The Mirror’s rant line went down with the ship. I even grabbed mtlrantline.com (for free) on the off chance of doing something with it, but meantime, somebody else did something similar and this happened.
Now Alastair Sutherland, aka Al South, has reopened “his” rant line, which should be regarded as the definitive rant line, I suppose.
Mr. Sutherland, if you see this, get in touch and I’ll figure out how to transfer mtlrantline.com to you, if you want it.
The transport minister said Thursday that we’ll have a Champlain Bridge replacement by 2020 but the current talk is about a temporary causeway to Nuns’ Island by 2015, itself to cost $100 million.
Nothing described as “temporary” should cost 100 Million Dollars. This is just awful planning and incompetence at it’s worst. The article says “He said $100 million is a preliminary estimate.” – Translation = “150 to 200 million if everything goes smoothly”
What do you suggest? That we buy back buildings on Nun’s Island to destroy them and change the path where the brigde is going? This would cost much more than 100M$. The new bridge must go where the old one already is and we have to destroy the old one while still allowing cars to travel. It is complicated and expensive.
Maybe all the back-filll needed can be come from a Metro extension to Anjou? (or the west island, or Laval, or longueuil, or whatever your preference is.
I do agree however, that the build-only-to-unbuild does not make a lot of sense. Add to that, the stretch of road just north of there is going to be rebuilt also.
Eh, if everyone was as smart as you and I, we would be so well off….
Although we’re officially in a heat wave we haven’t had the kind of sustained high temperatures yet that make the health authorities break out emergency measures.
Montreal will be paying Claude Dauphin $115,000 in the affair of the city comptroller reading his private emails. But since it’s an out-of-court settlement, it means the air hasn’t been cleared on why the comptroller – since relieved of his duties after carrying out a similar investigation on auditor-general Jacques Bergeron – felt it necessary to undertake such probing investigations in the first place.
The Gazette refers to the incident as hacking Dauphin’s emails, maybe on the model of the UK’s email hacking scandals that brought down the News of the World. But when someone at your place of work reads your email, first off they seldom have to “hack” anything, and secondly, quite often at some stage you’ve had to assent to the boss having access to your email anyway. I don’t know whether this would apply to elected officials, who may have more rights, but anyone using a corporate email account by now knows they have to be discreet in what they write. The contents are in some sense not really theirs, and are certainly not guaranteed to be securely private.
In any case, someone at your workplace does not have to “hack” into your mail – it’s a word best left for attacks from outside. Someone administering the system has a back door in, and there may be technicians and administrative assistants who know your password, if in fact you haven’t written it on a post-it and stuck it on your monitor. But “hack” sounds more exciting, I guess.
The big old metal fence that surrounds Maisonneuve Park will be taken down all along Viau and Rosemont. This brief news item mentions not only an intention to make the park more accessible, but also to discourage exhibitionists who’ve been waving their willies at passersby from inside the park.
I was under the impression that ont he Viau & Rosemont sides it was just a frost fence?
Google Streetview says you are correct. It’s still a metal fence, though I admit I was picturing the rather more solid spiky affair that runs between the park and the botanical garden, and around the garden along Pie-IX and Sherbrooke.
La Presse takes note that the Suburban’s Beryl Wajsman is agitating to reopen the right-on-red issue for the island of Montreal.
But it’s simple. Wajsman is quoted as asking whether drivers become more stupid on the island. The answer is yes. They do. Old streets are narrow, visibility is often poor. Even good drivers can make errors.
Changing this law would sacrifice lives to assuage driver impatience. We do not need to make this change.
As a pedestrian, I am frankly terrified by the notion that a red light could be declared not to be absolute. The red light that holds back all traffic is what keeps me safe.
Vélo-Québec agrees with me (PDF file). This is not a dossier that needs to be reopened.
Agreed. This is the last thing we need. There are already plenty of intersections where pedestrians have to dash across the street because of turning traffic. Twice, I have had cars actually come into contact with me while I was crossing Guy at St Catherine. I don’t know why they even bother to paint crosswalks on the streets. They are ignored 100% of the time.
I’m undecided about this one… Fairly often I see (and notice with myself doing as well, even on my bike) drivers waiting to turn right, staring at the light in anticipation of the change. As soon as they see a flash of green, off they go! … Without looking at anything else… I wonder if turning right on red might actually raise people’s awareness of what’s going on around them, since they have to pay attention to their surroundings and not focus just on a light on a pole forty feet away?
Sometimes I feel the same way about stop signs, whenever I see someone come to a (near) stop, and then fly through the intersection, without noticing the person trying to cross right in front of them. It happens all too often along Maisonneuve in Westmount (stop sign central).
I’m reminded also of the squares in Europe where most of the street signs and lights have been removed, and traffic accidents have been cut way down. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html is an older article describing what I mean. The redesign of Place D’Armes is another example, to some extent, with its ambiguous curbs.
I certainly don’t think we should make any change just to curb people’s impatience. I’ve also heard people argue that it would save gas wasted by idling cars, but I have a very hard time believing that would be remotely significant. And of course, any change like this would depend on there being adequate visibility, which often isn’t the case downtown.
As a pedestrian, I’m more afraid of the bicycles, going the wrong way on one way streets (we cross without expecting them), driving on sidewalks, through parks and on pedestrian streets, going through red lights and weaving into pedestrian crosswalks. Honestly, I think most car drivers get it… I don’t think the cyclists do.
I’m not sure about the cars, I think we can certainly limit it in the central part of the city without worrying about Kirkland, Cote-St-Luc and Ahuntsic drivers. It’s too broad to say NO to the whole city when there are certainly parts that are more driver traffic than pedestrian. Heck, in some places of Ahuntsic you wonder why they put in the sidewalks.
No way !
As a pedestrian, I’m more afraid of the bicycles
I’ve tried saying that various ways, Ephraim, but I never stop sounding like an idiot.
Jack, I have hopes this is just silly-season talk, and will vanish like dew off the rose when the election is called.
It is wrong to try and politicise what is essentially a technical question that has a technical answer.
The pedestrians will always argue about something in this city. Maybe If many wouldn’t jaywalk the drivers would listen. Right on red should be permitted. I’m all in favor for left on red too!
@Ephraim, “Look both ways before crossing the street” goes for the one-ways too. Just make it a habit.
There is a point that @Ephraim is trying to make: Bikes to pedestrians is the same as drivers to bikes. They don’t belong together.
@ Ephraim and Kevin, I couldn’t disagree more. Bikes might hit and bruise a pedestrians, cars kill them, their is no empirical comparison. My kids were taught to fear one thing living in the city….4,000 lbs of metal hurtling through residential streets and corners at 50- 60kmh, do not trust lights and signs, look both ways and cross your fingers .On the corner of Jean Talon & St. Denis, a place my kids crossed 4 times a day, 2 killed, 2 seriously injured in three years, by cars. My kids know, be really scared of cars and also Beryl Wajsman.
As a pedestrian I don’t want right on red; as a driver, I also don’t want right on red.
A few years ago, the news reported that “only” five people have been killed because of right-on-red off island (and a few dozen with broken bones), and Charest declared this “a success.”
By this measure, Luka Magnotta is even more of a success. Only one death.
Wasn’t a woman killed by being struck by a bicyclist while walking on the sidewalk along St Catherine a few years ago? I could swear I remember this but can’t seem to find anything on Google.
@ Bill Binns if you have the rest of the evening, Google the lives of pedestrians killed by cars. If you want to Google “cyclist and automobiles”, check out last years killing of three cyclists in Monteregie. To save you some time the driver was a little bit tired, as a result three families were destroyed. Because someone behind the wheel of a vehicle was fatigued, three lives snuffed out. Bikes don’t do this ……..ever.
Now google lives of pedestrians killed by TURNING cars. This would be more of a problem for cyclists crossing unseen on a green. As a pedestrian, cyclist, busser and driver I’d say on most of the island of Montreal, right turns on red lights is perfectly safe and logical: it saves time and money. This excludes the really dense areas such as downtown and old montreal, of course. And on streets during high traffic such as Saint-Denis perhaps prohibition between 7h and 18h monday to friday? Anyway. I see nothing wrong with this. At all.
Just 5 people killed so you can get Tim Horton’s faster, get a grip.
Sure, there are some intersections and some times when right on red makes sense, where it’s safe and the time saved would be worthwhile. But the law “no right turns on red anywhere” is clear and unambiguous. Changing the law for a few intersections, then putting up signs everywhere else (assuming that they’d be followed, which I doubt, and we already know how little enforcement there is) — it’s not worth the trouble.
We could also repeal jaywalking laws.
I worry about the cars as well, but not when I’m walking on a sidewalk and certainly not in the wrong direction on a one-way street. I haven’t yet seen a car illegally try to zip between people on Prince Arthur, Rue St-Paul or Ste-Catherine East. Heck, I’ve had bicycles zip by me on the sidewalk all the time. Yes, a car may get me killed or in the hospital… but a cyclist can get me hospitalized as well.
@MB – So I have to adjust to the dangerous and illegal activity, not expect cyclists to follow the rules of the road, never mind care for their own safety?
A crosswalk is called a cross*WALK* and a sidewalk is called a side*WALK*. By law, a cyclist is permitted to use both, as long as they are off of their cycle. I don’t know how many times I have had to avoid cyclists on pedestrian ways. Of course, when pedestrians walk on a cycle path or a motorized wheelchair uses a cycle path all you hear is complaining. How different is that from bikes on crosswalks, pedestrian streets or sidewalks?
Is it really that difficult to drive your bicycle to the right or left of the crosswalk?
After reading that only five people were killed by right-on-red, Alex wrote: “Anyway. I see nothing wrong with this. At all.”
I guess you’re one of those techno-worshippers who also believes in human sacrifice. How many martyrs do we need to sacrifice to the speedy right-turn sub-god, in your opinion?
You know what would save even *more* lives? A speed limit of 5kph. Or better yet, ban motor vehicles altogether.
It is utterly ridiculous that drivers can’t turn right on red. It’s legal everywhere else and yet somehow it’s unthinkable on the Island of Montreal. It makes no sense whatsoever and for all you ecologists out there, leads to cars standing there idling waiting for a green light.
Oh, and I don’t drive.
It’s not legal in Manhattan either. Similar conditions – older, narrower streets, impatient drivers, lots of pedestrians. I think New York is smart to keep this rule. I think we are too.
as far as i know, right turns on red are only permitted in north america and unknown everywhere else in the world. as kate said, it is a matter of weighing convenience against sacrificing lives. it says alot about our (automobile) society.
btw easily 100 or more lives per year could be saved in quebec, just by reducing maximum vehicle speed everywhere to 50km/h (assuming it is enforced).
@Jack
You’ve never suffered a concussion because some idiot cyclist decided to ride through a crowd of pedestrians.
Or had your collarbone snapped because some idiot cyclist decided he just could not resist biking on a sidewalk.
(My wife and a former boss, respectively.)
Bicycles do not belong on the sidewalk.
If you ever hear of an angry pedestrian attacking some dumbass cyclist who was biking along the sidewalk in NDG you know I’ve snapped and decided to enforce the law myself.
Agree wholeheartedly with Kevin and Ephraim. I’m getting away from the main point of the story and directing my post at comments, Montreal bikers are reckless and irresponsible. I wish I were talking about the Hell’s Angels. What troubles me more is how dismissive everyone is about this issue. While they may not kill very often, they have, and they do injure people on a regular basis and then cry victim at cars, when they are, collectively, worse than drivers most of the time.
It’s easy to say “look both ways when crossing one way streets”, but rest assured that I do it all the time, but when you’re at a four way intersection, it is mightly difficult to check all four cardinal directions simultaneously. You check left, then you check right, and somehow while your head is turned they appear on the left. Or they come from behind you. Cars don’t do that. Despite the fact that they’re sometimes irresponsible, you have a pretty good idea of how they’ll behave and you can anticipate how they will break the rules. Bikers are hard to predict, they come from the wrong direction moving extremely fast and take corners without caution. I am always tempted to kick them off their bikes when this happens. It’s fine to break the traffic rules from time to time – everyone in Montreal does it all the time – but is it too much to ask to use basic common sense and respect when you do it?
And I wish they’d get off the sidewalk. This is why we built a very extensive bikepath.
“If you ever hear of an angry pedestrian attacking some dumbass cyclist who was biking along the sidewalk in NDG you know I’ve snapped and decided to enforce the law myself.”
” I am always tempted to kick them off their bikes when this happens.”
These two quotes reveal a lot of the aggression drivers feel when surrounded by metal and impervious to the harm they do, it is not latent.
I used to sit in a staff room and listen to the folks who commuted by car in from the West Island.They required about a ten minute bitch session,traffic,pot holes, bus lanes,bikes etc. before they were calm enough to teach children, it was sad.
Thanks guys
WRT riding bikes on sidewalks I agree it’s something that should not be done in general but isn’t there a Montreal law that says kids under a certain age are in fact allowed to ride on the sidewalk? I was told this some time ago but don’t recall the age limit.
Obviously the turn right on red rule should remain as-is but I think it would improve the safety and livability of Montreal for most residential and commercial streets in the core to have a speed limit of 30km/hr like in many European cities. This number was determined based on the kill vs. injure data from car and pedestrian accidents. Note that for the areas I’m thinking of most automobile traffic can’t go much faster than 30 anyway due to traffic and lights and stop signs, etc. (except perhaps late at night when they probably should not anyway due to low visibility).
There would be some arteries which can be exempt this like Pie-IX, and most of Rene-Levesque, maybe University South of Rene-Leveque, etc.
Project Montreal set the limit to 40 only on smaller residential streets in the Plateau which is a step in the right direction. Cities are not for getting in and out of as fast as possible, they are for living in. Let’s make the streets safe for people again.
>>>Wasn’t a woman killed by being struck by a bicyclist while walking on the sidewalk along St Catherine a few ago?
A morning jogger was knocked down by a cyclist in parc Laurier a few years ago. Cyclists coming down from Rosemont (Christophe Colombe) are always in a hurry, never stop. I have witnessed close calls on several occasions.
Folks are really digging here to find the scarce examples of pedestrians hurt by cyclists, but this thread started about being about motorists turning right on red, so what cyclists do is not germane.
@Jack
I’m in a car maybe once a week. I spend my life on my feet or on two wheels.
QMI continues its metro theme with a video and text on the oversize car wash that cleans metro trains at night.
(I’m trying to find a list of all their metro-background links from this week, and will post it if I see it.)
Oh man, that’s cool! I wish I could visit.
Andy Riga looks at big promises made a year ago to improve public transit and help reduce traffic congestion, and how they’ve since panned out.
The Journal looks at the river water problem: after years of steady improvement in its quality, this trend turned around in 2010.
The article only seems to talk about the fecal coliform problem. There are other factors to consider with water quality, such as industrial pollutants and even algae levels. I don’t think blanket statements about water quality can be made unless they consider multiple factors.
A few years ago I read that the level of industrial pollution is way, way down, and as far as I know that trend has continued. So there might be high-ish bacterial levels, but at least we’re not dealing with high levels of metals and industrial chemicals.
Montreal’s traffic problems are not as bad as we tend to think according to this traffic congestion study by TomTom, a company that makes GPS devices. Vancouver drivers fend with the worst traffic in Canada, but Montreal is also better off than Toronto or Ottawa, at least in the results of this particular study.
Things that I read about this study in other cities’ media suggest that the big penalties were for places that have shorter but intense rush hours. The baseline info to which the congestion was compared was from non-peak times. So if a city is often congested even outside peak hours, it winds up with a good score because rush hour doesn’t come off looking that bad compared to other times of the day when the roads are busy.
Sure, there are all kinds of ways of assessing the phenomenon. Montreal’s slightly more relaxed lifestyle (who works Friday afternoons?) kind of distributes some of our rush hours over a long period, from 3 till 6:30 some afternoons.
It’s not a relaxed lifestyle, it’s time-shifted. Rush hour starts at 5:30 a.m. in Laval.
The drive home? Chock-a-block from 2:30 p.m. on Decarie/Met/15 north.
The study showed that the average commute in Vancouver was 30 minutes, and that Vancouver had the second worst traffic in North American (after Los Angeles) because travel time was increased by 30% during peak hours. That’s 9 minutes. I’ve waited in line ups in South Shore Tim Horton’s drive-throughs that took longer…
Montreal’s doing relatively well. Only 76 hours per year wasted in traffic congestion.
That’s two weeks full-time work spent listening to traffic reports.
Hamza 04:47 on 2012/07/13 Permalink
Thanks Kate.
Hamza 04:50 on 2012/07/13 Permalink
I wish somebody would publish this damn thing already
steph 09:01 on 2012/07/13 Permalink
John should keep running his site. some healthy competition is always good.
Kate 10:16 on 2012/07/13 Permalink
In theory, but this isn’t business. The anglo community is small, so that splintering a feature like this might easily reduce interest in each one to below minimal amounts.
Hamza, seriously man, are you OK? Your postings this week feel just a tad manic.
david m 21:01 on 2012/07/13 Permalink
personally, i’ve always found the “rant line” to be completely idiotic. “walk up the left side of the escalator, YOU ASSHOLES!” “your backyard barbeque smoke goes right into MY window!” “to all those people who want condos on the plateau: rot in HELL!” why bother with a dedicated “rant line” when you can get focused, interest-specific uniformed diatribes simply by visiting the comments sections of the journal article on your particular crank. it was funny in the 1980s when being uncivil and deliberately ignorant proved a counterpoint to the msm formulae, but now it’s just moronic.