Montage du jour : La rue Sainte-Catherine près de la rue de Bullion

6 comments

1. Is that a Tram in the old picture? Was there actually a Tram in Montreal back then?

2. yes

3. Montréal had one of the most innovative and avant-garde streetcar systems ever. Montréal invented “pay as you enter” (before, the conductor had to walk though the car and ask people to pay, which was quite slow). Montréal had the first all-steel streetcars, the first articulated streetcars and the first tourist streetcars.

   The system carried more than a million people daily in 1945 without hiccups. Unfortunately, the rise in the number of automobiles brought about by free roads increased traffic congestion, and it was felt that the streetcars were not fashionable enough and were a hindrance for automobiles, so they were scrapped in favour of much more incomfortable and slower buses and eventually a much less flexible and less widespread subway system.

4. “without hiccups” and “slower buses”?

   Uh, I’m all for condemning the conversion from streetcars to the automobile and the nasty conspiracy by Big Oil, but streetcars did indeed have hiccups and then back up and the whole system would slow down dreadfully — which was one of the arguments used to promote the modern bus that was not restricted to rails, actually. And while we here get all misty-eyed at the idea of Montreal’s lost streetcars, and modern tramways with right-of-way are loved by everyone except Wendell Cox, we need only spend a little time in Toronto, or read a few entries over in Spacing Toronto, to understand that ordinary streetcars and lots of cars and uncoordinated traffic lights and lots of pedestrians don’t mix that well and streetcars are not as speedy as one might hope, especially during peak times.

   That said, I love taking the streetcar in Toronto, and am looking forward to a tram here in MTL if and when it comes.

5. It’s interesting and nice to see that on a street like Ste. Catherine, not all ground floor was retail and not all buildings commercial. It looks like a block of residential units on the left side. It so much better with a mix, for both economic reasons and to sustain street life.

   Great billboard too! Wish that were still up there.

6. ”L’organe des Canadiens-Francais”….intéressant comme expression !