camillien Houde riding in a big car, and Canada as a “puissance internationale.”
List of activities by borough for the Fête.
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That was a 5.5 earthquake that just shook eastern Ontario and Quebec.
USGS notes (via voidnull on the Livejournal comm).
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The city’s going to be spiffing up 130 neighbourhood parks with many earmarked for better playground equipment, bathrooms and repairs plus new water fountains, better lighting and other details. It’s something any city has to do from time to time but it should brighten up a lot of neighbourhood spots.
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Isabel of Montreal
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The 515 bus that loops through downtown and along the Old Port has never picked up much of a ridership and although on the one hand it’s clearly good to know this before a tram is embedded permanently along the route, this article seems to suggest that the mayor remains convinced that the route would become a success if a tram were put in its place.
I have the notion that the reason more tourists don’t use the bus is that many of our tourists are Americans and don’t have the habit of using public transit, don’t think it’s safe, or don’t think taking a bus is sufficiently festive for a holiday. I’m generalizing here, but I’ve often found that the American attitude to public transit is that it’s beneath them, that it’s almost insulting to suggest they wait for a bus. And if that’s your potential public, a bus is never going to fly.
Andy Riga also has a map and some figures to supplement his story.
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naftee
Isn’t the idea that public transit is beneath oneself the attitude of most people who have a car? Just look at Gilles Vaillancourt’s cavalier dismissal of his metro payment contributions, and you have a general idea of Laval’s attitude right there. Or, if you want a completely opposite perspective, go to New York City and take their public transit. It’s a huge exception to your generalization.
Also, this bus line is pretty much walkable/bikeable in the summer months-maybe this explains the constant ridership figures? -
AJ
It depends where the tourists are from. I’ve seen a lot of conflicting data on this, but a lot of the anti-transit types come from cities (even in Canada) that suffer from poor postwar urban planning and white flight from urban centres. Low density = whiter suburbs = wealth or “freedom”, high density = ethnics / immigrants / da projeks = poverty and therefore God hates you in their Calvinist deterministic view. So you have a paradox that anywhere that public transit would actually operate with adequate ridership is stigmatized by wealthier taxpayers, and the stigma transfers back onto the transit itself…plus the unstated fear that if the train connects poor and rich neighborhoods, ZOMG it’ll be home invasion week!
It is slowly reversing as cities re-densify, gentrify and try to attract young ‘urban homesteaders’ who prefer to live life carfree (or minimally car-dependent) and don’t have so much fear of the Other…In our specific case, I’m convinced that with some rejigging the 515′s route and schedule can be made to work better, but in the near-to-long term it requires a supporting armature of proper urban design all along the route, basically increased density (for ridership) and a return to fine-grained, finely graded, pedestrian-friendly streets and blocks.
Rene-Levesque, for instance, never became the grand Parisian / new-yorkaise boulevard that its planners intended; it feels like a very wide back alley between skyscrapers, faced with blank walls and ventilation ducts, with little to nothing for pedestrians to do there except try not to get run over by rush-hour traffic. If anything, doing something to make this a destination instead of a through-way might help.
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KC
Don’t know how Montreal compares to other cities with regard to tourists using public transport, but my guess would be that a big factor, here or elsewhere, is not knowing how the system works. Each city is different. How much is the fare, how to pay, how transfers (if any) work, what goes where? Plus the added complication for US tourists in Montreal of not knowing whether there’s anyone to explain things in English.
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admin
KC, you may be right. Maybe if they made some simple brochures for the tourism centre on the square, tourists would find the bus more useful.
Or how about this: make it free?
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Anyone have a link showing which parks exactly will be benefited?