At 1.9 million, the most famous one is the first answer that would come to mind for most people in response to this question. But it’s actually third, behind one at 2.61 million and another at 2.01 million, near each end of the city.

And with a project under way at 1.92 million, it’s about to drop to fourth.

What is the question? And what do these numbers signify?

UPDATE: Here’s a hint: The “most famous one” is at Mount Royal (The mountain? Avenue? Town? Metro station? Train station?).

UPDATE No. 2: BruB gets it right below. The question is “What is the largest park in Montreal?”

Mount Royal Park is an obvious candidate at 1.9 million square kilometres (192 hectares). But it’s beat by a bunch of parks on the periphery (it’s sixth, not third, according to figures from the city):

• Cap St. Jacques Nature Park, 288 hectares (2.9 million square metres)
• Jean-Drapeau Park, 268 hectares (2.68 million square metres)
• Pointe-aux-Prairies Nature Park, 261 hectares (2.6 million square metres)
• Bois-de-l’Ile-Bizard Nature Park, 201 hectares (2 million square metres)
• Anse à l’Orme Nature Park, 201 hectares (2 million square metres)

And the St. Michel Environmental Complex is being built into another huge park, which will measure about the same as Mount Royal Park in 15 years.

This one needs a diagram, so I’m gonna use my l33t ph0t0sh0p skillz:

Imagine you’re at point A, you’re trying to get to point B which is not far away, but an obstacle at X is blocking the road completely. C is the minimum detour between A and B using drivable streets.

Here is the question: For what point X on the island of Montreal is this minimum detour the longest?

UPDATE:

Bryan gets it right below. A break along Senneville Road would be most disruptive, requiring a detour of over 16km through Ste-Marie Rd. and Anse-à-l’Orme Rd.

I guess that’s what happens when you live in a city that has only one road.

Where is this?

UPDATE: Yes, it’s the Des Seigneurs bridge over the Lachine Canal. The photo is taken from the little island in the middle of the canal.

In 1966, after the metro was first constructed, four streets were merged into one to form de Maisonneuve Blvd., which sits on top of the green line downtown.

What were the names of these original streets, and do any of them still exist anywhere?

UPDATE: I never doubted my intrepid readers. from West to East:

• Western, from Decarie to Atwater
• St. Luc, from Atwater to Guy
• Burnside, from Stanley to Union
• Ontario (barely), from Union to Jeanne-Mance (this is also why de Maisonneuve and Ontario/President Kennedy run next to each other for no apparent reason near Place des Arts)
• De Montigny, from St. Laurent to du Havre, where de Maisonneuve currently ends. There is a tiny part of de Montigny still left, from St. Laurent to St. Urbain, on the old street’s axis as de Maisonneuve turns up to get around Place des Arts. You’ll note, of course, that this street gave its name to the Berri-de-Montigny metro station, which was at the intersection of these two streets, until the station was renamed Berri-UQAM to appease the university, jealous that Université de Montréal had a new station named after it.

After last week’s quiz astonishingly failed to produce a winner, I’ll try to go for an easier one this week:

What is this the shape of?

UPDATE: I knew this one wouldn’t take long. It is, indeed, Beaver Lake on Mount Royal.

Montreal has a lot of north-south axis streets that run the width of the island. Unfortunately, because of obstructions like railways, highways and large properties, many of them are interrupted. Combined with one-way streets, name changes and traffic deviations for the sake of the children, it’s actually difficult to find a street on the east side of the island that you can drive from one side to the other on.

So here’s the question: What is the westernmost street (i.e. closest to the mountain) on the east side of the island (i.e. east of the mountain) that runs uninterrupted in both directions and intersects both Notre-Dame St. and Gouin Blvd.?

UPDATE: Kate and Chris independently come up with the answer: St. Jean Baptiste Blvd. in Montreal-East. Crazy, huh?

There are streets, such as St. Laurent, St. Hubert, Papineau and Viau that go at least one way between Gouin and Notre-Dame. There are others, such as St. Denis and Berri that are split up into different parts (some of them one-way), and there’s Lacordaire/Dickson which changes names.

Give yourself half a point if you guessed Pie-IX, which is two-way its entire length, but doesn’t actually intersect Gouin Blvd. vertically.

The only other street to meet these criteria*: Sherbrooke St., in Pointe-aux-Trembles.

(*This post originally read “this criteria,” a horrible breach of the rules of grammar, especially for a copy editor. My shame will never be overcame.)

You wanted hard. You got it.

Name these 5-way and 6-way intersections on the island:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

UPDATE: Answers below:

Read More »

Life-long Montrealers would probably say something about how the places in Column A relate to their counterparts in Column B.

And they would be wrong.

Why?

UPDATE: The answer, as slowly zeroed in on by the group below, is that the places in column A are south (actually west-southwest) of the respective places in column B, while they fit the definition of “Montreal north,” a seeming contradiction.

The disparity comes because the island is crooked. Its major east-west streets turn toward the northeast as they pass through downtown, and the “South Shore” is more accurately the East Shore, surrounding the island on the south and east but also continuing northeast.

It may be simpler to think of every street as having only four directions (and the streets and highways are named as if this is the case), but don’t think you’re going to get to the Eastern Townships by taking the 40 Est.

After last week’s head-scratcher (now updated with the answer, for those who missed it), here’s one that should be a bit easier for you:

In the United States, the borders between Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico are defined along specific latitudonal and longitudonal lines (instead of, say, along rivers). As a result, the four meet at the Four Corners, where you and three of your friends can hold hands and stand in four states at once.

Montreal has similar locations, though there are no monuments there. Places where four boroughs or reconstituted municipalities meet at an exact spot.

Where?

UPDATE: This one only took about an hour:

1. Ste. Anne de Bellevue/Baie d’Urfé/Kirkland/Beaconsfield, in the West Island near Anse à l’Orme/Highway 40
2. Côte-des-Neiges/Mount-Royal/Saint-Laurent/Côte-Saint-Luc near the end  of Royalmount Ave. in the trainyard.
3. Plateau-Mont-Royal/Ville-Marie/Rosemont-Petite-Patrie/Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, where Sherbrooke St. crosses the tracks just east of Frontenac.