What is this the shape of?
And, for you smarty pants who already know, a tougher follow-up: why is it shaped like this?
UPDATE: This is, of course, a map of the town of Côte Saint-Luc. Those things on the right are exclaves, little pockets of Côte Saint-Luc land sandwiched between Hampstead and Montreal. They’re tiny, but their history is one of controversy, bad blood, political power struggles and, of course, money.
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.
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 They have been replaced by new Opus-enabled turnstiles, except for the one at each station that was kept for transition purposes (those will be joining them soon) and some exit-only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.
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.
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.
In Quebec, every named street has an official designation, comprising of a generic (Rue, Chemin, Boulevard, Avenue, Ruelle, Croissant, etc.) and a specific (de Maisonneuve, Sainte-Catherine, René-Lévesque). On signs in Montreal, the specifics are written in large letters and the generic in smaller letters on top.
Where there is no generic, or street type, the default is “Rue”, or “Street”.
There is an exception to this, a named road that has no small type on its street signs (old and new), but that isn’t a “Rue”.
What is it? And what type of street is it?
UPDATE: Couldn’t fool you folks. A bunch of you got it right, but once again COOL FAT MICHAEL 1999 FROM DIRTY JERZY was first: It’s Le Boulevard.
Le Boulevard in Montreal
But it’s also The Boulevard, depending on the sign:
Another sign at the same intersection, only now it's "The Boulevard"
And, in case it was ever in doubt, Le Boulevard is officially classified as a boulevard. Though calling it “Boulevard Le Boulevard” would be incorrect.
Similar exceptions in other towns in Quebec are stranger than that. In St. Jérôme, there’s 1er Boulevard, 2e Boulevard up to 5e Boulevard, but those are classified as streets, as are Grand Boulevard in Ile Perrot, St. Bruno and St. Hubert.
Image from Google Street View
That may look like unexplored prairies beyond, but it will soon become an important traffic link on the island of Montreal. Where is it?
UPDATE: It is, of course, Cavendish Blvd. in St. Laurent, overlooking its coming extension to Henri-Bourassa Blvd. Of course, who knows when it will actually happen. Marc was the first with the right answer and is this week’s winner.
Let’s expand our horizons a bit and get off the island this week.
The following is a geography quiz question unrelated to Montreal, but not too far from it either.
What is this the shape of?
UPDATE: Well, I didn’t fool nobody this week. Everyone clued in, but Mathieu Leduc-Hamel was the first to say the magic number: 132. The entire highway from the U.S. border at Dundee all the way up to Gaspé and then back to form a loop that ends at Sainte-Flavie is 1,577 kilometres long (according to Google Maps), but only 678 kilometres if you don’t do that loop at the end.
Following a straighter line is Highway 138, which is 1,373km including a ferry trip at Tadoussac on the mouth of the Saguenay river. But that doesn’t include a 70km section near the Labrador border at Blanc-Sablon. Since there’s no road from Natashquan to Vieux-Fort, getting there requires doubling back, taking the ferry to Matane, travelling through northern New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, taking another ferry from Sydney to Newfoundland, driving the western Newfoundland coast and taking yet another ferry to Blanc-Sablon, a trip of 2,395km that would take almost two days of continuous driving.
This week’s trivia quiz is from Jean-François Villeneuve:
Where is this?
UPDATE: Craig Silverman gets the first right answer below. It’s Beaubien, just east of Durocher in that area of Outremont between the tracks.
This week’s question based off a suggestion from Jean Naimard:
What is this a somewhat-stylized photo of?
UPDATE: A few of you guessed a cemetery, but COOL FAT MICHAEL 1999 FROM DIRTY JERZY was the first to correctly name it: It’s the entrance to the Mount Royal Funeral Complex, at the end of the chemin de la forêt in Outremont.
From Google Maps
According to Google, it would take an hour to drive this, and 10 hours to walk.
But what are these points?
UPDATE: sco100 gets it right below. These are the residences of the six candidates for Montreal’s mayor (as included in the notice to electors), in the order of their popular vote:
What is this blob in the shape of?
UPDATE: This week’s winner is “COOL FAT MICHAEL 1999 FROM DIRTY JERZY”, who correctly guesses that it’s “That bay/inlet thing of Lac St Louis near Pointe-Claire where Pine Park Beach is, by Bayview Hospital.”
In other words, Valois Bay in Pointe-Claire.