Left: Summer; Right: Winter
Apparently the part of the city east of the Olympic Stadium is in winter right now. But the part west of it is still summer.
The Olympic Stadium sits just on the edge of summer
Good thing I live on the west side.
The Société de transport de Laval is using Google Maps to show detours of its bus routes. It has eight so far, including this latest one for the 144 bus. Not only does doing something like this look cool, but it opens up data that can be exported to other sources.
The STL is also using Twitter to notify users of transit alerts.
But these videos? Just give us the transcript, thanks.
In a sign that dinosaur media are starting to truly explore the power of semantic data, my employer The Gazette has put together a Google Map of regional getaways, those small-town country inns that people drive to for a weekend, based off its Short Hops and Country Roads travel series.
They’re colour-coded by type, include basic contact information and a photo, and most importantly a link to a Gazette review, which would drive targetted traffic to the website if it’s used by lots of people.
The map took weeks to put together (not full-time, mind you), and has a bit under 100 locations on it, from Ottawa to Quebec City and from the Laurentians to lower Maine.
As with any Google Map, you can download the KML file and use it in Google Earth or any other mapping program of your choice, or mash it up however you like.
Google Map of Montreal construction zones
As if underscoring how much spare time I have, I’ve tinkered over the past few weeks with some data that the city has put out about planned road construction this summer. A copy of the PDF listing the projects is on The Gazette’s site. They used it to create a searchable database of the projects, which intern Megan Martin introduced in Friday’s paper. My approach (which began before I knew my paper’s online department had a similar idea) was to just dump the data into Google Maps and see what kind of overall map emerged. It involved a lot of cutting and pasting and a lot of tweaking, but I just finished it now.
Google Street View car at 4095 Hotel de Ville (photo by Kyle MacDonald)
Kyle MacDonald (the One Red Paperclip guy) is one of a few people who spotted the Google Street View car on Hôtel de Ville near Rachel, presumably where the driver sleeps at night.
Just in case you want to follow it around and get your blurred face enshrined forever in Montreal’s Street View maps.
The Minister of Transport today released a list of intersections in Quebec where photo radars will be installed to catch people running red lights.
Radio-Canada did the obvious thing with it: creating a Google map.
These kinds of things are much more useful than lists, as I learned when I created a Google map of dangerous overpasses last year.
Earlier this month, the Ministry of Transport completed inspections of 135 bridges and overpasses that were red-flagged by the Johnson Commission as potentially hazardous and immediately restricted from carrying overweight trucks.
The result: While 83 of those overpasses have been completely reopened, the rest will require either major repairs or replacement over the coming years.
Among the last to be inspected (or at least evaluated) (PDF) were three on the island of Montreal: Two overpasses of Highway 138 over Monette Street in LaSalle will be replaced, while Côte-Vertu over Highway 13 will require major repairs.
With the list now complete (PDF), I’ve updated my overpasses-of-death map on Google Maps to reflect the results.
The green marks note structures that have had all their restrictions lifted. Yellows mark those which will see major repairs in the next few years. Red ones mark those which will be demolished and replaced.
Not sure if seeing so many red marks should make us feel good or bad about the situation.
Google’s Street View is in the process of collecting pictures of Montreal streets. When complete, Google Maps will be able to show street-level photos of major cities in Canada like it does for New York and San Francisco.
Street View works by having someone in a car with lots of cameras on the roof drive through the city and take pictures. They’re then thrown into a giant database which creates a street view you can move around in.
Of course, if you happen to be walking along a street when the car passes by, you’ll become a permanent part of the view of that street. And that can lead to some embarrassing pictures.
Canada’s privacy commissioner has already raised concerns that, because Google doesn’t ask permission before taking photos, they might be violating Canada’s privacy laws.