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Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

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stacked trays4Discrimination raciale: Des agents du SPVM sont blâmés

4Agression dans Côte-des-Neiges: une adolescente se rend

4Road deaths less than in ’07: SAAQ but there has been in increase in the last few weeks.

4Moins de journées de smog | Quatre fois moins de smog cet été. I guess that’s good news.

4Propre mais moins sécuritaire: Les Montréalais trouvent leur ville propre mais se plaignent du bruit, de la prostitution et des problèmes de drogue. | Les Canadiens sont peu sensibles aux actes illégaux et aux signes de criminalité qu’ils perçoivent dans leur quartier | Cleaned up? Not so much: One-Quarter of Montrealers see problem behaviour in their neighbourhoods | How civil are the cities? | ‘Social incivility’ concerns 1 in 4 Canadians: StatsCan | Canadians grumble about ‘incivility’: We worry about condition of our cities – and how our neighbours are behaving. Actually, as far as I can tell it’s just the media that’s doing the grumbling — only 25% of people are concerned about “incivililty”? That’s pretty good, I think.

4Piscines publiques: Aucune inquiétude | L’eau des piscines publiques de Montréal semble bien meilleure

4Les routes au Québec: Un réseau routier à refaire et peut-être à repenser | Tronçons sous surveillance

4Les touristes ne sont pas au rendez-vous. Willing to bet the crappy US dollar has something to do with it.

4Une piquerie supervisée à Montréal?

4There’s not much more we can do to promote public transit: authorities. Is this a failure of imagination?

4Not everyone sweats it out: piece about some cool places on hot days.

4Les attractions de l’été | Summer in the city brings plethora of events in the parks. Not exactly timely, but worth a peek.

“Stacked trays” by Rocketlass on Flickr.

4 comments

  1. RE: Read Deaths.
    It’s well known that increasing penalties has very little deterrent effect. People against the death penalty use it as an argument all the time. Not that it matters to the authorities really, the extra penalties are really just to line their coffers. The public concern is just an excuse.

    RE: Public Transit.
    I’m not sure it’s a failure of imagination as much as a failure of scope. I live in Verdun and just changed jobs. I’m now working in the west island. To get to work it’s either a 25 min drive or a 1h 15 min commute. If my choice is to lose 50 mins or 2 1/2 hours a day it’s pretty obvious that I’m going to be driving. Granted, working in the suburbs and living in the city is abnormal but I’m sure there are tons of people in my situation.

    The public transport system is also getting over-crowded. Last week the bus went right by our stop because it was too full. There’s only 1 bus where I live and it only runs every half hour. And it too packed to take on extra passengers only half-way through its route. The next one came along and it was nearly full but a couple of people squeezed in. I wasn’t in any hurry so I waited for the next one. The next one had a reasonable amount of people on it so I got on. Had I needed to get somewhere I wouldn’t been an hour late. A proper public transit system would have busses on standby so that a driver could call in saying he was almost full and to send a bus to finish off his route instead of leaving people stranded for long periods of time.

  2. I only just put 2 and 2 together. By running the metro all night long wouldn’t that also decrease road deaths? How many drunk people decide to take their car because there’s no better alternative?

    I have a feeling that running the metro all night long would put a dent in the number of drunk drivers since they could just leave their car and take the metro back home instead or just not take their car out in the first place.

  3. Well, there are night buses along the metro routes — people who are interested in taking transit instead of driving can. But there’s a significant percentage of drivers who insist that for one reason or another they must drive.

  4. I don’t know, Julie. I think that the night buses (which generally run only once every half-hour at best; sometimes less than that) do deter people from taking public transit overnight. I know this because I myself am one of those people.

    If I’m out late, unless I’m *right on* a night bus line that takes me from my origin to my apartment directly, I usually opt for a taxi. By 1, 2 or 3am, it’s simply not worth it to me to walk even six blocks to a night bus stop, and certainly not worth it to me to try and work out the transfer situation in advance if I’m in a situation where I have to take more than one bus.

    What I’m saying is this: at that point in the night, many people are half-drunk, and night buses aren’t nearly as convenient or certain as the metro. Even if it meant having to change lines, I’d be so much more willing to take the metro: I know where the stations are, I know how to get home using it, even if I’m tired or have had some drinks. I don’t need to find an internet connection at 2:35am to figure out which intersection I need to get out at to catch my second night bus, because I just instinctively know how to take the metro.

    Even in the daytime, I’m sure there are occasions when I take the metro even though there’s probably a faster route for me by using the bus, because it’s just so much easier.

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