The Plateau is changing traffic direction on a block of Christophe-Colomb to keep motorists from zooming along it like an autoroute.
Updates from May, 2011 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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The Plateau is going to see a lot of public markets this summer, in a movement to help people buy locally. It would be great if other boroughs made similar arrangements.
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Charles
There’s lots of boroughs that have similar markets. Check out http://lautremarche.weebly.com/, http://www.ampq.ca/pages/membres.html, http://www.marcheduluth.com/ and http://www.marches-de-quartiers.ca/ which has a map.
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Odin
Man do I miss the public markets in Paris. They’re literally everywhere and on several days of the week.
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Kate
Thanks for the info, Charles. Very useful stuff.
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The MTQ is to use carbon fibre slats to prop up part of the Turcot exchange that’s currently closed.
Meanwhile, citizens are demanding Quebec promise money so that the Turcot won’t turn into a giant snarl nightmare over the long period of rebuilding.
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A look at the Indiana Jones exhibit at the science centre; what’s happening to the Mies van der Rohe gas station on Nuns’ Island; the new bâtonnière for the city’s bar is a woman, and an anglo; Montreal scores with three entries on a recent list of bizarre buildings around the world.
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Police are to be targeting pedestrians and cyclists so watch out for patrol cars before you jaywalk and try to believe they’re doing this for your own good, and not to collect more sweet, sweet fines.
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Michel
I saw them on the corner of Laurier and de Brébeuf yesterday morning. If there’s one area that needs policing, it’s that corner. There’s a light for cyclists, and a light for pedestrians. Unfortunately, more often than not, cyclists assume the pedestrian light gives them priority. (This is the corner where a jogger was hit–and killed–by a cyclist a few years back.)
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Stefan
thanks for the warning. yes, sometimes it’s easier to criminalize the victims.
michel: could you give a link or reference for that accident? i haven’t been able to find a single one where a cyclist has caused a death, although i have heard rumours.
this morning i saw a large amount of police (~100) in the park at the corner maisonneuve/parc(?) with a tent and some flags flying (the american one included) – no idea what that was.
this is another corner which is not well designed for cyclists – since there are recently 4 phases: straight for cars, turn right for cars, go for cyclists, go for pedestrians; it takes a very long time, especially as one just misses the ‘go’ arriving from the east because the lights are synchronized for cars. so i end up passing from the bicycle path into the car lane … -
Kate
Trying to find a link to that story Michel mentions. I recall the discovery of a young man unconscious in Laurier Park near the bike path on Brébeuf a few years ago, because he had no ID on him and that made the news briefly, but I don’t recall he was killed or that any cyclist was blamed for his condition. But I may be thinking of another incident.
That spot can be dicey partly because the park’s on a slope and a cyclist can pick up a fair bit of momentum coming down toward the corner, where pedestrians tend to cluster waiting for the light.
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Michel
Before I’m branded anti-cyclist, let me just point out that I cycle everywhere whenever possible. I was also the “victim” involved in this: http://tinmansthoughts.wordpress.com/2007/06/20/busted/
To tell the truth, as to the dead jogger story, bad writing on my part. The cyclist most likely didn’t kill the jogger; the jogger died as a result of the collision, about three days afterward, if I remember correctly. And, truthfully, I remember reading about it on this site (where I get most of my municipal headlines), and a CBC.ca news article (I astutely avoided the comments section).
Again, my memory is most likely not 100%, but weren’t they keeping him alive while they were looking for relatives?
PS: I find it impossible to find news stories about Parc Laurier. Someone bled out after being stabbed in the neck there, last summer, but I couldn’t find any stories about it. -
Stefan
thanks to you both for the effort of locating that story (i’m trying to validate my proposed point that cyclists are somewhat less a danger than drivers to others, but never found anything concrete to base it on regarding cyclists)
michel: i had my thumb broken and never entirely recovered, following a crash into a suddenly opened car door. it wasn’t as scary as your story though. it’s good to put such a testimony online, for both cyclists and drivers.
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Le Hibou
Speaking of cyclists being targeted, it’s hard to find a more outrageous story than this one, at http://tricolour.net/motorist_attack.html and http://bellscorners.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/road-rage/
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Tux
There’s smart jaywalking and dumb jaywalking. There’s no reason to ticket careful jaywalkers as they don’t put anyone in danger. It’s too bad our fine police are incapable of such distinctions. In my opinion it would be far more useful to watch for people running red lights. When I see cops ticketing jaywalkers at Queen Mary and Decarie I always wonder why they aren’t going after the motorists instead. I’ve never had a close call jaywalking at that intersection, but I have nearly been clipped by cars when legally crossing the street.
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Chris
Stefan, here ya go, foreign data, but backs up your point: http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/dangerous-cycling-bill-mooted-in-uk-parliament-29678
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Stefan
thank you, chris. so in the UK, there are ~2000 times more pedestrians killed by drivers than cyclists (426 in 2009 vs. 2 in 10 years), not counting cyclists killed by drivers. saying that cycling as danger to others is ‘safer as crossing when the light is green’ would be quite ironical in that context.
cyclists may be giving more attention here because the no-fault law takes away responsibility only for collisions involving motor vehicles?
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Lachine mayor Claude Dauphin is going to Superior Court to try to have the city’s spying on him declared illegal. Not only is the city named in the case, but five important employees as well.
Quebec’s anticorruption unit has ridden into town and will also be looking into this affair and other problems plaguing the third Tremblay administration.
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A man 70 years old became the city’s 18th homicide of the year Tuesday night, and two other older guys were arrested.
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Charles
Isn’t the murder rate much higher so far this year? I seem to remember a year (2008) where there were 29 murders for the whole year. I tried to find statistics on the number of murders in Montreal throughout the years by month just to see if there are more or less murders in the summer/autumn but didn’t find anything (the city’s site, the SPVM’s site and Stats Can didn’t have anything on this).
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Kate
I saw somewhere this morning that this time last year we’d had only 11 homicides. But there’s some natural variation and I doubt we’re seeing a violent trend.
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The body of Adam Benhamama, who went missing in early April during a family visit to Laval, was found in the Mille Îles river on Tuesday.
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Éclipse, the police squad created to work against gang crime, did so by putting heavy surveillance on young black men in specific parts of town. A Human Rights report on this is due out today.
Jack 06:11 on 2011/05/12 Permalink
What a great idea! The corner of Christophe-Colomb and Villeray is a six-lane runway for Laval and the North Shore, it’s one of the most depressing Montreal vistas as a park and an elementary school bracket the runway. The only thing that will change the commuting patterns of our neighbours to the north is not persuasion but coercion, as sad is that is to say.
Kate 07:39 on 2011/05/12 Permalink
I see this morning the change is not popular with everyone. Anyway, although I hope it also improves things in Villeray, I’m not sure this change of one block in the Plateau will have much effect on the street north of the tracks.
mare 10:15 on 2011/05/12 Permalink
I use this stretch sometimes (it is the shortest way between my house in Petite-Patrie and some of my clients) but must say that the giant potholes that occured recently and haven’t been fixed reduced the traffic speed considerably. Having a 2 lane highway just end in a park is not very smart, so I’m glad something was done. There is also a new priority lane and “blinking green” traffic light at Rosemont to divert traffic to Papineau. So far there was not much change but since there is now another obstacle I think this will be quite effective. The problem with Papineau is that it often blocks completely with traffic for the bridge, even when you don’t want to take the bridge. And St Denis has a lot of double parkers so it’s also not very good as a through fare and can’t handle lots of traffic. Maybe this will make one or two drivers take public transport or the bike. I do too when I don’t have tools to transport.
Stefan 11:27 on 2011/05/12 Permalink
at rush hour, papineau is sometimes extremely grid-locked. while i can by-pass it nicely by bike i’ve seen several times that people just start leaving from the buses stuck in traffic (reseau 10min. max) until they empty out completely. so, public transport is not a good alternative there. but would it be realistic to convert one of the two lanes into a bus-only lane? i agree that it will make drivers consider alternatives, at least it will put more pressure (also on the city-level) to drive necessary change.
qatzelok 14:48 on 2011/05/12 Permalink
Some drivers think their driving is heroic because they feel the same g-forces when they go around corners as superman does. This self-congratulation leads to indignant comments in news articles when the law comes down on their horrible social behavior.
Chris 18:02 on 2011/05/12 Permalink
Stefan, you’re able to bypass the gridlock only because you break the law. :) The Code de la sécurité routière forbids riding between lanes, passing on the right, or riding on the sidewalk. This is interesting from a policy point of view, because, legally speaking, it means that switching from car to bike will *not* help people get to where they are going any faster.
Stefan 08:37 on 2011/05/13 Permalink
Chris: exactly, as do ~90% of cyclists i see passing through that viaduct :-)
applying the law in that case is just crazy. there is no way i will ride in 70km/h rush-hour traffic filling two narrow lanes with my two-year old son on the bicycle seat, and as the day care is on the other side of the train tracks, taking the next viaduct with bike path would triple the distance and take even longer than walking. in my opinion (as experienced in both roles) pedestrians and cyclists can share very well a sparsely populated sidewalk as this one. cars and their outdated laws not needed here.
Chris 18:24 on 2011/05/13 Permalink
To be clear, I wasn’t arguing against your behaviour, I am arguing that the laws regarding cycling need to change. Cyclists should be able to ‘take the lane’ and should be allowed to pass on the right.
Stefan 09:16 on 2011/05/14 Permalink
chris: no offence taken, sorry if my post gave that impression! exactly my point also that laws need to adapt to realities …