I realize magazines have long lead times between writing and publishing, but this is kind of silly.

Anyway, the report is still worth reading, if only for its surprisingly honest self-assessment.

See also:

• July 13, 2008 — Olympics blogs ahoy!
• July 13, 2008 — YASTGB: Lampert at the airplane junket
• July 11, 2008 — Mitch Joel’s new Gazette column

Today was bill-payment day, when I login to my bank’s website, remember that Firefox somehow causes Desjardins an “internal error,” switch to Safari, login again, and pay my bills for the month.

Two bills, for cable/Internet and hydro, I get in the mail. One bill (credit card) still goes to my parents’ house, but I have all the info online anyway so I don’t need it.

And then there’s Rogers. A few months ago I switched from paper billing to online billing because I wanted a copy of my call history. And the only way I could get that for free was to have online billing. But since then it’s been a nightmare trying to get access to my bills. And even when I do get access, my “call history” is either entirely blank or throws up an error when I try to read it.

Today, my login was “unsuccessful” and my account suspended for no apparent reason (the password was good, and it was my first login attempt). I gave up and decided I’m going to have them switch me back. And since I can’t login to their website, it’ll have to be by phone.
My request was simple: switch from online to paper billing

I press 8 for English, and go through their voice menu. I have to answer a bunch of questions (is my problem “billing” or “account management”?), get stuck in dead-ends (no I’m not trying to pay my bill) and after a half-dozen of these menus (finally telling it I want to speak to a representative), I get another menu asking me if it’s for wireless, cable, Internet or other, then another asking if it’s about a cellphone, blackberry, pager or other, then another asking me to enter my 10-digit phone number, then I’m put on hold.

First representative asked for my phone number, my name, my postal code and my date of birth. She’s very nice and after I tell her my problem she explains that she’ll need to send me to something called “E-care” and they’ll fix it right away. She also says I can do it online much easier, but when I tell her Rogers.com is a nightmare to use she’s sympathetic and says something along the lines of how some people have problems.

Second representative asked for my phone number, my name, my postal code and my date of birth. I tell him my problem and he says the system that takes care of this is “not available to (him) at the moment”, so he’s going to transfer me to another representative who’ll take care of it right away.

Third representative asked me for my phone number, my name, my postal code and my date of birth. I tell her my problem and she explains that her computer can’t make that change and she’ll need to send me to “e-care” so they can reset it. She also says I can do it online. I am confused, because I already thought I was at “e-care”, but she corrects me. So I guess Rep #2 screwed me there.

Fourth representative has a thick Indian accent. He asks me, one at a time, for my phone number, my name, my postal code and my date of birth. I tell him my problem, and he asks me why I want to change. Rather than spend 20 minutes trying to argue with this guy about the hellhole that is Rogers.com, I bite my tongue and just say I prefer paper billing. He explains I can do it online, but he can do it himself as well.

He explains he’s made the change and now my previous bills (that were only online) are now inaccessible. I ask him how the heck I’m supposed to get copies of them for tax purposes now. He says he can put me back on online billing, and I can download the bills and then switch back. I figure now I have to tell him about not being able to login, and he unlocks my account lockout. I login (with the same password I used before) and I get access to the system. He explains (”Do you see the girl on the couch? Just under her…”) what to do and I end the call.

Total call time: 12:37.

I go to this month’s bill, and click on the button that gives me a PDF version. I get this:

System Error / Erreur système

We’re sorry, the epost service you have requested is temporarily unavailable. Please try again shortly. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Désolé, le service postel que vous avez demandé est temporairement inaccessible. Veuillez essayer à nouveau un peu plus tard. Nous nous excusons de tout inconvénient que cela pourrait vous causer.

So I can’t download my bills, which means I can’t unsubscribe from online billing, which means I just wasted 20 minutes.

Thanks Rogers.

Online billing, paper bullshit

But, I hear you ask, what about all the trees I’ll be hurting?

Well, since I’ll need to print my bills out anyway, the effect is pretty minimal. They pay postage, so that’s not a factor.

Besides, Rogers doesn’t really seem to care about the environment themselves, as evidenced by a letter I received in the mail this month.

The letter, by Rogers Wireless president Rob Bruce, has nothing but bullshit marketingese like “continued loyalty”, “never take for granted”, “working hard”, “committed”, “exceed your expectations”, “unprecedented”, “Canada’s Most Reliable Network” (capitalized, of course), “clearest reception and fewest dropped calls.*” (their footnote, not mine), “moving forward”, “even more innovative technology”, “improve your experience with us”, “our commitment” and “work relentlessly”. And he wishes me and my family a “happy upcoming holiday season.”

What gets me about the letter is that it was mailed to me on thick bond paper (about as thick as a business card) in a thick envelope. Could they not have just emailed this BS to me?

See also:

• April 24, 2008 — Recognize any of these faces?
• February 14, 2008 — Getting biblical about spam
• January 15, 2008 — Rogers TQS?

The solution to the problem of traffic barrelling down Toupin Blvd. toward a non-existent bridge to Laval would be to simply disallow it. Traffic heading north on Cavendish would be forced to turn left (toward Highway 13) or right (toward Marcel-Laurin Blvd., Route 117), the nearest roads with bridges to Laval. Traffic heading south would be unrestricted.

Meanwhile, a couple of “environmentally friendly” additions to the plan include reducing the width from three lanes to two in each direction (Toupin is two lanes, Cavendish is three), and adding bicycle paths in both directions (which is great and all, but they don’t go anywhere on either side).

See also:

• April 26, 2008 — The Toupin Blvd. plan
• October 20, 2007 — Making the case for a quieter Toupin Blvd.
• August 10, 2007 — The other Cavendish extension

Well, I give you Bill 41: “An Act to foster transparency in the sale of gasoline and diesel fuel.” This bill will do two things:

1. Force gas companies to justify increases to gas prices at the pump
2. Force gas companies to display the minimum gas price calculated by the Quebec Energy Board at the pump.

This will accomplish two things:

1. Waste a lot of time
2. Waste a lot of money

It’s a stupid solution to a stupid problem. You see, Quebecers (and most North Americans) hate the sky-high gas prices they see at the pump every day when they fill up their car to go to work. They reject the idea of supply and demand and want the government to do something about it. Change the laws of economics I guess.

But they also care about the environment and want the government to step in to do something about that too.

News flash folks: the No. 1 deterrent to carbon-emitting wasteful motor vehicle use is high gas prices. It’s fair, it’s self-regulating and it’s transparent.

Yes, it’s a bummer for suburban soccer moms who use their gas-guzzling minivans to bring kids to school. And it sucks for the transportation industry, which will increase the price on goods (and especially fruits and vegetables). But it’s still the best method available.

The ADQ has quickly panned on the idea (not because they don’t pander to the lowest common denominator, but because they can easily criticize a plan without offering any better solutions). If they can convince the PQ, that’ll put an end to the bill.

Greener doesn’t mean green

Meanwhile, a think tank has argued that a federal “freebate” program, which offers economic incentive for people to buy less-polluting cars, needs to be extended to pickup trucks.

This program isn’t as obviously stupid as the Quebec gas plan, but it’s based on a faulty assumption: That the economic incentive will cause people to buy vehicle X who would otherwise buy gas-guzzling vehicle Y. That may be true for some people, but others will probably choose to buy a cheap hybrid car they can afford instead of not buying a car at all. That will have a net negative impact on the environment.

The problem is that while many of these cars are better for the environment than their non-hybrid, fully-gasoline powered cousins, they are not good for the environment compared to public transit, biking, walking and other methods of getting around.

If you’re interested in a zero-emissions car, you can look at Zenn Motor Company, which builds zero-emission, no-noise cars in Quebec. But their cars weren’t even legal in Canada until this month.

These are the kinds of vehicles that have to be promoted, not Toyota’s slightly-less-emissions hybrid car or a bus that runs on 3% biodiesel.

See also:

• January 6, 2008 — CRTC looking at eliminating top-40 radio restrictions
• December 25, 2007 — Bell Canada, our Do Not Call overlords
• November 16, 2007 — Own a photocopier, get sued

The zombies are to meet up outside the de Maisonneuve entrance to Dawson College (3040 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W., metro Atwater) at noon. From there, they’ll take an unannounced course and walk zombily around downtown. There are currently no plans to interfere directly with the parade, though there are bound to be some crowd overlaps.

The parade, meanwhile, takes the Standard Downtown Parade Route, starting at Fort and Ste. Catherine and going east until St. Urbain. The parade starts at 11 a.m. and is expected to run until about 2 p.m.

For an example of what a zombie walk looks like, you can check out this video of a similar walk in Trois-Rivières in September.

The zombie walk has a goal of promoting environmentalism, and has gotten form letters of support from the office of Al Gore and David Suzuki (though the latter wrote his brief letter by hand). It’s still unclear how zombies are going to help the environment.

At least one after party is already planned, though its location is being kept secret.

For more information on the Zombie walk, consult its Facebook page. (Or, if you have moral objections to Facebook, just ask me and I’ll see if I can find out.)

See also:

• September 4, 2007 — Return of the Zombie

Why do I think this is insane? Look at a map of the mall (click to embiggen):

The red areas (which represent just about everything but the buildings) are parking lots and roads. The green areas (which are just about invisible) represent foliage (trees, grass), which fill spaces that they haven’t figured out a way to park a car in yet.

It gets worse. Besides enough space to park 4,000 cars simultaneously (600 of which are underground), the giant strip mall from hell has absolutely no provisions for pedestrians. Traffic lights have no pedestrian crosswalks. Sidewalks abruptly end forcing people to walk through parking lots. The closest bus comes only every half hour, and it doesn’t enter the mall. There are no bike paths anywhere on or near mall grounds, and very little bike parking space.

So you’ll forgive me if statements like this make me laugh:

«Ici, l’environnement, c’est devenu une priorité. Maintenant, quand le temps est venu de faire une dépense, on essaie toujours de trouver un moyen de réduire nos dépenses en énergie. C’est important de trouver des façons écologiques de gérer nos activités», précise de son côté le directeur-adjoint, Raymond St-Jacques.

«Ce projet est un bel exemple de responsabilité sociale et un effort important pour l’environnement, de dire la mairesse de l’arrondissement d’Ahuntsic-Cartierville, Marie-Andrée Beaudoin. Nous les félicitons et il nous fait grand plaisir de soutenir ce projet par la cueillette des matières recyclables sur le site-même du Marché Central.»

Reading further, you get the real reason behind this move (which, of course, should have been done years ago):

D’ici peu, le mégacentre commercial aimerait obtenir la désignation environnementale Go Green, une certification canadienne remise aux établissements commerciaux qui réduisent leurs dépenses en eau, en électricité et autres, afin d’innover et d’améliorer leurs pratiques environnementales.

In other words, it’s a B.S. PR stunt designed to get a B.S. corporate “green” certification that doesn’t mean anything, and convince the yuppie SUV drivers that by putting a used water bottle into a green bin they’re doing their part for the environment.

Shutting Marché Central down would do the environment far better than any PR stunt they can think of.

And shame on “journalist” Philippe Boisvert and Courrier Bordeaux-Cartierville for allowing a company to fool them so easily with smoke and mirrors.

UPDATE: Chris DeWolf agrees with me.

See also:

• October 29, 2007 — Krispy Kreme forgot location, location, location

Also this week is a Bluffer’s Guide on composting, which was prompted by the mayor’s request for $1 billion to create a curbside organic waste collection program (among other initiatives).

UPDATE (Oct. 30): The Globe and Mail, always one step ahead of the curve, discusses some girls who are bucking the trend by going less sexy and more fabric-y.

See also:

• October 15, 2007 — Killing the plastic bag won’t be that easy

The residents (whom I dubbed “concerned citizens” as you see above) oppose it for the obvious reason that it would turn Toupin Blvd. into a throughway (even though there’s nothing beyond the neighbourhood — the closest bridges to Laval are at Marcel-Laurin to the east and Highway 13 to the west).

Stone (a husband with three hyperactive toddlers I found after he made a comment on this blog) makes a compelling case. His concerns mainly revolve around philosophical objections to creating more roads and encouraging single-passenger traffic. He takes public transit to work and used to bike everywhere.

He was a good sport about the interview, even when I flat-out accused him of being part of the problem by contributing to urban sprawl.

See also:

• April 26, 2008 — The Toupin Blvd. plan
• August 10, 2007 — The other Cavendish extension
• November 28, 2007 — The Toupin Blvd. “solution”

Plastic shopping bags, especially those from grocery stores, are considered one of the bigger environmental issues facing us (they’re not actually such a huge issue, but they’re treated that way). They line streets, clog sewers, choke children and make crank-calls to your boss. They have a high volume and low weight, which makes recycling them inefficient.

So various jurisdictions are looking into ways to reduce or even eliminate this urban blight. Quebec is considering imposing a tax on them to reduce their usage, while a Maxi store in Sherbrooke has decided to eliminate them in favour of reusable bags, bins and favourable publicity.

Other countries around the world have taken different approaches to these bags since bout 2002 (Wikipedia has a roundup), most being a mixture of financial disincentives and voluntary compliance. So far (unless I missed one), no industrialized Western nation has banned them outright.

No magic answer

Plastic bags are clearly detrimental to the environment and their use should be heavily reduced. Even the plastics lobby thinks so (though their propaganda literature suggests otherwise). But the proposed solutions all have problems:

Taxes: Serge Lavoie of the plastics industry makes some good (albeit extremely self-serving) points about why this is problematic. Well, actually he makes three points, two of which are bullshit. He says plastic bags aren’t a problem, but then says they’re a minor problem, and then points to other problems and asks why we aren’t tackling those (I’ve heard similar arguments about why we shouldn’t criticize Israel for human rights violations). He also points to legislation and public opinion polls, which only proves that their lobbyists are working hard. But the point that makes a lot of sense is that people are going to find ways around the law. It’s already happened in Ireland, where people are using bags that are worse for the environment but not subject to the tax. Simply put: when money is involved, the market will find a way around it.

Voluntary compliance: The argument against this one is simple: People say things that make them look good, but greed and laziness set in when nobody’s looking. People are already aware of the problem, and many are changing some of their habits, but voluntary compliance alone isn’t going to solve the problem.

As someone who does most of his grocery shopping lugging around a big green bin, I can attest to other problems with the system as it is now:

• Bags are still considered proof-of-purchase. It’s ludicrous when you think about it, because it’s easy to slip something into a bag, but it’s how many stores distinguish between stuff you’ve bought and stuff you haven’t. Re-using bags leads to confusion and suspicion. Half the time when I go by the cash at Loblaws, the cashier has to ask me whether or not I’ve purchased the reusable bin I’m using.
• Minor inconveniences at the cash. Aside from the aforementioned suspicion, there’s other annoying problems. Groceries are placed in bags automatically unless you ask for something different. Rebates offered for not taking plastic bags aren’t always applied. My favourite is when trying to use the self-checkout at Loblaws. Not only is the system geared for bags (using a bin means balancing it on the scale and hoping it doesn’t fall), but you need operator assistance before you can start scanning your groceries. If a big chain like Loblaws makes it difficult, imagine what it’s like for smaller places.
• Remembering to bring your bags. I don’t own a car, and a lot of the time I do groceries it’s on the way home from something. So I don’t have my big cumbersome bin. Plastic bags are small enough to put in your pocket, but not everyone will think ahead necessarily.
• Merchants give good PR about protecting the environment, but in reality they just don’t care. They have no problem polluting as much as they can behind the scenes. They build massive buildings with ultra-high ceilings and keep them super-heated in the winter and super-chilled in the summer with wide open doors. Merchants in San Francisco promised to put a lid on their plastic bag use to avoid a tax on them, but ended up doing nothing.

Outright banning: This extreme step has been proposed in some developing countries as well as many small cities and towns. But they run into similar problems as taxing above: people will simply find a way around the problem, and that way might have even worse environmental consequences.

Finally, any drastic measure also ignores the fact that most households have already found ways to reuse plastic bags. There are two most common:

1. Garbage. Put the bag in the kitchen garbage can, dump everything unrecyclable in it, tie it up and throw it in the big garbage bin at the curb. Depending on your output, households can go through at least a couple of these each week. (That would survive a reduction, but not an elimination of plastic bags)
2. Poop scooping. One or two bags a day, per dog, are used to scoop and dispose of dog poop.

In both these cases, an alternative would need to be found. Using no bags would be impractical, because humans would have to get their hands dirty touching the slimy grossness. Purchasing bags is an option, but would probably be unpopular since we currently get them free. Instead, I can imagine a lot of dog poop going unscooped as a result of this ban.

Biodegradable bags: This is the solution that seems to be the magic solution to all these problems. BioBag Canada certainly thinks so. But these bags are still in development, and very expensive compared to plastic bags. The industry also argues that biodegradable isn’t necessarily better in landfills, because it releases methane and carbon dioxide, while plastic bags just sit there and do nothing. Despite that, I think this will eventually be a favourable option.

Hypocrisy

Finally, I’ll add one bit of ludicrous hypocrisy to this debate: Cities who are starting green projects are requiring use of disposable bags where they aren’t necessary:

• In Côte-Saint-Luc, residents who are part of a pilot curbside compost pickup project are being given a short supply of compostable bags, which they will then have to replenish by paying for them out of pocket. They then place these bags in a special bin that will be emptied into trucks. But why the middle man? Why not just throw your food scraps directly into this container? Yeah, stuff might stick to the inside, but what’s the worst that’ll happen? It’ll decompose?
• Even worse, Ville-Marie has phased out recycling bins in favour of clear plastic bags that look a lot like garbage bags. They seem to think it’s better that way. Maybe they’re right, but I see a lot of confusion between garbage and recycling, bags ripped open by raccoons looking for food and homeless people looking for returnable containers. Not to mention that it costs money and looks awful.

Baby steps

So what’s my solution? Everything in moderation. Voluntary measures will probably be the most successful in the short term. You don’t want plastic bags clogging your sewers? Don’t bring them home from the grocery store. Bring reusable canvas bags when you shop. Get retailers to do more to encourage use of reusable bags and bins, as well as collecting used bags.

Innovative ways to reduce bag use, combined with phasing in of compostable/biodegradable bags where preferable, will probably be the eventual solution to this problem. But any solution has to be cheap, convenient, practical and aesthetic if it’s going to succeed. Trying to force it is asking for it to backfire.

See also:

• August 10, 2007 — Please leave your bags at the tax office
• February 11, 2008 — PicApp: Ads for copyright compliance?
• January 21, 2008 — Bye bye, ByeByeLogement

Whereas in Paris the bikes cost the equivalent of $1.50 a day (plus a $150 refundable deposit), The Gazette reports the Montreal system would cost “as little as $1 per half-hour”.

Perhaps difference in price is meaningless for most people. If it’s necessary to get the system running then I’m all for it.

Then again, as Kate reminds me, there doesn’t appear to be any insurance against bike theft. So if someone makes off with it while you’re doing your shopping, you’re on the hook for that deposit. Enough theft of these easily-identifiable bikes might drive people away.

CORRECTION: I goofed. The Paris system is 1 Euro a day plus the rental fee, at a rate which increases the longer you use it (which to me doesn’t make any sense — it would just encourage people to return a bike and take another one).

See also:

• July 13, 2008 — Street sale mania
• June 29, 2007 — Take your bikes outside - the metro doesn’t want them

The Westmount Lookout, at the Westmount peak of Mount Royal, offers spectacular views of the southeast, and is a popular tourist destination.

Unfortunately, because it’s such prestigious real estate, insanely rich people live there and they don’t want no stinking commoner buses roaring up their streets.

This means that the only way to get there is to walk up from a few blocks away, along streets whose sidewalks should be broken up into stairs.

In this image, the yellow area is the higher part of the mountain’s peak, and crossing into it is painful on the feet.

Instead of having actual bus service to this lookout, Westmount is proposing building a pedestrian walkway connecting the top of Ridgewood to a neighbouring street. From there people could walk across the park and to the lookout.

Why wasn’t this done already? Politics. Ridgewood is in Côte-des-Neiges, where the peasants live. Connecting it with a neighbouring street in Westmount would bring violence, drug use, prostitution, theft, sodomy, corporate embezzlement, profanity and bad manners into their uber-rich-and-therefore-problem-free community. So instead, people who want to walk between adjacent streets must climb down a hill, walk along Côte-des-Neiges and then climb another hill.

The pedestrian path is way overdue, and the access is an acceptable compromise (especially since the 11 bus also connects to the other two lookouts). But it’s still making it awkward to get to a public place that we should be encouraging everyone to visit.

See also:

• December 22, 2007 — George Bowser wants your waste
• December 17, 2007 — Wanna buy Mitch Melnick’s house?

The list of routes (66, 80, 103, 105, 162, 165, 166, 535) seems a bit biased toward Cote-des-Neiges and NDG (only one of the routes doesn’t travel through that borough), which also happens to be the home of Tremblayite Snowdon city councillor and STM vice-chair Marvin Rotrand. But we probably shouldn’t read too much into that.

Instead, let us celebrate the awarding of a new contract to NovaBus, a company that loves to create lemons when experimenting with new designs for buses, confident that because they’re the only Quebec company in the business, gross incompetence won’t stop the customer from coming back for more.

See also:

• March 28, 2008 — Attention: Un feu dans l’autobus nous oblige à … run for your lives!
• August 29, 2007 — Montreal’s bus death traps
• July 14, 2008 — STM to add evening service to downtown routes

The problems fall into a few very familiar categories: Finger-pointing when more than one organization is involved, low quality from a low bidder, and experimentation with new technologies that inevitably fails half the time.

It’s what happens when you make guinea pigs out of low-income families.

See also:

• March 22, 2008 — Gravenor comes clean

This may shock and amaze you, but I’m taking a somewhat cynical view of this.

First of all, it’s not like the environment needs to have awareness raised about it. It’s the cause célèbre du jour, for crying out loud. It’s like trying to raise awareness of Facebook.

Secondly, it’s kind of gimmicky. Like that Live Earth concert that was more about music than the environment. I have a feeling this will be more about bloggers than the environment.

It’s well-intentioned, and I wish them well, but I just don’t see it doing anything concrete to help the environment.

See also:

• No related posts

Many moons ago, the Quebec Transport Department figured out that expropriating land from homeowners to build highways was a very expensive and time-consuming process. To help solve it, they asked themselves: Wouldn’t it be a good idea to “buy” the land now for a highway development later?

Enter the 440. Expecting to eventually link this East-West Laval highway to Highway 40 in Kirkland, the government planned a route for it and reserved the land so nobody would build anything there. At the time, of course, the entire area was undeveloped forest and farmland. Now, with development all around the proposed route in both Laval and the West Island, it’s easy to see on a satellite picture where the highway is going to go: on the winding strip of green between those houses.

Hoping to alleviate the West Island’s rush-hour traffic problem, Pierrefonds wants to build an “urban boulevard” on the Montreal Island part of the link, between Gouin Blvd. and Highway 40. It would, Pierrefonds mayor Monique Worth says, alleviate traffic on the main north-south axes: St. Charles Blvd., St. John’s Blvd. and Sources Blvd.

OK, I get St. Charles. But Sources? By what stretch of the imagination is some route that takes Sources now going to benefit by this new road 10 km west?

Anyway, Worth cut in to her own argument in a CTV News interview today when she admitted the obvious: That rush-hour travellers to downtown would “still hit traffic on the 40″. The other obviousness is that almost all of the northern West Island is east of this proposed boulevard, meaning they won’t use it to get downtown.

The idea isn’t necessarily bad. It will help alleviate traffic on St. Charles which heads between the northern West Island and western off-island areas. But it’s not going to help one bit with the Great West Island Trek Downtown, whose biggest traffic problem is the Decarie Circle (and Highway 20/Highway 13 merge).

As for Highway 440, the link would have some advantages, the biggest one being a fixed link between Ile Bizard and Laval. Currently, though there are three ferries, there is no fixed link from Highway 40 to the north shore between Highway 13 and Hawkesbury, Ontario. That makes some significant detours.

But the proposed link also runs right through Ile Bizard’s nature park. And cutting down all those trees to build a highway is not only unpretty, it kind of goes against the whole “environment” thing.

Let’s start with small steps, the first being a fixed link between Ile Bizard and Laval. When the roads along that route start overflowing with traffic, then we can talk about building a highway.

Until then, keep the right-of-way reserved for now. Maybe have a dirt path for people to bike through. It’s trees, and they’re good, mmm’kay.

See also:

• November 14, 2007 — A city planner is getting rich somewhere
• April 14, 2008 — Suburban border security
• January 16, 2008 — Montreal Geography Trivia No. 8

Cry me a bloody river.

There are plenty of things people can do to help the environment. Drive less, use less electricity, recycle more. Wasting less potable water is on this list. It costs energy to purify water for drinking, and there’s not much fresh water left in this world.

On the other hand, we need to water our lawns. I mean, it’s not like they water themselves, right? It’s not like some mystical, magical force somehow causes water to spontaneously fall from the sky in large quantities every few days.

Oh wait, THERE IS!

It’s called rain. And if it’s not enough to keep your lawn green and healthy, then there’s something wrong with your lawn, and it doesn’t belong in this environment. Do something green for a change and don’t waste so much energy trying to override nature.

See also:

• No related posts

See also:

• February 11, 2008 — PicApp: Ads for copyright compliance?
• January 21, 2008 — Bye bye, ByeByeLogement
• January 19, 2008 — When 90% just isn’t good enough

Quebec is considering a $0.20 per bag tax on plastic shopping bags. The intent is to cut down on their production, use and disposal.

I’m in favour of reducing the use of these bags. I have a green basket I use when doing grocery shopping. Those few bags I do use get reused to hold what little garbage I produce, and any which aren’t usable get recycled.

I’m even in favour of charging for bags. Something small, like $0.05 per bag, won’t make a big difference to the people who burn through money, but it might make some think twice about double-bagging that milk or using an extra one for the can of concentrated orange juice.

But I’m not crazy about the idea of a tax, that benefits neither the consumer nor the retailer, encouraging both to find a way around it. There’s an (admittedly self-serving) opinion in the Toronto Star which explains some of the cons to such a tax. Basically it comes down to the fact that people need something to carry their groceries in. In some cases this means finding loopholes — those bags which for some technical reason aren’t subject to the tax, and may be worse for the environment.

That’s basically my issue. We need an alternative. The green baskets are great, but they have a high initial cost (around $5), and you need to lug them around. The re-usable bags also require forethought, and might not be sufficient to carry a week’s worth of groceries. Their use should be encouraged beyond the $0.05 per bill rebate that Loblaws offers, but it’s not a complete solution. What about smaller stores? What about department stores like Wal-Mart? What about those clear bags we put fruit in? What about all that excessive packaging that’s used on electronics?

That, combined with the fact that plastic bags still seem to be the method a lot of places use as proof of purchase.

Once we handle these things, then we can talk about drastic measures to reduce bags. In the meantime, I don’t get why stores don’t charge a small amount per bag, and offer more incentives for people to bring their own bags (like, say, ending the policy of everyone having to surrender their bags at the cash when they enter).

UPDATE: The Gazette’s Max Harrold has some man-on-the-street reaction to the idea.

See also:

• January 19, 2008 — When 90% just isn’t good enough
• December 11, 2007 — Vaillancourt getting greedy
• October 15, 2007 — Killing the plastic bag won’t be that easy

For those unfamiliar with de Salaberry, most of it is a two or four-lane road, starting from Sommerset Street in the West (where it crosses into Kirkland) and ending just east of Sources Blvd.

What makes this road unusual is that right next to it, for almost its entire length in Dollard, is a wide grassy area with power lines on it. The plan was to eventually turn this small road into a major East-West thoroughfare, halfway between Pierrefonds Blvd. and Highway 40. That never happened, mostly because it would just shift traffic onto Sources and wouldn’t solve West Island traffic headaches.

Unclear on the fact that nothing will solve West Island traffic headaches so long as the airport, the rail yards and Highway 13 stay where they are, he’s been trying to push through a development plan that would extend the street through the Bois de Liesse park:

Needless to say, that plan didn’t win over too many people. So instead, he’s now proposing that it be a bus-only lane. Now you can’t accuse him of not being environmentally-friendly. He’s pro-transit!

There’s a few problems with the idea though:

1. There’s already a dedicated public transit system running through the Bois de Liesse. It’s the Montreal-Deux Montagnes train line. And it’s used plenty.
2. The big problem isn’t rush-hour service but the rest of the time when there’s no express shuttle between Fairview and the Côte-Vertu metro station. The success of the 470 Express Pierrefonds bus (which runs shuttles during rush-hour and then continues north and west) should give the STM the idea that a regular-service express shuttle (like the 211 between Dorval and Lionel-Groulx) is a good idea, but they haven’t done anything. Outside of rush-hour, the shuttle time is 20 minutes.
3. The only logical place for a bus to go is the massive Fairview bus terminal. This would mean the bus would go north, then west, only to go back south again. Why do this when the highway is right there?
4. It’s still just as bad in terms of developing one of Montreal’s few remaining natural preserves.

Sorry Ed. The Chronicle may love your idea, but I don’t see it being necessary. We need more buses to the West Island, not more bus lanes.

See also:

• February 11, 2008 — PicApp: Ads for copyright compliance?
• January 21, 2008 — Bye bye, ByeByeLogement
• January 19, 2008 — When 90% just isn’t good enough

So did the local media cover it? Naked people biking to protest against global warming on F1 weekend? You better believe they’re on it.

The bike ride came hours after yet another cyclist collided with an automobile in the city. Not that the city is dangerous for bike riders or anything.

And a note to CTV’s Cindy Sherwin: Try not to say “cyclists were wearing helmets” over B-roll showing a bunch of helmet-less cyclists.

See also:

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