Category Archives: West Island

| West Island

Since when is not doing anything a crime?

Dollard-des-Ormeaux mayor Ed Janiszewski isn’t unusual. He’s like a lot of suburban mayors. But that doesn’t make his ideas less silly.

In a bid to stop those Evil Teenagers Up To No Good (TM), Dollard’s council passed a new by-law prohibiting loitering in public areas of the town.

“Loitering” has always been one of those terms I found odd. It sounds bad, like something a drug dealer or gang member would do. But what is it, exactly? Well, technically, “loitering” means “being somewhere just because you feel like it.”

Now, you might think a law forbidding people from standing in a public place without a grown-up reason would seem somewhat unconstitutional. In fact, such laws have been declared unlawful in the U.S. But still they persist. Businesses and other institutions have “no loitering” signs posted outside, and laws are drawn up with complicated definitions to try to outlaw something which feels illegal but is not actually a violation of any law.

The logic is best explained by this Janiszewski quote:

“Kids aren’t all bad. They need to hang out, to be with their peer group, but it shouldn’t be in public. They should be at their home or at somebody else’s home.”

Yes, folks. Dollard’s mayor doesn’t want kids hanging out in public.

Next time adults wonder why kids feel alienated or rebellious, maybe they might consider that adults are taking away kids’ rights to be kids.

| Montreal, Public transit, Video, West Island

Da train! Da train!

The Gazette’s Linda Gyulai has an article about some railway buffs criticizing Montreal’s plan for commuter rail service, specifically the route of the Train de l’Est (stupidly running from Terrebonne east to Repentigny instead of running west through Laval, using existing tracks, to the de la Concorde metro station) and the apparent abandoning of the plan to use the Doney Spur, which splits from the Deux-Montagnes train line near Highway 13 and runs between Hymus and the 40 west to Stillview.

One important correction to the story: It mentions the building of a Home Depot west of St. John’s Blvd on top of old Doney Spur right-of-way. In fact, it’s east of St. John’s, which mean any rail link to Fairview (which would still have to cross Highway 40 somehow) would have to run through, under or around this new hardware store.

Here’s a bonus for you: A YouTube video of rail buff Avrom Shtern asking Pierrefonds/Roxboro mayor Monique Worth about the Doney Spur in March, and having her give the kind of non-answer that you’d expect to find in a first-chapter exercise of Politics For Dummies.

| West Island

Northern West Island gets no respect

I come from Pierrefonds, a long, multicultural former city (now the borough of Pierrefonds Roxboro), which is so boring that two of its logo’s three elements come from the fact that it’s long and narrow and that it’s next to a river. (The third is borrowed from Pierrefonds, France, the town it was named after.)

Hello?

But as boring as it is, there are thousands of people who live there, and the population is increasing rapidly. I just noticed this week, for example, that service on the 68 Pierrefonds bus route has been doubled from two buses an hour to four during the day.

So why is it this city, along with its northern West Island neighbours Dollard-Des-Ormeaux, Roxboro, Sainte-Geneviève, Ile Bizard and Kirkland, always get treated like they don’t exist when it comes to the anglophone media talking about the West Island?

Case in point: The Gazette’s West Island section this week asks people to vote for its top icons of our little stretch of land. The choices (10, and you can’t add any of your own) don’t include a single landmark in any of these towns. Three are in Pointe-Claire, two in Ste. Anne de Bellevue, two span the southern towns, and one isn’t even on the island at all.

Specifically:

  • Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport: This is the great barrier (along with the Taschereau train yard) separating Montreal from the West Island, and it’s located in a West Island city, but I still don’t really think of it as part of the West Island. It’s more a part of the city as a whole. The people who go there come from all over the city, and there’s nothing about it that captures the identity of the place.

  • Fairview Shopping Centre: Certainly a must-have on any such list. It’s a big mall, and the bus terminal brings a lot of teenage traffic here along with commuters. But making this the West Island’s greatest icon would be a sad statement about life there, no?

  • Hudson Village & ferry: I fail to see how Hudson can be considered part of the West Island. It’s not on the island. It’s not that complicated. A case can be made for Ile Bizard because it’s part of the city. Hudson most definitely is not.

  • 211 bus: Certainly the West Island’s most important bus, and the second public transit related item on the list. Perhaps that’s what exemplifies the area: an express bus to downtown.

  • John Abbott College/MacDonald Campus & Weather Station: I’m assuming this includes the Morgan Arboretum, which is a very noble candidate. Nothing bad to say here.

  • Old Pointe Claire: Narrow roads, cute little shops and insufficient parking. OK.

  • Lachine Canal/Lakeshore Rd.: Lachine is barely West Island, and the canal ends just as Lachine starts. The canal is more an icon of the southwest borough or LaSalle. Lakeshore, meanwhile, is a good candidate, but shouldn’t that be grouped together with the 211?

  • Ste-Anne de Bellevue Village & locks: Yeah, another obvious choice.

  • Montreal/Dorion-Rigaud commuter train: See the snub? Where’s Montreal/Deux-Montagnes? Ours runs more often, is more comfortable and faster (and isn’t made redundant with an express bus service).

  • Pointe Claire Aquatic Centre: Pointe-Claire must have paid a lot of money to the Gazette to get it on this list so many times. Maybe we should add Pointe-Claire city hall? The Pointe-Claire library? The Pointe-Claire water tower?

So how about it? Does the northern West Island offer nothing of cultural significance?

Here’s some suggestions from me. Feel free to add yours below:

  • Cap St-Jacques (Pierrefonds)
  • Centennial Park (DDO)
  • Sainte-Geneviève (in its entirety)
  • The Ile-Bizard-Laval-sur-le-lac ferry
| Blogosphere, Video, West Island

How to drive like an idiot

Adrian points us to a video on YouTube (among other places) called “Late for Work” of a young driver zigzagging through light traffic on the West Island. There’s a second video out there (I won’t link to it because it’s on a porn site) called “Late for School” of a similarly dangerous trip down Highway 40 in St-Laurent. Both videos are sped up, but it’s clear from the rest of the traffic that this guy is going fast.

What gets me about the video is not so much that some idiot is filming himself doing this, but the route he takes in it:

Late for Work route

Google Maps says the logical route above would take 11 minutes, which sounds about right. The video is about 3 minutes long. Assuming it’s sped up at about 5 times normal, that means not only did he act like an idiot speeding, but he also lost time.

Idiot.

| Public transit, West Island

City bus drivers are not nannies

An interesting story out of the West Island: After an elementary student spat on a bus driver and others refused to pay their fares, the driver took the bus to the police station to complain, leading to the arrests of three children on assault charges.

It all started at (the former) Allancroft Elementary, when a student spat on the driver and others in a group of 20 rowdy students refused to pay their fare getting on the 217 bus, which goes from the school to the Beaconsfield train station and then Fairview Pointe-Claire.

It’s a little-known secret that paying fares is entirely optional on city buses. Drivers are trained never to leave their seats or start confrontations with passengers. Instead, if someone refuses to pay their fare and goes to the back of the bus, the drivers tend to do nothing and continue on the route rather than start an incident.

Probably because of the spitting, this driver decided to do something about it. He pulled the bus into Station 1 on St. Charles Blvd. and complained. Rather than profess their innocence and blame it all on the driver, one of the kids kicked a police officer in the back. For their troubles three of them got charged (including the one who spat on the driver) and issued fines for everyone who didn’t pay their fare.

Considering there hasn’t been mass protests in the streets against the bus driver, the police, the school and everyone else parents could possibly blame besides their children, I’m guessing they had some long talks with their little troublemakers.

| Slow News Day, West Island

Bernard Patry is still alive?

Pierrefonds-Dollard’s long-serving MP Bernard Patry, who apparently has spent his 14 years in the House of Commons trying desperately not to be noticed, is speaking out about a post office being moved out of his riding.

It’s kind of a strange issue for Bernie to come out of his coma to tackle. I liked that office, and it was close to where I used to live, but it’s now too small to handle the growing population in the northern West Island.

Would he be as outraged if it was moved to another location but still in an area he represents?

| West Island

West Islanders are never happy

Street planning always seems to have winners and losers. West Islanders who are tired of being stuck in rush-hour traffic are constantly complaining about the missing but long-promised Cavendish extension which would link Ville Saint-Laurent with Cote Saint-Luc, N.D.G., Hampstead and Montreal West.

And I’m sure some of these same people are bemoaning an extension of their own. This Week Beaconsfield voted to open up James Shaw Street (look at all those swimming pools!) to Highway 40 near the Chemin Sainte-Marie exit. The street’s residents are unhappy of course because it means more traffic for their protected suburban enclave.

It’s kind of silly how cities manipulate traffic flow to apease residents’ concerns, even to the point of nonsense.

Take Jacques-Bizard Boulevard for example. One might think that “Boulevard” would mean a lot of vehicular traffic. And a quick look at the street shows it has enough space for a good five lanes of traffic. A look at the map would show that the boulevard leads to a bridge to Ile Bizard on one end, and a medium-traffic street with a blank field beside it which is clearly designed for future expansion into more lanes.

Despite this, people bought houses on Jacques-Bizard Boulevard in Pierrefonds, and its extension Sommerset St. in Dollard des Ormeaux. Then, when the traffic coming off the bridge from Ile Bizard started driving up their wide boulevard, they complained to the city.

My response would probably have been something along the lines of “you know what you were getting into when you bought the place”, but clearly I don’t know how to deal with homeowners. Instead, the city forced all traffic to turn left or right onto Pierrefonds Boulevard, adding to the already clogged St. John’s and St. Charles thoroughfares.

I wonder: what would traffic be like in this city if homeowners weren’t so greedy?