Category Archives: Montreal

| Montreal, Photos, Pop quiz, Public transit

A photo pop quiz to get the gears moving

No geography trivia quiz this week (still looking for ideas in case anyone has any). Instead, a different kind of challenge:

What are these?

UPDATE: After a dozen interesting guesses, Pascal gets it right: They’re metro turnstiles.

Old metro turnstiles

A sea of old turnstiles behind a gate at Pie-IX metro

Turnstile innards, with unrelated celebratory horn

These photos were taken at the Pie-IX metro station, where dozens of the old turnstiles have gone to die. They have been replaced by new Opus-enabled turnstiles, except for the one at each station that was kept for transition purposes (those will be joining them soon) and some exit-only turnstiles that don’t need to be replaced.

| Montreal, Radio

Radio Enfant, 106.7FM

This post has been corrected.

A new radio station has snuck onto the airwaves in Montreal. It’s calling itself “Radio Enfant” and transmitting on 106.7 FM.

It’s an initiative of two schools, and is operating over the holidays until the beginning of January. It’s a low-power transmitter, so the signal is very weak, but I could pick it up for most of a late-night walk downtown after hearing about it on the Radio in Montreal group.

Radio Enfant recently launched a station in Gatineau at 1670 AM, at a CRTC-approved 1,000 Watts of power. It decided, apparently on its own, to start something up on 106.7FM in Montreal, after learning that this frequency was vacated by Aboriginal Voices Radio, which decided to surrender its license for CKAV-FM-10 on that frequency.

The only thing is that, unlike the Gatineau station, Radio Enfant hasn’t been issued a CRTC license to operate a radio station in Montreal. It says it’s planning to apply for one (or has already applied, but the CRTC hasn’t released that application yet), but that’s kind of backwards, and means the Montreal stations are technically pirates.

UPDATE (Jan. 7): Sheldon Harvey, a local radio enthusiast, informs me that they have an experimental operating license from Industry Canada, which means they are operating legally. My apologies.

Fortunately, Radio Enfant isn’t interfering with any existing stations. Boom FM, a station in St. Hyacinthe on 106.5FM, still comes in fine (which is good, because it’s an Astral Media Radio station, and Astral is a funding partner in Radio Enfant). There are no stations in the area at 106.9 – but there are in Trois Rivières, Sherbrooke and Ottawa that basically cancel each other out here.

| Montreal, Opinion

An insult to Montreal’s smoked meat heritage

The other day, Wendy Kraus-Heitmann and her husband were up late and hankering for some food. “Because I fed him something nutritious and healthy for supper (seafood soup) he got hungry around midnight and we ordered some smoked meat and a poutine,” she said.

They called up a local restaurant called Pizza Expresso and soon thereafter the order was delivered.

“When he opened his smoked meat, we both looked at it. I blurted out ‘what the hell?!?!’ Pat was speechless. Finally I said ‘I need to get my camera.'”

She took this picture:

What Pizza Expresso considers a "smoked meat sandwich" (photo by Wendy Kraus-Heitmann)

“Does that look like rye bread to you? That’s because it’s not. And it’s about the worst mushiest tasteless wonder bread wannabe I’ve ever tasted in my life. These people should be run out of Montreal and shot on sight.”

Now, admittedly, you’re not going to get the best smoked meat in the city if you order it from a generic pizza place. But there are plenty of places that do a decent job (I get smoked meat from La Belle Province, and it’s good enough for me). You don’t have to offer it if you can’t make it, but if you’re going to have it on your menu, you really should prepare it properly.

Setting aside the taste (not good, reportedly) and the lacklustre presentation, who puts smoked meat on white bread?

| Montreal, Public transit

RTL slow with the news

The Réseau de transport de Longueuil became the last major transit agency in the area to announce its fare schedule for 2010 on Friday, based on a decision supposedly taken at a board meeting on Dec. 3 (which took 15 days to publicize?)

Here’s how it breaks down:

2009 2010 Difference
Cash fare $3 $3 No change
6 tickets (regular) $16.10 (6x$2.68) $16.50 (6x$2.75) +2.5%
6 tickets (reduced) $9.60 (6x$1.60) $9.60 (6x$1.67) +4.2%
Monthly pass (regular) $79 $81 +2.5%
Monthly pass (reduced) $47 $48.50 +3.2%

The policy of having cash fares that don’t allow transfers is being maintained, much to the dismay of groups that demand transfers be reinstated.

The RTL notes that 48% of its clients use an AMT multi-zone pass, most commonly Zone 3, which covers Longueuil.

| Montreal, Public transit

STM sweetens late fare increase with money-savers

With only two (weekend) days left until people start buying passes for 2010, the STM finally announced its fare schedule for the new year, 17 days after what we would normally consider a deadline.

There are modest increases – the price of a regular monthly pass goes up 2.2% to $70 – but the price of a cash fare remains frozen at $2.75 ($1.75 reduced fare), and the price of one-day and three-day tourist passes is actually going down significantly.

The transit agency is also sweetening the deal with some incentives.

First, the table:

Regular Reduced
Monthly CAM $70 ($68.50+ 2.2%) $38.75 ($37 + 4.7%
Weekly CAM $20.50 ($20 + 2.5%) $11.50 ($11.25 + 2.2%)
Three-day tourist pass $14 ($17 – 17.6%) N/A
One-day tourist pass $7 ($9 – 22.2%) N/A
10 trips (Opus card only) $21 ($2.10/trip, $20 + 5%) $12 ($1.20/trip, $10.75 + 11.6%)
Six trips $13.25 ($2.21/trip, $12.75 + 3.9%) $7.50 ($1.25/trip, $6.75 + 11.1%)
Single fare $2.75 (no change) $1.75 (no change)

Like the AMT and STL, the STM is putting forward an annual Opus subscription that would save the hassle of waiting in line on the first of every month. However, unlike the STL and AMT system, the STM does not offer a 12th month free under this system. It has practical advantages, but no financial ones. (Also, ironically, because the STM was so late with this announcement, it’s too late to sign up for this for January.)

For those eligible for reduced fare, a similar system over four months does offer a financial advantage. In effect, those who pay the $148 in advance will be spared the fare increase and pay only $37 a month. Assuming they have $148 of unexpected mad money to spend, which all people on reduced fares obviously do.

For those who care, the STM is allowing people with Air Miles to use them to buy passes. It’s 610 for a regular-fare monthly pass, 330 for a reduced-fare pass. This works out to 20 miles a day, or 10 miles in each direction on a regular fare, which actually sounds pretty accurate when you think about it. The STM suggests this as a “great present” – presumably with a straight face. This will be available from Dec. 23, so you can use it for your January pass.

Cheaper to be a tourist

It’s kind of buried in the press release that the STM “with adjust the prices” of tourist passes, but they’re actually going down by a considerable amount (18% and 20%). This changes the dynamics of when to get these passes.

A one-day pass is worth 2.5 cash fares, or 3.3 trips when you buy them 10 at a time. Which means if you’re planning 3-4 trips in a day, it makes much more sense to get a one-day pass. Similarly, the three-day pass is $14, which is 5.1 cash fares or 6.7 Opus trips, working out to 1.7 and 2.2 trips per day respectively. So if you’re having a friend over from out of town, and planning to use public transit, the three-day pass makes much more sense now.

It also puts more distance between the three-day pass and the seven-day weekly pass at $20.50. Of course the weekly pass still has a set week (Monday to Sunday) even though it’s only available on Opus and changing that would seem easy enough to do. The three-day pass is over any three consecutive days.

And the politics

There’s a bunch of stuff about partnerships and service levels in the press release that even I glazed over. Feel free to read it if you like that stuff.

It should be noted that this fare increase was not approved at a public meeting of the STM board. I’m not sure what secret gathering occurred to come up with this, but it wasn’t done democratically.

And the opposition wasted no time speaking up issuing populist press releases. Richard Bergeron says the modest increases are still too much and he’s calling (after the fact) for a freeze in transit fares for 2010.

Vision’s Elsie Lefebvre just whines, saying hikes are “unacceptable” but implying they’d be okay with it if it was just the rate of inflation. This is particularly hypocritical considering Brenda Paris, who’s now with Vision Montreal, was on the STM’s board for all those years, and I didn’t hear a peep of complaint out of her when they approved all those fare increases.

| Montreal, On the Net

Happy 150th, Victoria

Victoria Bridge

Thursday was the 150th anniversary of the first train crossing the Victoria Bridge. I took the opportunity to travel on it by train during what turned out to be a nice sunset.

The Gazette’s Andy Riga has a package of stories about the bridge, including a proposal to add light rail lines to its hangers (replacing the single lanes on each side being used by cars). I asked local rail expert Marc Dufour about that idea as we crossed the bridge, and he said it was silly, because there are already rail tracks on the bridge being used by commuter trains.

More Victoria links are on Riga’s blog.

| Media, Montreal, Slow News Day

Journalism’s feel-good story of the year

Henry Aubin has a nice piece in Thursday’s Gazette, praising a half-dozen investigative journalists as his persons of the year for uncovering corruption scandals at city hall.

There are two things I like about this:

First, there was no single newspaper, no single journalist, no single news agency that got the scoop. These are six journalists for five different – competing news outlets in Montreal, including the three paid daily newspapers not currently in a labour conflict (as La Presse’s Marc Cassivi notes, the Journal de Montréal contributed precisely nothing). They each uncovered another facet of the story. They each tried to get that “exclusive” badge of honour, but they also worked off each other’s findings. The competition among them produced a better story as a whole.

Second, it’s a strong argument in favour of professional journalism. Note that I use the term “professional” here, not “traditional” or “old”. Only half of these journalists are print reporters, and one works exclusively for an online publication. But they’re all professional. This is their job. (Here I differ with Aubin on an issue of pure semantics: there’s nothing about a blog that makes it unprofessional other than its reputation – it all depends on who is doing the writing.)

While I still think it’s unfortunate that Montreal gets so much attention but hundreds of other cities across Quebec get little or no attention from professional journalists, I’m glad the eyes of the people are on this one, at least.

So congratulations (in alphabetical order so as not to play favourites) to Fabrice de Pierrebourg (Rue Frontenac), Marie-Maude Denis and Alain Gravel (Radio-Canada), Linda Gyulai (The Gazette), Kathleen Lévesque (Le Devoir), and André Noël (La Presse). You did good.

(And then we went ahead and re-elected Tremblay.)

| Montreal, Opinion, Public transit

Transitways before tramways

Government mockup of rapid-transit corridor on Pie-IX

Government mockup of rapid-transit corridor on Pie-IX

La Presse has another one of their “Exclusif”s, which sounds like hard-hitting investigative journalism but is really just being tipped off to a press conference ahead of schedule.

This one reports that the city is going to announce the building of a dedicated transit corridor in the middle of Pie IX Blvd. This would replace the contra-flow rush-hour reserved bus lanes that were shut down in 2002 after they were deemed unsafe for pedestrians (and left shelters in the middle of the road vacant since).

A median between the transit corridor and the traffic lanes would be built between 2011 and 2013. And it would go up to the end of the island, eventually being extended into Laval.

This is a good idea. It’s safer than the old contraflow system, and it encourages quick public transit. And though the article makes no mention of tramways, the corridor could be more easily converted into a tram line once it’s setup. Pie-IX is one of the routes being considered for a tramway (long ago, it was even considered for a metro line, to the point where it appeared as a dotted line on metro maps).

I like transit corridors or transitways, roads that are reserved 24/7 strictly for use by public transit (essentially buses). They seemed to work well when I went through them in Ottawa. So why don’t we have more of them here?

Bus-only roads are good enough for Ottawa. Why not here?

Bus-only roads are good enough for Ottawa. Why not here?

I ask this question because transitways are a good middle ground between reserved bus lanes and tramways. If we’re planning on building tramways on Côte des Neiges Rd. and Park Ave., reserving lanes in both direction 24/7, then why aren’t we doing that already for buses? Why not build the median and setup a transitway that can be replaced by a tramway later?

This could also help test the waters before plunking down serious cash for a tram line that nobody might use. Like Mayor Tremblay’s plan for a loop going from downtown to the Old Port. The city setup a bus along the route – the 515 – which has been a huge disappointment in terms of ridership. Tremblay still thinks a tram here is a good idea, despite the evidence to the contrary. Setting up a transitway along this route would remove any lingering doubts about whether traffic is the reason people aren’t taking a liking to public transit here.

It just seems like a no-brainer to me: if you’re going to take that parking away and reserve space for public transit, don’t wait until the tramway is built and just give the space full-time to buses already.

So why isn’t anyone else considering it?

UPDATE: La Presse says a simple reserved bus lane would cost a third the price. But, of course, it wouldn’t be as efficient.

UPDATE (Dec. 29): The MTQ has posted the “fiche technique” of the proposal for Pie-IX (PDF). Bus stops would be after intersections, and the bus lanes would narrow to make room for the boarding platform (or, conversely, would widen when buses leave the platform and travel at a faster speed).

| Montreal, Radio

Chantal Desjardins replaces Kim Rossi on CHOM morning show

Chantal Desjardins and Mark Bergman put on their sad faces in announcing they're splitting up on Twitter

Chantal Desjardins and Mark Bergman put on their sad faces in announcing they're splitting up on Twitter

The game of musical chairs in local radio continues. Bob Harris, formerly the head honcho at Astral Media’s Montreal radio stations, is moving to take a similar job in Hamilton. His wife, CHOM morning host Kim Rossi, joins him and gets a job in St. Catharines.

Two weeks ago, Astral announced that each station would have its own program director and promotion director. Mark Bergman will take over Harris’s job at CJFM 95.9 (Virgin Radio 96).

Rossi’s job will instead be filled by Chantal Desjardins, Bergman’s afternoon cohost on CJFM.

Mike Cohen was the first with the news in The Suburban. Bergman and Desjardins made the announcement on Wednesday’s show. Desjardins joins the CHOM morning team of Ted Bird and Pete Marier on Jan. 4.

Before then, hopefully someone will figure out how to change the name of the Mark & Chantal Facebook fan page.

From her bio:

Chantal received a Communications degree from the University of Winnipeg and a Creative Communications diploma from Red River College. She then got her big media break as a sports anchor/reporter at CityTV Winnipeg.

Chantal got her first taste of radio thanks to a number of guest appearances on Winnipeg’s Q94FM and BOBFM’s morning shows. Once Chantal realized she could wear jeans and a ponytail every day to work, it was only a matter of time before her big TV hair and spray tan days were behind her.

Chantal’s lived in Montreal since 2006, reporting on the Montreal sports scene for CJAD800AM and helping people get home every afternoon as a traffic reporter for Astral Media Montreal.

Meanwhile Rossi, whose last day on CHOM’s morning show is this Friday, has a long post on her blog saying thanks to just about everyone she’s ever met.

| Montreal, TV

TVA helicopter crash-lands

LCN brings in the big guns - Pierre Bruneau - to anchor a crash special.

LCN brings in the big guns - Pierre Bruneau - to anchor a crash special.

This morning, the TVA helicopter crash-landed near the Bonaventure expressway downtown for reasons still unknown. The pilot, Antoine Léger, and journalist Réjean Léveillé are injured but their lives are not in danger. (Which is good news, because the last thing we need is another news helicopter-related fatality.)

UPDATE: More from La Presse.

Helicopter crashes are right up LCN’s alley, but since this was their helicopter (which ironically meant they couldn’t send a helicopter out to film it), this story took on a whole new importance. Pierre Bruneau hosted a one-hour special at 9am – pre-empting Claude Poirier – whose only news story was this crash-landing. It’s also leading every newscast with helicopter stories (as of 3pm, 10 minutes at the top of the hour and 5 minutes at the half-hour mark).

It’s a fact of life that the media love reporting on themselves. Whether it’s a meaningless award they’ve won, a news anchor’s retirement, or a labour disruption at a competing news outlet, these stories get more attention than they would if they related to non-media. A few hundred jobs are lost at a factory and it’s a business brief. A few dozen at a newspaper or TV station and it’s a big story.

I’m just as guilty there – this blog is all about local media.

So is LCN going overboard here just because it’s a TVA helicopter? Or is this just an understandable outpouring of support from a network that put family above the news?

| Montreal

Yes, he was a sexual predator

Nicolas Stone, a man I interviewed in 2007 about his opposition (for the sake of his children’s safety) to an extension of Cavendish Blvd. into Cartierville, has pled guilty to 71 charges of sexual assault, illegal sexual contact and child pornography. He has admitted to using the Internet to lure girls from 12 to 15 into acts from taking naked pictures of themselves to having actual sex with him.

A date for sentencing will be set on Feb. 8.

I was welcomed into this man’s home, and he looked entirely normal to me. Just goes to show…

| Media, Montreal

Letter from Journal de Montréal pisses off locked-out workers

There was a bit of a ruckus overnight in Mirabel.

The Journal de Montréal management, in response to the union’s call for new negotiations to end the almost year-long lockout, laid out the “reality” of the situation and reiterated the demands made before the lockout began. Both the union and the employer accuse the other of backtracking on deals made during negotiations last year.

After receiving letters yesterday of management’s presentation to the union negotiating committee on Friday (the text of which is reproduced below), Journal workers went to the Mirabel printing plant where the Journal is printed and picketed outside, delaying delivery of the paper (and, as “collateral damage”, Le Devoir as well, as it’s now printed there). Press release and stories from Rue Frontenac, Journal de Québec, CBC, Radio-Canada and Presse Canadienne.

The Journal condemned the “illegal” manifestation in a statement.

UPDATE (Dec. 16): La Presse has more on the situation in a day-after story.

Continue reading →

| Montreal, Pop quiz

Montreal Geography Trivia No. 64

Montreal Geography Trivia No. 64

What is this a picture of?

UPDATE: Just about everyone guessed correctly that these are decomposing railway ties, but Frank was the first to properly guess that these are decomposing tramway ties, uncovered because of excavation work.

Exposed tramway rail and ties on Sherbrooke St. W. near Loyola, taken in September 2006.

Exposed tramway rail and ties on Sherbrooke St. W. near Loyola, taken in September 2006.

The city is littered with tramway rails that were merely paved over after the network was dismantled. Some are later exposed through potholes, others because of excavation work, and are slowly being removed. But much of the vast network still remains, just inches below the surface of the street.

| Media, Montreal

Young writers on old writers

Alan Hustak

Alan Hustak. He doesn't always wear a top hat.

Two articles were posted on a bulletin board at work recently, one from each of Concordia’s two student newspapers, and both profiling old people veteran Gazette journalists.

The Link talks to Alan Hustak, who until March was a reporter for the city section whose specialty was obituaries. The article says he “retired”, though the true nature of Hustak’s sudden departure from the newspaper remains a mystery even to his colleagues.

The article discusses the state of newspaper obituaries today, which are sadly lacking, at least in quantity. Most newspapers block off whole pages for paid obituaries, and the space that’s left unfilled by paid notices is given to editorial to fill with narrative obituaries. But because there is more space available than fascinating obituaries to fill it – even in this world of super-tight editorial space – newspapers tend to scrape the bottom of the barrel, taking obits from the New York Times, Washington Post or Los Angeles Times about obscure scientists and artists whose claims to fame are arguable at best.

Since leaving The Gazette, Hustak has been writing for The Métropolitain (you can read his obituary for Len Dobbin) as well as putting together obits for the Globe and Mail (like this one for former VIA Rail chairman Lawrence Hannigan).

Generations apart

Next to the Link article on Hustak was this one from The Concordian, about Red Fisher. Little you don’t already know about Fisher from other writings on the topic, though he talks a bit about how players don’t make good quotes anymore (those that do are quickly punished for it) and how the media is too concerned with sports stars’ personal lives (one can imagine Fisher’s thoughts on the whole Tiger Woods saga).

He also says younger journalists should get off his lawn be careful about too much reliance on the Internet, and all the false information spread that way (by the way, did you hear about the latest rumour with Carey Price, Maxim Lapierre and Vincent Lecavalier?).

The most interesting part of the article, to me, is a mistake in it, that unintentionally explains so well the generational gap in play here:

The first woman he ever saw in a team’s dressing room was The New York Times’ first female sports reporter, Robin Herman, in the 1970’s. After an All-Star game at the Pepsi Forum that night, Fisher recalled, Herman and another female journalist from a French radio station boldly decided they were going down to the team’s dressing room.

I’m pretty sure Red Fisher has never seen an All-Star game from the Pepsi Forum.