The city is pondering removing some or all of the concrete with which Viger Square was covered some decades ago. Charles Daudelin, who did better work in his time, designed it and put a fountain in it which is likely to be the only thing saved. Heritage Montreal recently put the square on its endangered sites list.
Above is a 1927 aerial shot showing the old-school classical park layout at left and the Viger Hotel left of centre with lots of railway depot stuff on its right. (From the BanQ)
More Nuit blanche: suggestions from the Main blog, the Link, bits on the musical offerings from Voir; preview from Canoë. Also the Biodome plans to take the penguins out for a walk – what could go wrong?
The Patrimoine blog has a collection of velocipede pieces which chimes well with a recent story asking the question why, if a cyclist gets a ticket, they also lose demerit points off their drivers’ licence if they have a licence.
Bigger question… why don’t all bicyclists over the age of 16 have to have a licence and know the rules of the road. Maybe it will lead to less accidents?
Is that kind of thing mandatory anywhere?
Why should we base our laws on what other people do?
I think that it is only right that someone earn the right to use the roads. Using the roads is a privilege, not a right. Further, if cyclists require licenses, perhaps they should also pay a licensing fee to put a bike on the road and pay for insurance covering property and personal damages.
My driving instructor explained to me that demerit points earned by cyclists over 16 are kept on reserve even when they don’t have a license, then added immediately when they get a learner’s permit (which often causes them to have to immediately retake the exam, because demerit point are doubled for learners!).
I think they should have separate legislation for cyclists. There should be heavy fines, not demerit points. Bikes don’t weigh a ton and roll at 50 km/h. And there are enough barriers for people wanting to cycle in the city.
And what about pedestrians? Surely people should get some kind of permit before being allowed to cross at Montreal’s intersections. Pedestrians have even been known to cause motorists to run into them, and sometimes they bump into other pedestrians! There should be heavy fines AND demerits for anyone caught crossing the street without a pedestrian licence!
Of course there should be at least some modifications of driving rules for cyclists. For example, allow right turns at red lights when it can be done safely. This will enable us to get out of the way of turning vehicles, especially trucks and buses.
I’d be happy to see the police simply enforcing the existing rules, ticketing jaywalkers, cyclists on the sidewalk, drivers that talk on their cellphones… We don’t need new rules if we aren’t even enforcing the existing ones.
Kate, of course pedestrians should have permits. Of course, the cost of these would be less since less of the roadway is used, due to the relative surface area of the person and that less of the overall roadway is used, i.e. sidewalk usage.
Ian, I think your idea is quite levelheaded and comes right to the point.
Man, I’m so tired of these “I’m a road user and I’m a victim” stories.
Idem William. Get over it people. Cyclists have been around before cars, and I bet they’re there to stay.
@Bert: While we’re at it, let’s make the price of the pedestrian permit relative to the size of the pedestrian.
There are irresponsible drivers and cyclists. I ride my bike according to the rules of the road and it irks me when I see other cyclists riding in the wrong direction and burning red lights (without slowing down to check, ahem). What irks me even more is when an angry motorist behaves with a guy on a bike like he would with a guy in a Range Rover.
Robert is right, demerit points given to someone without a drivers license will carry and be deducted when the ticketed person finally does get a drivers license. I’m not sure they count double but I do know that someone with a new license has a probation license and they only get 3 points to start off with, add a pre-existing ticket and can leave that person with 1 point when they get their license.
I personally don’t understand anyone taking issue with the police ticketing citizens for existing laws. Considering I find it easy to follow the rules of the road, I’m happy that those that can’t fill the purse of the city & government; less taxes for me.
Kate, you took the words out of my mouth. Bert, you’re kidding right?
A cyclist running a stop/red is not the same as a motorist doing so. Both are wrong, but the damage to society is greater in the latter case, and as such the punishment should be greater. The punishment now is equal, which is nuts.
Drivers get away with murder. Just yesterday a driver killed a pedestrian (crossing on green) and no charges are being laid!!! Yet cyclists get demerits for running a stop?!
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2012/02/23/montreal-papineau-pedestrian.html
I am all for cyclists getting fined while biking the wrong way in the middle of a one way street, or on the sidewalk. I am all for reasonable rules for cyclists about red lights and stop signs, and cyclists getting fined for not following them. (I assume we could find some reasonable rules in a cycling culture, perhaps the Netherlands.) But I don’t understand how this affects your driver’s license; as far as I know, crossing on a red light as a pedestrian doesn’t give me demerit points, though it’s also thesame action.
“I think that it is only right that someone earn the right to use the roads.”
Road spaces are public spaces and for everyone;
What you have to earn is the right to drive a 1-ton vehicle at 50km/h 1m past cyclists in an urban area.
Do people really want car drivers out there who don’t obey the rules?
That’s what this is about. Most people have driver’s licenses, yet somehow when they get on their bicycles it’s okay to break the laws. That 16 year old on his bike will learn bad driving before he gets his license. Not just ignoring specific rules, but deciding to pick and choose what rules to follow.
This isn’t about the rules, it’s about breaking the rules. That guy riding on the sidewalk when I step out of a store and almost get hit by him, he’s not breaking the law to change the rules, he’s just breaking the law for his own advantage. That car parked on the sidewalk on Park Avenue in rush hour, forcing me to step onto the street, almost in front of a bus rushing up the reserved lane, he’s not trying to change the rules, he’s just breaking them, thinking it’s more acceptable to block the sidewalk than block the street.
I don’t, but I could rack up endless demerit points, and it wouldn’t mean a thing, since I’ve never had a driver’s license, never will have one. The demerit points only matter to people who drive cars. And all the ridiculous reasoning for ignoring the laws when a cyclist, that applies to car drivers too. Why should they stop at a red light when nobody’s around? Why shouldn’t they dip into a one way street to make a u-turn (maybe no reason at all, except it’s happened too many times when I’m crossing that one way street). They can park at intersections, they can park on the sidewalk, or drive along that sidewalk.
Yet that’s exactly what cyclists keep repeating, “the lights aren’t fair to cyclists”, “the street isn’t safe or plowed, so I’ll ride on the sidewalk”. I’ve yet to see an explanation for no light at night, or how someone can justify riding at night, with no light, going through a red light, and moving up from between cars stopped at the red light. Or the time a cyclist sailed through a red light, and I couldn’t see him until I had almost stopped in front of him, because a bus was stopped at that intersection, blocking the view. I couldn’t see him until I was almost in front of him, he couldn’t see me until I was almost in front of him, yet he thought it was perfectly acceptable to go through the red light. Not any different from the time I was crossing a street and some car driver turns in front of a bus going straight; he was turning before he could see what was there, not only could he have been hit by the bus, but by worrying about that bus, he ignored the fact that there might have been pedestrians there.
Laws are a reasonable attempt at making things safe. Too often they aren’t enforced, and too often then other things are brought in to remedy the lack of enforcement. They can’t make things perfectly safe, but if people obey the rules, a lot of the accidents don’t happen.
But rules are also a common language. If I’m crossing a street and that car isn’t signalling to turn, then I’m not expecting him to turn. If I’m crossing on a green light, I have the expectation that nobody will be coming from the direction of the red light. if I’m walking with a small child on the sidewalk, we shouldn’t have to be worried about some cyclist speeding along the sidewalk. The rules forbid such things, but they also inform me of what I can expect. As a pedestrian, I’ve made a point of wondering why, for instance, there’s no parking in front of a school, and then actually read up on the rules. It seems to me that many people don’t, if they know the rules they just follow or ignore as they see fit, without grasping why doing that might not be a good thing.
For the record, I don’t cross on red lights either. I expect car drivers and cyclists to obey the
laws, and the only way I can bring force to that is to obey the laws myself. Something I figured out when I was about ten years old.
If you don’t like the rules, then work on changing them, instead of lazily doing as you please.
Because until cyclists are actually trying to change the rules, they are just lawbreakers, and if they translate that to when they drive a car, then they get what they deserve. That’s why they get demerit points.
For people whining about “unfairness”, cyclists already get a discount, the fines aren’t particularly high. I was fined more for yelling at that cyclist riding on the sidewalk over a decade ago than that cyclist would have been fined for riding on the sidewalk.
Michael
Michael, do you have any data to actually support your implication that cyclists breaks rules more often than pedestrians or motorists? It’s a widely held view, and I’d really be interested to see any supporting evidence. Also some answers to some of your questions are here: http://washcycle.typepad.com/home/2008/07/the-myth-of-the.html
I drive and (in other cities) have cycled on the street. I think cyclists should be allowed much greater leeway than cars. The physical dynamics of cycling are completely different plus the condition of the roads here is perilous. Cyclists must be allowed to improvise as needed. The ‘future demerit policy’ is dumb and spiteful and should be shelved.
I do think, however, that everyone should have to get a driver’s license – just so that they know what drivers are probably thinking. Only a non-driving cyclist would go the wrong way down a one-way street hugging the right side, for example. There are safer ways to break the rules! (And I trust Montrealers to find them!) Yeah, I know and while I’m daydreaming, we should make the drivers do some road cycling so they know why cyclists do what they do….
Via Andy Riga on Twitter, the Quebec government list (PDF) of major roadworks planned in the Montreal area this year. La Presse looks at Quebec’s roadwork plans and the billions being poured into the effort.
More short-term: this weekend’s road closures (lovely aerial photo of the Mercier Bridge).
Also from the Journal, a bit on how a small number of construction firms still gets most of the city’s road and sidewalk contracts. But it leaves open a question: how many construction companies in Montreal have the equipment and competence to do this scale of work but are not getting the contracts?
I’ve often wondered that, too – if these companies get all the work, they have a budget for equipment that many other companies don’t so they not only have newer equipment, increasing their own productivity, but have access to specialized equipment their competitors don’t. It’s a catch-22 situation that could only be resolved by things like forcing contract rotation, or breaking up large projects into smaller contracts.
Is 8 companies competing for roadwork that few? We’d have to compare the situation to other similar sized cities to know. (Toronto for starters)
Toronto’s public work contracts are structured very different legally from how things are done in Montreal (no real surprise there) and it’s not a comparable sized city – it’s twice as big.
Yeah, I just figured the stats would be easy to compare per capita because its the other big Canadian city, but I guess if the legal structure’s different than it doesn’t work.
Ian – could you elaborate on the different legal structure of Toronto’s public works contracts? I’ve lived in both cities and though Toronto is intractably messed up in other ways, it does get road repairs done quickly and well. What is their secret?
Mayor Tremblay now says he wants to have a meeting with the transport minister and sort out Quebec’s intentions about public transit in the metropolitan area.
Somebody been giving Tremblay injections of monkey glands? Or are we going to find out that, contrary to all recent history, the mayors of Laval and Longueuil have secretly agreed to back him up?
The organization Culture Montreal is marking ten years and seems puzzled why paving a swath of downtown and calling it “Quartier des spectacles” has failed to attract more working artists to the area.
How unsurprising that replacing all the relatively inexpensive downtown real estate with lightshows and uninviting plazas hasn’t attracted the creative class. As far as attracting people to performances, since they tore out the trees there isn’t even any shade on these concrete plains, which makes them pretty awful to be in on a sunny day. I’m not sure whose vision of the future the QdeS was meant to be, but as far as I’m concerned it’s a throwback to Drapeau’s bulldozer modernism style of urban planning, with Brasilia’s “air of elegant monotony” as Simone de Beauvoir put it.
Ian: right on.
Longtime city honcho Sammy Forcillo says many boroughs still have too many middle managers and need to cut back.
Numbers show that police shootings are on a high in Quebec but that it can’t be blamed on the Montreal force. Accompanying Gazette piece talks about police responses after shooting somebody.
Heritage Montreal has pointed out ten Montreal sites at risk. Le Devoir has still photos, the Gazette has a video presentation and a brief article; Quel Avenir has a few remarks.
Students picketed CEGEP Saint-Laurent on Friday morning; despite a growing number of CEGEP and university students joining the strike, professors and instructors are still expected to teach even though some are on the students’ side of the tuition hike issue or would simply prefer not to cross picket lines.
“some are on the students’ side of the tuition hike issue”…let’s not forget there are students on both sides in this debate.
Yes, little Liberals, probably well backed by family money. I’d love to hear from somebody who’s pro-tuition-hike who’s the first person in their family to get a university education.
Or more to the point, do any students that have to take student loans support this increase? Doubtful.
Actually, Ian, you can count my boyfriend as one of those people. And I can guarantee you, if I polled my friends, he would not be the only one.
…and he’s the first person to graduate from university in his direct family line to boot!
A better loans and bursaries program would be more beneficial for the lowest income students and their families. Low tuition mostly helps existing students (of which a very high percentage come from upper-middle and high wealth families). If the goal is to educate the population, we need less income disparity in the student population, which almost every study has indicated comes first and foremost from a generous loans and bursaries program.
In France, public university is free, and the public universities are hugely underfunded (they sort of look like the trashiest CEGEPs and are about at that level of quality). Free tuition has not prevented France from having a very high level of wealth disparity in the student population.
I used to agree with the tuition freeze, but now I don’t. Our future is dependent on young people from all wealth categories getting high-quality education.
By the way, I am applying for student loans in September.
Je commence à être extrêmement tanné de voir les mêmes arguments bidons répétés ad nauseam, à croire que les gens s’informent à même les communiqués de presse du gouvernement.
Depuis des années on nous flatte dans le sens du poil en promettant et effectuant des baisses d’impôts, baisse sur le capital.. pourtant des mesures qui ne profitent qu’aux hauts salariés. Vous me parlez d’aider ceux qui sont dans le besoin? Eh bien augmentez les impôts, ne les baissez pas!!
Augmentation des frais de scolarité, des frais afférents universitaires, augmentation du prix de l’électricité, augmentation des loyers, augmentation du prix du transport en commun, nouvelles nécessités (ordinateurs, programmes informatiques coûteux), coûts des livres. Croyez-vous vraiment que les étudiants vivent à ce point en marge de la société pour ne pas avoir à encaisser les mêmes hausses que le reste de la population?? Et pendant ce temps, on accorde des hausses faméliques du salaire minimum pour « accroître notre compétitivité ». Après tout, si les mexicains le font, pourquoi pas nous.
Le programme de prêts et bourses est et demeurera toujours un système très inégal de répartition des coûts post-secondaires et n’importe qui aura fort à faire pour me convaincre du contraire.
Je ne milite pas pour la gratuité scolaire, mais bordel, donnez un peu de répit aux étudiants.
The government has said that the AFE Loans and Bursary program would be adjusted accordingly and that low income people would receive an augmented bursary amount to cover the increase in the tuition rate. We can all trust they will follow through and maintain those promises.
The AFE quebec student loan program worked for me. Something I find interesting that isn’t discussed much is is the % of loan vs % bursary that students get depends on their program. Science students get a higher % bursary then art students with the same financial circumstances.
Even if we increased taxes to fix or lower tuition, taxes alone are not an effective way to finance higher education. The ability to derive revenue directly from students in the form of tuition is crucial, as otherwise they would have to rely solely on government funding. Do we really trust the government to be solely responsible for funding our universities?
Again, that’s how it is in France’s public universities, and the quality is poor. I don’t think we need to increase tuition to the level of American schools. I think we need a mixed system that combines tuition and taxes to adequately fund schools.
As it stands the total cost of 3-4 years of undergraduate studies is still very low in Quebec compared to anywhere else on the continent (especially considering the abundance of cheap accommodation for students and the generally lower cost of living). With summer work and student loans, the level of debt a graduate of the loans program will carry is very reasonable.
In an ideal world, no one would have to go into debt to finish school, but we don’t live in an ideal world. As the loans and bursaries program gets richer, we will be able to reduce the level of debt and create payment plans that are geared to income.
I’ve made my points before, but really think the reason many working adults support the hikes is the amount of money involved.
When I went to university (first in family for me AND my wife – no support from either our families – which is why I spent a year between Cegep and University working and scrimping) $300 was my rent. Now it’s what people earn in a day or two.
I look at protesters and I think: really, you value your education so little you are not willing to shell out an extra $325? You think that’s too much money even though in 2016 the price of tuition will still be below the Canadian average? Well then, I hope you never want to do anything like buy a car, a home, or go on vacation, because you’ll be stunned at how much those things cost.
This argument that tuition is ‘still lower’ than in the rest of North America leads nowhere. It’s kind of like saying that rate of police shootings in Quebec is the lowest in North America, so we should be removing whatever programs attempt to prevent them because they cost money.
@Steph
Not always are all students eligible to bursaries, for example if the parents are too rich but unwilling to pay. Would you sue your parents? It should be possible to finance your education using decent summer jobs and a very modest style of living; if you increase tuition by like 10% every year that won’t be possible anymore soon.
@Kevin
I don’t think anybody would care that much about a 300$ increase – but it’s an annual increase, waay above inflation. Even if they increased it, say, 30%, and then froze it for many years, students would probably agree — that’s exactly what happened in ’94 when the tuition freeze started.
@ant6n: I totally agree.
@Kevin: If minimum wage was at 20,30$ an hour, most students would be able to withstand that 325$ hike and pay it in two days like you propose. Otherwise at the current rate it takes at least 5 work days added to those actually needed (around 40 a year).
Plus we’re talking about a cumulative annual hike of 325$, which will add about 7 500$ to the actual amount (+/- 15 000$) over the course of 5 years.
Basically if you start studying next semester, you’ll end up paying around 4500$ a year, roughly a little less than half the annual salary of a student paid minimum wage, working full time during summer and 15 hours a week during the academic year.
Funny some people are against hikes (electricity, rents, drivers’ licenses, gas, etc.) but are suddenly in favour of these ones like it is normal. I can’t help but think baby-boomers worried about their retirement are behind all this pressure on students.
neoliberalism – cut services, charge more for services, cut taxes to multinationals and capital. we all are supposed to accept that we can’t have health care, education, better or even the same as we used to, cuz cash is tight, and cash is tight cuz we have to cut taxes for corporations and capital. So hello private health care/health care crisis, hello tuition + health care fee hikes, balanced against whatever disgusting examples of us coddling the rich you find in the daily news, since they are such precious job creators. Pas Content!
The Plateau made an initial promise in 2008, but now says it will clear cycle paths of snow starting next winter, with a budget spared by this winter’s scanty snowfall.
What’s happened to Gérald Tremblay? Suddenly he’s talking to Quebec about Montreal being Quebec’s main generator of wealth, and wanting more of it back.
His balls have dropped.
Just finished reading the article. Why hasn’t anybody come up with a per capita figure of how much money Montreal gets from Quebec (vs. Quebec City and other regions)? I’m almost positive such a figure would show that Montreal doesn’t receive its fair share, but come up with it and the question will be settled.
He is not going to run for reelection,that’s what happened. I always find it embarrassing to see the Mayor of Montreal go hat in hand to try to convince the gerrymandered wonders who sit in the National Assembly about what Montreal is.When you saw Jean Charest fly out to the Isles because of a power outage, that says everything about our provinces political calculus.The regions matter, we do not.
The worst of it is that whichever party gets in, none of them think of Montreal with anything but distrust – a hotbed of students, immigrants, and Anglos. I suspect this is similar to the “real America” sentiment in the US that casts suspicion upon LA and NYC. The Liberals know that most Anglos will automatically vote for them so they don’t even try to serve that population and the PQ would have preferred all of us to leave Quebec before voting in the last referendum.
Ian, the “last referendum” in Montreal was on municipal demergers and Anglos voted FOR SEPARATION (and, incidentally, for paying less social services) in that one.
Poutine Pundit 08:17 on 2012/02/25 Permalink
Having lived near this monstrosity and studied it, it is possibly the worst park in the city, especially Daudelin’s section. It was completed in the 1980s and looks like some threatening post-apocalyptic vision from the 1960s. Even at the time of its completion, contemporary art critics slammed it as crap outdated art and bad public space. As for its urban design qualities, it fails to meet any of Jane Jacobs’ criteria for a good public space. I generally support Heritage Montreal’s heritage battles, and I can see the need to preserve some of the better examples of brutalist architecture, but saving a crap brutalist public space that was never appreciated by anyone aside from crackheads seems bizarre. Even Daudelin felt that the city had cut corners on his vision to save costs, though I’m not sure the park would have been any better had they not.
Let’s remember Daudelin for his good work: the chapel at Notre Dame Cathedral, the public space in front of Gare du Palais in Quebec City, not this bit of urban blight.
Robert J 10:22 on 2012/02/25 Permalink
I’m inclined to agree. It’s nice that their going to save the fountain, but I don’t see anything else that could be saved. Also, in the Radio-Can piece, they talk about the city failing to plan enough activities in the space. A public space needs to invite use on its own, not depend on the city planting people in it. Square Viger has clearly failed.
Making a new square so close to that highway will be a challenge. Hopefully there will be some kind of residential construction and commercial activity in the sector following the CHUM construction, but it’s hard to imagine people spending a whole lot of time there.
Kate 14:08 on 2012/02/25 Permalink
That area may change a lot in the next few years when the CHUM’s completed and whatever happens to the Viger hotel building happens. Also don’t forget the city’s motivated to remove features in the square where homeless folks take shelter.
Robert J 14:21 on 2012/02/25 Permalink
I think that Berri or even Cabot squares are safer homeless squats than Viger, which is inaccessible and isolated.
Kate 15:04 on 2012/02/25 Permalink
Yes, there’s been at least one murder of a homeless person there, but there’s also more permanent shelter than at the other squares you mention.
Poutine Pundit: Daudelin did some nice work. My favourite may be the subtle elements at platform level at Mont-Royal metro.