The Journal has a scandal piece today on $3,250 trash cans in the Quartier des spectacles international.
Updates from June, 2012 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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We’ve just gotten over the news that a retired judge can be found guilty of first-degree murder to read the story that a crown prosecutor who worked on the Guy Turcotte case has been accused of assault with a weapon, dangerous driving and related charges.
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Some business folks blame Montreal’s chronic roadwork for a decline in local competitiveness. However, there are some positive signs that corporations plan to invest in keeping their offices here.
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Jack
One of the most ironic elements of living here is the self flagellation when it comes to car transit, like only in bad poorly organized and governed Montreal are things awful.
Every single urban area in North America is experiencing the same “problem”, it is becoming harder for cars to go where ever they want at high speeds. Why because the car pool is rising exponentially, now everyone in a suburban family ,except the cat and dog, have cars. Few in the media want to acknowledge this simple math question and we all know why. So business people do what rich business people used to do, like in Mad Men, take the train. -
Bill Binns
@Jack – I don’t know how people live that way. I drove out of Montreal at 5:30AM on Friday and traffic on the Champlain bridge heading into the city was pretty much stopped. The traffic stretched back as far as I could see. I would not even consider going through that every morning and afternoon, even if someone offered to double my salary.
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Blork
I realize I’m starting to sound like a skipping record on this topic, but not all suburbanites have multiple cars, and many commute by public transit. All you have to do is see the crush of humanity a the Longueuil Metro station any morning at 8:30 to see that.
There’s also the fact that many suburbanites don’t work in the city; I have several neighbours in Longueuil for whom Montreal is just a big urban blight on the horizon that they never go to. (Their sentiment, not mine.)
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Jack
@Blork dont worry I am a broken record on this and many other things. Your right not all suburbanites have multiple cars.You are in Longueuil which is served by a metro and has some urban density and the worst hair cuts in Canada. However the empirical, knowledge based fact is that the car pool is expanding so rapidly no municipal or provincial government can build infrastructure fast enough.They are pressed by construction,oil and car companies to keep subsidizing this transportion conceit at the cost of us all. In Villeray, where I live 70% of the residents do not own cars, yet we pay the cost fiscally and physically.
When will people see the ownership of car as an ethical question? -
Dhomas
I literally loled at “has some urban density and the worst hair cuts in Canada”. Coupe Longueuil, anyone?
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Transcontinental, which used to own the media outlet Metro in a partnership with Gesca and Metro International, has become its sole owner.
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Ephraim
Gesca is part of Power Corp, if I remember correctly. Metro as a minor partner, because of Canadian ownership rules.
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Luka Rocco Magnotta landed at Mirabel under heavy escort Monday evening on a military flight from Germany and was taken away in a police van.
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It’s going to be a very hot week.
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Andrew
That’s it? “It’s going to be a very hot week.”? Whooda thunk?
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Kate
Evidently you felt it worth retweeting.
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MB
Meet me at the ice cream place at the Eaton Centre, pronto.
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Andy Riga looks at plans to create a bigger bus terminal at Lionel-Groulx in advance of the Turcot work; not everyone is thrilled about bringing more buses to the area.
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ant6n
None of the designs for new bus terminals or similar that have come out over the years seems to be overly concerned with minimizing walking distances. Transfers should be as fast and painless as possible to help induce demand.
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Faiz Imam
I didn’t see any potential designs anywhere. Link?
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Kate
Nor did I. Andy Riga describes how the services are meant to be distributed around the environs of Lionel-Groulx, but I haven’t seen a diagram.
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jeather
Delisle and Greene aren’t any further away from the entrance than Atwater and St-Jacques, really, so there doesn’t seem to be an issue with walking distances (based on no designs). I live right near there, and although I’ve never found an issue with too many buses, I guess we’ll see how it works after the probable 6-9 months of actual construction.
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jeather
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steph
It’s unfortunate that Lionel-Groulx isn’t designed with a 2nd entrance on Greene. What I find unfortunate is that these plans for extra public transportation are only temporary; will extra service be canceled once the construction is complete?
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ant6n
The link is at the bottom of the article (in plain text), pointing to Andy Rigas gazette website, which in turn has the article that jeather linked. The distance from the doors of the metro to most of the bus stops at Atwater is about 40 meters right now, some of the drop off stops are like 50 meters away; after the refit it will be 120~130 meters (a metro train is about 150 meters long). Plus you have to consider the path getting from the metro train to the metro entrance. For transferring, I think that’s too long, given how much money they’ll spend and how much space there is at the metro entrance.
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qatzelok
@ steph: “will extra service be canceled once the construction is complete?”
Of course! This is a trillion-dollar highway project, and the STM is spending about a hundred dollars on fancy tempos for extra passengers. Isn’t our regime’s intentions clear yet?
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Marc
The best bus station in the city is at Henri Bourassa. That should serve as a model. There’s lots of space there.
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Robert J
I’ve often wondered why they didn’t build a bus terminal in what is now a sort of pseudo park on top of the metro (the grassy plot with the ventilation thingies). That park is dark and uninhabited at night. A partially indoor bus terminal could take up half of the square with some grassy areas/trees for summertime use.
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Robert J
At least that way the station would take up less and not more space and be closer to the metro entrance.
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ant6n
@Robert
That’s what I was thinking, too. The buses should be like 10 meters from where the escalators reach the top. -
Robert J
Kind of like Beaubien metro’s 18 stop with the concrete awning.
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Dhomas
What I find annoying about Lionel-Groulx metro is that the “Lionel-Groulx Metro” Bixi stand is over 200m away on Charlevoix street. There is so much room right next to the metro entrance; why couldn’t they put a stand there??
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ant6n
There used to be a bixi on that block (what do they call blocks that where torn down and that are now empty except for a metro entry?). Maybe it got used too much? Maybe the stm complained about the bicycle traffic?
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Luka Magnotta will soon be on his way back to Canada on a military flight; charges against him have been filed in Montreal.
Later: Coolopolis ponders who will defend Magnotta and the CP story on the extradition quotes a German prosecutor saying tersely We’re glad he’s gone.
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Ephraim
Seriously, why could we not have shipped him over on an Air Canada flight in handcuffs. I’m sure that two security guards and magnotta in the back row would have been much cheaper. Unless this military flight was already in place for other reasons, no?
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Kate
I thought of various possibilities, but the CBC item says the flight is going to an unknown destination. I’m guessing that one big reason for the military flight is to avoid a media circus at Trudeau.
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Ephraim
Yes, probably avoiding the media circus. But I think we could use a little bit of a circus at the moment. Heck, sometimes I wonder if we are actually stuck under the big tent and we could use a few days of peace and quiet.
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Marc
I don’t think they would want other passengers to know he was on board. You can’t keep anything a secret now; someone would find out and spread the word. In all likelyhood, the plane will, I think, land at YHU.
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Aaron Valarde
We read about these situations in my psyche class and I agree with coolopolis that putting this into perspective might be the most difficult thing. Is it worse than the bus beheading? The Turcotte double murder? Rehabilitation is in the cards for those two. Possibly this one too.
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Kate
@Aaron Valarde the three situations are so different that it’s difficult to see the point of a comparison. You can argue endlessly about whether someone was insane when they killed (I wrote about this earlier) but my observations lead me to suspect criminal psychologists can vary as much in their estimates as laypeople do. It was partly a shrink’s opinion that put Karla Homolka back on the street rather sooner than many people were happy with.
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Metro has a dossier this week on the new Champlain bridge, with thoughts on how a major new bridge can become iconic and an outline of the steps taken to design a major new structure. They also polled the public about their feelings on the importance of making the new bridge into a big architectural statement.
The new bridge may be named the pont Maurice-Richard. I have no problem with honouring the Rocket, but two things occur to me: wouldn’t this rub it in that we haven’t had any spectacular hockey star in decades? And what happens to the deleted honour to Champlain – wouldn’t something else have to be found and named after him?
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TiGuy
Il existe déjà environ 23 noms de lieux sur l’île de Montréal pour rendre hommage à Samuel de Champlain.
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Noah
Why can’t everyone just leave well enough alone? I love the idea of honouring new people, especially someone like The Rocket who stood for good values and is one of the few people ALL Quebecers love regardless of any other potential factor… but the Champlain is the Champlain and should stay the Champlain. Why are we constantly looking to re-engineer history? There are lots of good ways to honour Maurice Richard – leave the Champlain Bridge as the Champlain Bridge, new or old.
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steph
I’m certain even if they build a new bridge, they aren’t going to remove the older one, but they’re going to ease the traffic off it. Like in Quebec City the Pierre Laport bridge replaced the aging Pont De Quebec without tearing it down. And with autoroute 30 being completed in 2013, a bypass route to the south will reduce congestion on the city’s bridge and highway network by offering an alternative for through-traffic. I know they’ve been working at it, but it’s beyond me why this byway wasn’t a priority
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Kate
TiGuy: selon le site toponymique du Québec il y a 8 utilisations du nom Champlain sur l’Île de Montréal, incluant “le haut-fond Champlain” à Lachine qui est au milieu du fleuve! Rien d’importance égal à un grand pont.
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Bill Binns
I love the idea of an architecturally interesting bridge that will serve as an icon for the city but I wonder if the Champlain bridge isn’t too far away from downtown to serve that purpose. A big impressive replacement for the Cartier bridge may be better since it is visible from downtown. As far as the Champlain replacement, how about a double decker 16 lane monster that will never see a traffic jam?
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Faiz Imam
Cartier is in perfect condition, no point.
But while its not as close to town, Champlain is visible on many of the standard tourist shots of the city, and it IS the most used bridge in Canada. It’s as good a candidate for world renowned architecture as any.
as for a 16 lane monster… the 720 is 4 lanes, and Bonaventure is 6, the south shore side is 8. making the bridge wider is the definition of useless.
Anyways, its already agreed that the new bridge will be 6 extra-wide lanes, plus 2 for shoulder and 2 for buses.
@steph: They are almost certainly going to cease all operation on the old bridge, if not demolish it completely. The problem is that too much of the superstructure is rusting and disintegrating. thus it needs continual inspection. At this point it is legally untenable to keep the bridge in active use. If anything were to happen it would be disastrous.
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Bill Binns
@Faiz Imam – Point taken on the Cartier. I assumed all of the bridges were crumbling except the trusty old Victoria. As for the 16 lane Idea…roads can be (and usually are) widened at some point. Bridges usually cannot be widened. An abundance of lanes also means the bridge can be maintained without causing bottlenecks.
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ant6n
@Faiz
I thought the problem was that the decks of the Champlain bridge used pre stressed concrete, but the all the decks are stressed together – meaning you couldn’t replace a deck without the whole thing loosing structural integrity. Afaik the span over the st lawrence shipping canal was replaced/renovated at some point, and is structurally sound. -
Paul Schweltz
I posted my comment but it did not appear.
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qatzelok
We need to spend the last of our transit pennies on gold-plated car infrastructure. The only questions are how much gold, and who to name it after.
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TiGuy
Kate: vous avez raison. J’en avais trop compté.
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Kate
@PaulSchweltz I checked the pending comment list and your comment isn’t there. I don’t know what you did but I’m sorry the comment got lost.
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qatzelok 23:41 on 2012/06/18 Permalink
Bigger scandal: what happened to the underground garbage network that was already paid for and cost a few million dollars? Fughetabout it?
Bartek Komorowski 00:29 on 2012/06/19 Permalink
The Journal article is about bins in the Quartier international, not the Quartier des spectacles. The pneumatic waste collection system in Quartier des spectacles is supposed to go online next year according to this: http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=7917,86217570&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
MB 02:58 on 2012/06/19 Permalink
What happened to the million billion dollars that will bring MORE cars onto the island via the Turcot?
Tux 08:21 on 2012/06/19 Permalink
I feel like a city that’s willing to pay 3 grand for a single trash can and a supplier that’s selling 3 grand trash cans add up to corruption.
Alternate comment:
Christ, I’ve gotta get into the garbage can business. Apparently there are idiots I can get rich off of.
Bill Binns 08:52 on 2012/06/19 Permalink
The heavy cast concrete trash cans that you often see between the pumps at gas stations cost about $1500.00, the plastic ones sometimes cost more. These $3250.00 models look like they are made of steel and are pretty slick. They also appear to be so small as to be almost completely useless. Three grand is expensive but not Half-a-Billion-Dollar-Bus-Station-That-Never-Opened expensive.
Kate 09:15 on 2012/06/19 Permalink
Thanks for the correction and the vacuum trash link, Bartek K.
Numbers like the ones in that Journal story always sound suspicious. The Journal always likes to play for scandal, even if most of its shock stories turn out to be a question of presenting something pretty mundane in a particular light – today, for example, it’s about people from the health ministry on a jaunt to Italy.
But the trash cans, surely that number comes from dividing the contract total by the presumed number of trash cans and presenting that as a price tag for each item? By handwaving the process of specifying the requirements, the cost of the design process and any other overheads involved in the production, the items can be made to sound far more expensive than they actually are.
I’m not saying it couldn’t've been done more cheaply. Montreal has a terrible weakness for redesigning things from scratch instead of buying them from some big catalogue of municipal accessories. The benefit is that some people here get the paid work of doing a redesign; the downside is that taxpayers have to cough up.
ant6n 09:47 on 2012/06/19 Permalink
I’m with Bill; sounds like they’re off by a factor of two, not an order of magnitude.
Blork 11:55 on 2012/06/19 Permalink
I’d be much happier with less expensive trash bins but way more of them. :-/