Boston is launching a Bixi-based bike system but Andy Riga spots that they don’t credit Montreal for the designs. (London didn’t mention us much either when they launched Barclays Cycle Hire.)
(Note to Andy: one nickname for Boston is “the Hub” thus presumably the name Hubway. I mean, you wouldn’t want to call them BeanBikes.)
Some background to the heat wave we’re experiencing. (Thanks to those who warned me my previous link here was not working.)
OpenFile has a photo essay showing commercial signs of the past and what has replaced them on our streets.
It would be kinda cool to see neon return to our streets. Isn’t there some kind of plan to have a mini Times Square in Quebec City? It would be better suited to the corner of de Maisonneuve and Guy…
A neon armpit in Quebec City or Montreal would be a welcome alternative to the gadzillion Pharmaprixs and Uniprixs and Unipharms that seem to follow new developments everywhere. I don’t understand it? Do we really need so many pharmacies?
There are three big pharmacies within ten minutes’ walk of my place. They all sell a lot of other stuff, though – cleaning supplies, food (all packaged, lots of junk and none of it very wholesome), gift items, cosmetics and perfume. So they’re morphing into aspects of grocery stores, department stores and even the old five-and-dimes, I think.
I have four of these kind of drug/bottled-water/sundry-item stores in my 10-minute radius. I guess they must fulfil a need and thus be profitable if they keep cropping up. But having lived in Montreal for 7 years tho’, and coming from Australia, I’ve personally never understood their raison d’être.
I woudn’t expect the trend to change very soon. My guess is they’re betting on an aging populace needing to shop more locally and more often.
Radio-Canada gives us a brief glimpse of the road traffic control centre.
The addition of 50,000 cars per annum on Quebec roads make this control centre a joke. We simply don’t have the space or expontial infrastructure capacity to deal with this basic fact. I asked a high school class of 32 kids living for the most part in the burbs how many cars were in their immediate family …127….mom, dad, brother, sister. Face facts, traffic is going to get worse and worse.
Landscapers are labouring to fix the damage caused in René-Lévesque Park by a ten-day ATV festival. Lachine borough got a princely $25,600 for this use of the park – how much will be left over once the park is put back together?
Tourists are walking away leaving millions in unpaid fines that may be uncollectable.
Squabbling over parking tickets for tourists? I LIVE here and I can’t work out the restrictions sometimes. Geez, I think we have bigger things to worry about! (by the way, I’m sure the tourists who make really bad/obvious mistakes and get towed pay their fines…)
Québec does have reciprocal agreements with several US states, so that traffic and parking tickets motorists get here can be enforced down there. It happened to a friend of mine from New Jersey, who got a parking ticket here and eventually had to pay it at home. I guess that means that the NJ tourist quoted in the CBC story will be out of luck!
I have to admit I would’ve assumed if you got a ticket here on a rental car, it would be charged to the rental company which would then charge your credit card (probably with a percentage on top). The article makes it sound like this doesn’t actually happen.
Maybe the article is referring to Americans coming up in their own cars?
Probably. Somebody in the article mentioned a rental car, but I guess most are driving their own. But with modern plate-recognition technology, shouldn’t we be able to stop them at the border and squeeze a few bucks out of them?
A 63-year-old man was stabbed to death Wednesday night on a resto terrasse in Côte-des-Neiges, chalking up the city’s 19th homicide of the year.
On his blog, Andy Riga gathers together some apps and Twitter feeds that manage Montreal transit and commute information.
It was too hot for calèche horses Wednesday and is going to be even hotter (35°!) Thursday afternoon.
STM’s adapted transit dropped off a profoundly disabled guy at the wrong address and left him there, and it’s in the news – I’d want to hear the driver’s story about how much time they have to do a trip and other details before I go calling for dismissal, though. The location was a hospital with the same street number, an easy mistake for a dispatcher or driver to make.
The Insectarium is reopening after an eight-month depth renovation.
Possibly useful list of smaller farmers’ markets taking place around town this summer.
That’s a great link Kate, thanks. Definitely useful.
Alex L 21:07 on 2011/07/21 Permalink
En partie! Ils utilisent quand même une image où le terme “Bixi” semble avoir été photoshopé sur le vélo, mais où apparaît toujours le logo de la ville de Montréal. Mauvais travail de graphisme, j’imagine.
http://www.thehubway.com/stations
Emory Shaw 16:24 on 2011/07/22 Permalink
Yea, the Melbourne version of bixi says close to nothing about Montreal too, all most of the sites mention is the Alta bike company (when did they come in? shoulda been Bixi doin the entire thing)
Doobious 18:38 on 2011/07/23 Permalink
Trouble in Bixiland article in Macleans.