Variety report on the film festival on the eve of its closing weekend; another Indiewire dispatch.
posted at 22:19

 
A brief piece on the Plattsburgh airport says its plans to become Montreal's U.S. airport are developing slowly. No mention of the average Canadian traveller's impulse to avoid U.S. security difficulties unless absolutely necessary.
posted at 15:29

 
Preliminary studies are to begin on demolishing the Bonaventure Autoroute as part of the overall plan to refashion the western part of the old port.
posted at 11:11

 
The city's hospitals are ill-prepared to cope with disasters, says the MUHC's trauma chief. This is in the "dog bites man" category alongside the news that the homeless suffer from more mental illness than those of us who are lucky enough to sleep indoors.
posted at 11:08

 
Massive six-page article on the Cirque du Soleil, being called the greatest Canadian company on earth.
posted at 11:00

 
The Montreal General Hospital is caught out rebuilding a parking structure on Mount Royal without a permit. UQÀM is refusing to face the Îlot Voyageur debt. And La Ronde is pouring raw sewage into the river. Our institutions. Let me show you them.
posted at 10:57

 
Tenth annual Mois de la photo begins next week and extends into October (shouldn't that be the Mois et demi?). I haven't a clue what "replaying narrative" means but I like the tabby cat.
posted at 23:56

 
A major gas leak forced the closure of streets and evacuations around Atwater and de Maisonneuve this afternoon. What's next, a plague of locusts?
posted at 23:45

 
Mayor Tremblay has resumed direct control over the downtown core, pushing Benoit Labonté aside.
posted at 11:15

 
Brief but OK piece on how Zeke's Gallery is closing tomorrow for good.
posted at 10:58

 
Eighteen thousand people have signed a petition to the new Quebec environment minister asking that she block the Île Charron real estate development. The petition is still open and can be signed here.
posted at 23:07

 
The city is requiring owners of buildings connected to the underground city – 61 structures belonging to 45 owners – to submit inspection reports verifying that the buildings are stable and safe.
posted at 22:56

 
The annual World Press Photo exhibit is here for a month again, once more at the Just for Laughs museum (which always seems like an unlikely venue, given the inevitable somberness of some of the journalistic photos every year). Opens Friday, daily 11h-21h and Thursday 11h-midnight.
posted at 11:06

 
Another large Catholic church, this Rosemont parish on Beaubien at 1st Avenue, is put up for sale leaving the fate of its unique Casavant organ uncertain.

On a tangent, I'll also note the announcement of the Orgue et couleurs festival, which takes place late in September.
posted at 10:57

 
Details on how the STM is having trouble maintaining a particular bus model in good working order. The STM is stuck with 480 of these lemons, which it now needs the money to replace as quickly as possible.
posted at 10:49

 
The University of Montreal is using part of Mount Royal as a garbage dump. And in other news of people being pigs, downtown smokers are still throwing their butts on the ground. I can tell Marcel Tremblay he isn't going to be able to change this: watch the body language of your average smoker finishing a cigarette. Most smokers know the habit is nasty and want to toss that used-up butt away as quickly as possible – and many feel the same way about the whole pack, considering how many empty ones I see on the ground.
posted at 10:42

 
The STM says it's short of buses at rush hour because too many of the Nova buses need repairs. Also, drivers and ticket agents are wearing their own clothes instead of uniform in order to publicize stalled contract talks with the city. Frankly I don't care what the drivers wear so long as they drive properly and keep their radios turned down.
posted at 23:58

 

Quebec draws a line in the sand and is giving the two sides a single week to settle the cemetery lockout that's dragged on since May.

It's too bad about the distressed families, but the cemetery looks wonderful now all overgrown with grasses and weeds, and it's full of crickets. I bet this is good for the city's bird population too.
posted at 23:48

 
Conservationists are gearing up to fight plans for high-rise development on one of the Îles de Boucherville, a beautiful nature park that's a refuge for many bird and animal species.
posted at 11:27

 
The city's executive committee has voted in favour of creating a festival plaza around the îlot Balmoral, near Bleury and Ste-Catherine.
posted at 11:23

 
Interesting piece on a Montreal maker of violin bows as he struggles with a shortage of material for a very specific and demanding kind of work; also a preview of classical music performances coming up.
posted at 11:16

 
Good piece on urban exploration looks at what little is left in Montreal of post-industrial structures to explore.
posted at 11:13

 
Merchants on Jean-Talon East want to have their neighbourhood declared Le Petit Maghreb, in an area where a lot of Maghrebi businesses have sprung up in recent years.
posted at 11:06

 
Tomorrow is the hundredth anniversary of the fall of the Quebec bridge and church bells will ring all over the province at 5:37 p.m., the time of the collapse, although how many Montreal churches will participate is not clear.
posted at 11:01

 
Repairs on the thousand-tonne concrete slab at McGill metro are likely to take months, closing de Maisonneuve (and delaying the completion of the bike path) and sparking a legal struggle between the city and the Bay. A La Presse editorialist remarks on the situation that, in the emergency, nobody could produce complete plans of that part of the underground city – as a forty-year patchwork of public and private edits, it's a work in progress, but no one was responsible for overseeing the condition of the structure as it evolved. That will have to change, because clearly relying on building owners to carry out inspections is not working out.
posted at 10:54

 
Yesterday's march to mark the 30th anniversary of Bill 101 was accompanied by political speeches; here's a heartfelt defense of the language law's restrictions on education choice, and Bernard Landry assures us that Quebec is neither bilingual nor multicultural. And I'm glad to know that anglos have adapted to the law since 1976, as their spokespeople Ms. Pelletier and Ms. Martin-Laforge assure us in this piece. Some statistics at the bottom of this article on the MNA for Laurier-Dorion, who makes the grave error of being pretty multicultural himself.
posted at 12:05

 
The city says it's going to do more inspections of privately owned parts of the underground city as a result of this weekend's crisis; a thousand metal posts are supporting the thousand-tonne slab that's at the heart of the whole thing; neighbouring tower 2021 Union seems to be crumbling too; cabbies weren't happy with the weekend's road closures and bosses and managers of adjoining businesses weren't too thrilled either.
posted at 11:33

 
The green line is back to normal, repairs are done and the safety perimeter is lifted except for de Maisonneuve between Union and Aylmer, at least according to some reports. It's kind of impressive how quickly things can get done when necessary.
posted at 23:50

 
Today Sophie Marceau is "charming and generous" as the film festival continues. Martini Boys has a viewer's guide up and there's a report from Indiewire too. I bet the fest is glad it's no longer based at the old Parisien, which would've been squarely within the safety perimeter of the crack of doom.
posted at 15:09

 
The railway museum (brace yourself for train noises and bad music if you click on that) is opening an exhibit on Maurice Richard and how NHL players in the Original Six used to get around on trains.
posted at 14:36

 
Three homicides in three days as the city racks up its 25th, 26th and 27th homicide of the year, including an efficient mid-afternoon execution in a bar on Saint-Hubert.
posted at 14:22

 
The city has reduced the safety perimeter around the crack of doom at McGill after emergency work this weekend; the original engineer from 1965 says the plans were good and the fault lies with shoddy maintenance and inspection; another engineer says we're just seeing the beginning of trouble from failing 1960 and 1970-era concrete structures; a glance at several buildings adjoining McGill station that could be endangered if the subsidence worsened; who will pay the bill for the emergency inspection and repairs?

In later news, three quarters of the immediate repairs are said to be completed but the mayor's unable to say yet whether the green line will be running normally tomorrow.
posted at 12:10

 

Nice piece about P. Gillman's on Duluth, and about Binky Holleran, who's resurrecting the mysterious old building. Above: a photo I shot through the window of the shop, back in 2004.
posted at 12:28

 
A little more on plans for the Viger Hotel building; concern about the western end of downtown and the bad state of buildings around the old Seville Theatre, but this piece is mostly about how people are hoping somebody will talk about doing something eventually.
posted at 12:24

 
More wordage but not yet much more information on the state of McGill metro and surrounding streets after yesterday's crack of doom incident and street and metro closures, which are inconvenient for many workers and shoppers, but necessary for safety. At least there's no word it's got any worse.
posted at 12:02

 
A chat with Kent Nagano and a preview of the upcoming MSO season; an encounter with the "sublime and radiant" Sophie Marceau; an interview with a scion of the Renaud-Bray book chain; a look at Montreal's Holocaust museum.
posted at 11:57

 
Blork was quick off the mark today, getting the story and a photo about this afternoon's downtown emergency: a large crack was seen in a passage between the Bay and McGill metro and, fearing a collapse, authorities closed the Metro green line between Lionel-Groulx and Berri. Work being done to build the de Maisonneuve bike path has been suggested as a cause, but nothing's certain yet.

The STM website indicates the closure will last all weekend that that a temporary bridging bus service will be found on Ste-Catherine Street for eastbound riders and on René-Lévesque for westbound. I've also heard, but have no link, that there will be more trains on the orange line this weekend. A sizable perimeter around McGill station (see CBC article) has also been barricaded off while engineers figure out how extensive the damage is.

McGill station is normally the busiest of the system, and students will be going back to classes en masse fairly soon. Bragging about our way-cool underground city is predicted to be muted for some time.
posted at 17:36

 

When a strolling street like the Main undergoes month after month of excavations with no end in sight, its businesses are hurt and some even close for good. People talk about the perennial spirit of the Main, but this summer might well do it permanent damage. Above: Another one bites the dust.
posted at 17:15

 
The Mouvement Montréal français is planning a march on Mount Royal on Sunday to urge government to redouble its efforts to strengthen the Charte de la langue français, still a generally popular force in Quebec society. It's in response to a recent ruling overturning some of the education restrictions of the language law.
posted at 17:10

 
Stories are coming out of the city consultation on public transit: groups are asking for fares not to rise and Vision Montreal proposes a $1.7-billion plan omitting the mayor's pet tramway dream and focusing on infrastructure. They're all reacting to the city plan on transit released in May.
posted at 14:55

 
Focus on Serge Losique, his funding problems and remarkable comeback as the World Film Festival opens with the Quebec movie Bluff.
posted at 14:27

 
Andrée Boucher, mayor of Quebec City, has died suddenly of a heart attack. She was 70.
posted at 14:06

 
The Sûreté du Québec admit they had men undercover in the Montebello protests earlier this week – but federal security minister Stockwell Day says he will not order an inquiry into the incident.
posted at 13:29

 
The Hockey News is predicting a bad year for the Sainte-Flanelle.
posted at 13:14

 
The embourgeoisement de notre espace continues apace with Old Montreal residents asking for a moratorium on new bar permits so's to keep the area quiet after dark.
posted at 12:47

 
Jacques Villeneuve has become a NASCAR driver; he's also just bought a huge domaine in the Laurentians. If he can make that much money not winning races, how much should I be able to make for not driving at all?
posted at 12:34

 
Two more Quebec soldiers have died in Afghanistan as the body of its first casualty is buried. Support for this war has never been strong in Quebec and each death is bound to shake it further, even as calm detachment over the issue is asked for and Jean Charest trots out the American-style exhortation to support the troops – which, all too often, means that we shouldn't question the ultimate aim of the military actions.
posted at 11:37

 

The proposed development plan for the old Viger station hotel building involves adding an 18-storey tower – is that something we need so close to Old Montreal and the waterfront, especially with the CHUM proposing towers for the area too?

The Exploring Southwest Montreal blog has a fascinating entry on another project to redevelop the old Northern Electric building, Point St-Charles' most massive industrial relic. The building has been renovated since its industrial days but this project aims to add more buildings to the immediate area as well.
posted at 11:24

 
I don't do this very often, but I've stumbled over two examples of the same bad English usage just now within about five minutes:

As far as complaints about the quality of the products received, he acknowledged having "heard that," but said he couldn't comment. – the Gazette, in a cranky-consumer piece.

As far as creating a guide to the FFM, it's hard to know where to start. – Hour, in a film festival piece.

I see this sloppy "as far as" more and more often, and it means nothing. If you must, it's "As far as x is concerned" or "As for x'' but even these tend to crop up in waffly, passively written, under-thought journalese. How about:

He acknowledged having heard complaints about the products, but said he couldn't comment.

It's hard to know where to begin if you're constructing a guide to the FFM.

There. That blue pencil was burning a hole in my pocket.
posted at 10:53

 
Statistics show that cultural jobs in Montreal are not keeping up with the rate in the rest of Canada.
posted at 22:58

 
The city is preparing to hear submissions about urban development and transport; blork blog notes the beginning of construction on the long-awaited crosstown cycle path along de Maisonneuve; the northern suburbs are growing fast and are competing for scarce agricultural land, as the numbers of off-island dwellers threatens to outstrip those living on the island.
posted at 20:46

 
The World Film Festival opens its 31st annual fest tomorrow with 230 features including 53 premieres, not bad for an event that was written off and left to die three years ago.
posted at 20:17

 
Montebello is returning to its rural quiet, but stories of police provocateurs being shown up among more peaceful protesters during this week's summit will continue to make noise in the media. The famous video is here.
posted at 19:22

 
Richard Bergeron of Projet Montréal has some interesting suggestions how to work on the waterfront east of Jacques-Cartier bridge, with examples of how other cities have handled similar issues.
posted at 10:54

 
Apparently the Frank Zampino Wikipedia prank didn't emanate from a city hall computer after all. So... he's not a member of Weight Watchers?
posted at 21:58

 
A view of how Casavant Frères makes a go of a labour-intensive, high-end business.
posted at 21:28

 
Like Dawson College before it, Marianopolis has now moved into a grand building that used to be the mother house of a religious order. Meanwhile, Dawson has – not surprisingly – upgraded its security systems for the new school year.
posted at 11:19

 
A young suspect has been arrested in the weekend murder of that 14-year-old girl in a north end park.
posted at 10:59

 

Some guy has launched a Facebook campaign to move Man and His World's iconic Calder statue to the Park-Pine intersection "where Montrealers and tourists could actually see it." A competing Facebook group is now organizing to fight the idea, even though it's not yet any sort of official policy.

The irony is that anyone who goes to the Old Port waterfront can see the six-storey statue across on the island. A lot of tourists do that, whereas I don't imagine many of them pass by the Park-Pine corner all that often.

Also, why not commission a new piece of art, or even several new pieces, for the intersection, rather than despoiling both a piece of our civic history and the more recent reclaiming of the statue's environs by the Piknic Electronik?
posted at 10:44

 
After making sure protest is nearly impossible at Montebello, Prime Minister Harper mocks the 1500 protesters who travelled all the way there to make their views known. Photos from Le Devoir.
posted at 01:15

 
The major story this week is the highly secretive Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America meeting in the normally sleepy town of Montebello, and the attendant protests there as well as in Ottawa and Montreal. There's little we can do to stop the prime minister selling Canada cheap, but I salute the folks risking the tear gas and police violence being used to keep this process away from the public eye.
posted at 22:53

 
Yet another item on the archaeology dig finding the oldest evidence of French presence in what's now Montreal.
posted at 13:08

 
A 14-year-old girl who had been living in a group home was found murdered in a north-end park this weekend, and a man driving a posh SUV mowed down a Transport Quebec worker and left him injured by the road, but was tracked down late last night. And then a murder-suicide setup was found in the east end, the woman dead, the man injured. And police have yet to find the attackers in the weekend's other SUV incident.
posted at 11:48

 
Further reports on yesterday's airport chaos: even inbound flights got tied up as outbound flights backed up. But the law makes no exceptions no matter how basically innocuous someone's forgotten Leatherman tool might be. The only remaining question is why he wasn't stopped immediately.
posted at 13:37

 

Interesting bit of history: a brief bio of John Redpath, whose name is still on a Montreal street and museum, as well as the old Redpath sugar refinery (and whose wife's family name, Drummond, was given to another downtown street). His family grave, shown above, is in Mount Royal cemetery.
posted at 12:50

 
Saturday evening around 10, a bomb threat was called in at the U.S. Consulate at Saint-Alexandre and René-Lévesque, but the perpetrator was arrested just after midnight.
posted at 02:32

 
The defacement of the Wikipedia entry on Frank Zampino may provoke an investigation at city hall, which is something of an over-reaction unless this is just a part of some bigger feud that's going on.

The old revisions of Zampino's entry have been locked down by Wikipedia, so they're not even visible any more. His entry on the French Wikipedia seems not to have been affected by this prank.
posted at 01:14

 
A bizarre incident on Rachel today led to multiple injuries after two men entered someone else's van in traffic and attacked him. He lost control and the van plowed into pedestrians and parked cars.
posted at 23:59

 
A man who somehow passed through airport security packing something variously described as pliers or a knife, stopped international flights from taking off at Trudeau for three hours Saturday until he was hunted down. Sounds like he won't be charged.
posted at 23:39

 
Oddly meandering piece talks about the survival of baseball culture in Montreal despite the departure of the Expos – but it's a stretch.
posted at 23:21

 

Interesting if brief piece on three diverse buildings that preservationists are trying to save as they slide into decrepitude, and another on several more that the city's either going to fix or demolish. Glad to know that the Craig pumping station (shown above) is one that will be repaired.
posted at 21:53

 
The inventor of poutine died this week in Drummondville.
posted at 21:46

 
Ragweed is flourishing in parts of town – in fact, in the far western and eastern parts of town that have more greenery left. Clearly the only safe thing is to pave the lot. ("Ravages" is something of an overstatement for a plant that can, if you're unlucky, make you sneeze.)
posted at 11:36

 
Somebody at city hall is all bent out of shape about some childish-sounding defacement of Frank Zampino's rather dull entry on the Wikipedia. The only funny angle is that the defacement seems to have come from the mayor's office. Could Hizzoner, in an atypical moment of levity, have suggested Zampino belongs to Weight Watchers? (Clue to City Hall: don't publicize this kind of thing – it'll blow over.)
posted at 11:03

 
The Botanical Garden's tropical greenhouse has fallen into decrepitude so the city's dishing out $1.6 million for immediate repairs.
posted at 10:54

 
The Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery union is dissatisfied with the offer made yesterday in negotiations to end the lockout.
posted at 10:47

 
Brief rundown of three photo shows at different locations in town, plus details on the current Centre d'histoire de Montréal photo contest.
posted at 10:44

 
More details on the archaeological dig on Place Youville and what it's saying about the earliest European settlement in the area.
posted at 22:02

 
Bad news as the blue-green algae which have contaminated so many Quebec waterways this summer have also been found in the St. Lawrence River.
posted at 11:19

 
The University of Montreal's Outremont railyard project is said to be supported by citizens, whatever that means, but there's more here on the public consultation office's critique of the plans.
posted at 11:11

 
Rima Elkouri raises a jaded eyebrow about the impending "accommodations" commission, the Gazette is all perky about it, and Richard Martineau waxes sardonic about Mario Dumont. The commission, officially la Commission de consultation sur les pratiques d'accommodement reliées aux différences culturelles, has a website.
posted at 10:57

 
Nice piece on Mile End sculptor Glen LeMesurier and his trackside sculpture park on Van Horne.
posted at 10:44

 
Sam Pollock, general manager of the Canadiens for 14 years and nine Stanley Cups, has died. Wikipedia bio and CBC obituary.
posted at 23:47

 
Ongoing archaeological dig on Place Youville by the Pointe-à-Callière museum shows that there were French occupiers in the area as early as 1600.
posted at 23:26

 
Next summer Montreal will have an Apple flagship store on Ste-Catherine near de la Montagne.
posted at 17:18

 
This autumn the Bouchard-Taylor commission will look into how Quebecers feel about accommodating minorities, in an atmosphere where Mario Dumont is defending his position on wanting to keep immigration rates at their current level. Brace yourself for the inevitable media onslaught, because although discussions will be held in 17 Quebec towns, Montreal's clearly the epicentre of Quebec immigration.
posted at 11:26

 
Some upcoming events I've noticed: this weekend's Matsuri Japon 2007 festival on obscure Rousselot Street in Villeray; following weekend's 18th-century market around the museum on Place Royale, worth a visit if only for the food stalls; and this Friday evening is the last ever concert at Zeke's Gallery.
posted at 11:09

 
Interesting review of Pullman, a wine bar with a buzz about it on Park Avenue.
posted at 01:11

 
A project that's been kicking around for years would see Laval's Highway 440 given a direct link to Highway 40 in Montreal, a tale being framed as a struggle between choosing a highway or an urban boulevard, as if not building a new highway just isn't on the board. However, as Fagstein points out, any road connecting the two is likely to run roughshod over delicate wetland terrain on Île Bizard and turn the Chemin de l'Anse à l'Orme into yet another suburban wasteland of strip malls.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the island, environmentalists are appealing to Mayor Tremblay to block plans by RDP-PAT to raze a park so's to construct a new borough office.
posted at 23:20

 
The city has told the University of Montreal to think again about its plan for the Outremont rail yard and make it more like part of the city. A wise ruling. The new campus is supposed to be open for the 2010 academic year but I have a feeling it will not be accomplished so quickly.
posted at 22:55

 
The STM is offering a reduction on September transit passes to anyone who hung onto a pass from May when partial strikes were taking place. Also today, a Midnight Poutine writer has some thoughts on the clunkiness and cost of travelling any distance through Montreal's suburbs when one's trip involves more than one transit system.
posted at 21:55

 
The man regarded as Montreal's godfather, Nick Rizzuto, wants to be bailed out of jail. He's 83 and has a heart condition.
posted at 11:19

 
A possible new tax on parking spaces is making retail owners cringe, but the city needs more money to maintain its roads, and what's fairer than taxing the folks who beat them up daily?
posted at 11:15

 
As the Château Montebello summit approaches, an initial demo is planned today at Central Station. Nobody's going to get close to the summit meeting between Bush, Harper and Calderón, which will discuss the almost comically Orwellian-sounding Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. More demonstrations are to follow later in the week.

Later note: 60 people demonstrated at the station this afternoon.
posted at 11:04

 
I'm pleased to blog that Neath of Walking Turcot Yards has blogged that I blogged that Coolopolis blogged that Fagstein wrote an article about the Coolopolis blog.
posted at 23:04

 
Just as we struggle with blue-green algae in our lakes and sewage in the river, the city welcomes 1500 specialists to a conference about inland waterways.
posted at 22:59

 
An elderly nun at the Soeurs de la Providence convent was murdered this morning and a man who was looked after by the convent's community centre has been arrested.
posted at 22:25

 
The river is tainted by the city's sewage at least as far as Sorel and nothing has been done about it but studies – but people are still fishing in the river and living to tell the tale.
posted at 11:19

 
Benoit Labonté and André Lavallée, respectively mayors of Ville-Marie and Rosemont/La Petite-Patrie, are given the job of steering the CHUM project through its implantation in the southeastern corner of downtown.
posted at 11:10

 
Graffiti festival organizer has given up on trying to establish a rapport with the city, after fourteen years of trying – if anything, attitudes have become more bourgeois, not less, in recent years.
posted at 11:07

 
Tennis star Roger Federer was beaten soundly in the Rogers Cup final by Novak Djokovic.
posted at 19:25

 

Rather gruesome account of a bad fire at Dominion Park, Montreal's first amusement park, which pre-dated even Belmont Park by decades. Here's a fascinating description of Dominion Park in old-skool HTML but with lots more pictures.
posted at 12:55

 
A man dresses in the hat and garb of a Hasid in Outremont and tests how people respond to him.
posted at 12:26

 
This is someone's fairly mundane blog entry but it has a few photos of the Grand Séminaire on Sherbrooke, views we don't often get to see. Too bad the photos aren't a bit bigger and a bit brighter.
posted at 12:00

 
The most expensive restaurant in town versus the cheapest hot dog, with glances at caviar and truffles.
posted at 11:32

 
Blogger Fagstein writes newspaper item on blog Coolopolis, and of course Coolopolis blogs about it. Now I'm making a note in my blog about it, and we could make it even more meta if someone goes on to blog that I've just blogged about it.
posted at 03:21

 
By far the biggest news out of Montreal this week has been Rogers Cup tennis, which draws to a close Sunday. I haven't been linking because it hasn't exactly been hard to find, and there are dossiers and journalist blogs all over.
posted at 13:12

 
A poll of city cabbies finds many of them work too many hours to be safe drivers.
posted at 13:03

 
It seems nobody knows what will become of three of the MUHC's hospital buildings if the new superhospital near Vendome metro is ever finished. But given how many old people we'll have in this society in the next few decades, isn't it obvious that the Royal Vic at least should immediately be turned into a geezerplex?

Meanwhile, the city is undertaking a massive study of the impact of the other potential superhospital on traffic and other patterns in the eastern edge of downtown.
posted at 11:22

 
Wall Street Journal looks at why French immigrants come to Quebec – and why they go back home.
posted at 11:14

 
The Times (UK) comes to visit the headquarters of the Cirque du Soleil.
posted at 11:10

 
The cost of the McGill superhospital near Vendome metro is now ringing up at $1.6 billion and construction won't even begin till 2009, if then.
posted at 23:28