The new bike path on deMaisonneuve running through downtown is all very well, but there are some surefire hazards. As a véloïste, I’m getting used to the concrete median between road and bike path though I’m not sure it has been the best of ideas. Let me tell you, it’s absolutely horrible when it comes to pedestrians. Pedestrians downtown still need to learn that they cannot loiter in the bike path oblivious to bike traffic, with their backs to oncoming speeding cyclists. Also, they need to learn that they cannot take up the entire width of the path by using it as a sidewalk. They need to learn faster. I have nearly sliced pedestrians in two with my bicycle several times this season, giving myself and hopefully the pedestrian a proper heart attack. It is rare when cars are less hazardous to cyclists than pedestrians, but that is the case in this city right now, especially where the bike path is newest. All I can say is that they are darned lucky I tuned up my brakes this year.

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So as an official car-owner now, it has come to my attention that there is no free parking downtown - duh. I guess anybody could’ve told me that. Here and there however, you will find small stretches of street where you can park for free at certain times. These spaces go fast and I find that it’s hard to discover them amongst all the various convoluted restriction signs. But for instance, the east side of Stanley between de Maisonneuve and Ste-Catherine is free in the evenings and on the weekends whereas the side opposite is metered. Go figure. So my question to you folks out there who might be inclined to help me out is, which streets in the downtown core have free parking? Is there a website that accumulates all this precious info? Do I have to drive up and down and around and around to find a free space?

So far, my experiment with car ownership has not come out on top as a clear winner over public transportation. At least not when it comes to running my errands downtown which is where I usually need to go. Looking for parking and paying for parking is not very convenient. On the one hand, taking my car beats waiting around at the bus stop. Plus I don’t have to worry if I need to pick up anything heavy and cumbersome. On the other hand, it seems that I can’t go very far without encountering some sort of construction detour. Is it my imagination or are there orange signs and cones and barriers everywhere? Seems that I can’t get from A to B without passing by C and D first.

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La Saint-Jean approche à grands pas et il faut bien fêter quelque part. Voici une liste avec pleins d’endroits où faire la fête!

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lol. Master Long’s last post was kind of funny and sad in a way. I know that I’ve been quite useless in keeping up my posting but what can I say, I’ve been dry for topics to write about.

In an effort to write something mundane for the sake of writing, here are some tidbits of my life of late here in la belle ville.

Well, this morning, I was waiting for the bus at my stop and I was all ready to get on but the bus just passed right by me without stopping. It wasn’t even full! And it was one of those new accordion buses too! In my mind, I was waving an indignant fist at the driver but in reality I don’t exhibit much bus rage so I just waited for the next one. I have yet to experience a ride on one of the articulated buses. Way to go STM. Not improving rider satisfaction yet again.

Speaking of public transport, I’ve been complaining about it long enough since writing for Metblogs, so much so that I recently became a car owner. Yup. Even with sky high gas prices, it’s just more convenient to have a car. Mind you, I still do my environmental part by taking the dreaded bus to get to work but otherwise, travelling outside of peak periods is much quicker when you don’t have to wait around. Granted, car ownership in the Plateau area brings its own set of lovely headaches like moving the car from one side of the street to the other for street cleaning. One small improvement would be that this year, they’ve reduced the number of times that you have to do this from the previous 4 times a week to twice a week. This is an improvement or not depending who you speak to. People who don’t have cars and want the street cleaned would say it’s the city cutting services but for people with cars, it’s wonderful! If I had it my way, I would say, don’t clean the streets, that’s what rain is for. I don’t need the extra stress of looking for a parking space. Even with a vignette, spaces are sometimes hard to snag when everybody has to park on the same side. Can’t wait until winter when I have to dig out every time it snows. Not.

Speaking of winter, what is up with this weather? The summer solstice is in two weeks but I’m not feeling any summer weather my friend. Sure there were a couple of pleasant days but it doesn’t feel like full out summer yet and I’m thinking we should be having some sweet temperatures right around now. Instead, it’s been grey grey grey. I got soaked coming home tonight in the rain. I need some margarita weather baby! With the terrible winter we had, we need some extra sun soaking compensation time. Don’t tell me I spent $15 on SPF 60 sunscreen for nothing.

Let’s see, what else is happening around town? Grand Prix rolls into Montreal this weekend. With Jacques no longer in F1, it just doesn’t seem as exciting to me anymore. However, Lewis Hamilton is supposedly the hot driver to watch. Since he won here last year, he’ll be looking to repeat. St. Laurent and Crescent streets will be closed off for grand prix street fairs and boys will be bringing out their muscle cars, driving like maniacs. Then there’s the Festival Mode & Design event happening downtown around McGill College. Speaking of which, a reminder to self to catch the Yves St. Laurent (R.I.P.) exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Lots happening. So much to do and see, so little time to write and post!

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I was stopped yesterday by policeman on a bike at the mouth of the pedestrian area of Prince Arthur and St. Laurent. I had just biked through that area wondering ever so slightly if what I was doing was indeed 100% legal. Apparently, it wasn’t.

“Come here often?” Mr. Policeman asked. I smiled and chuckled and said “Euh…”
“You want the correct answer? Not often.”
“Yes, not so often.”
“You see that sign behind you?” I turned and spotted a sign of a stick person walking their bike inside a green circle.
“Ah…”
“Now that you’ve seen it, you know you can’t ride your bike on this part anymore.”
“Right.”
“This is a warning, but next time it’s a ticket of $37.” Eek.
“Okay, merci!” I said and biked off on the legal part of the road.

So naturally, I’ve been biking around a little more carefully, since.

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No post here since May 3rd. That’s terrible. I must break that… whatever it can be called. Until this post, I have disappeared from the author list. And so has Andre, which is rather surprising to me. So few authors in Montreal.

Here’s a trivial subject: the weather! It’s been a terrible week of rain, clouds and low temperatures, well below what Montreal should get in May. Hopefully, it’s going to get back to normal next week.

On a personal level, I don’t have internet at home. It started as a nightmare, but I have come to appreciate Gmail’s filters which I use to forward messages to my phone. I’m also finding out WiFi around that city, that are way faster than what I used to have at home. I’m enjoying working in cafes and stealing people’s unprotected internet access. Last year, I discovered that the Old Port of Montreal offers free wireless internet access, I’ll have to go back down there at some point.

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    I’ve been talking with a few landlords over the past few weeks and they have all told me that this year, the phones are ringing less and people are taking their time in choosing.

My current landlord, who owns two other apartments, told me his phone barely rings at all for the 2 places he has for rent. And when they do arrive to visit, they say they like it, but will think about it.

He has the same apartments for rent last year and he claims the phone wrang off the hook. People were willing to sign right away. Some putting considerable pressure on my landlord to sign right then and there.

What he has also noticed is that the amount of scams has increased considerably.. The favorite of course being someone from Russia claiming to be moving to Canada. They send over first month’s rent but it’s a cheque for $10,000 and promptly claim they made a mistake and ‘would you please return the rest’… Of course the cheque then bounces.

If you are looking for an apartment for July 1, have you noticed that there is more choice and that you have more time in choosing ?

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The funeral march from Griffintown to City Hall took place this afternoon. Complete with dogs, babies, musicians, speakers and a coffin, the protest drew upwards of 150 people. Have a look through the Flickr album to see the townspeople in action. The decision is slated to be made at City Hall tomorrow evening, and hopefully, a glimmer of hope will dawn upon the evolution of our fair city.

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The Griffintown development issue sure is on everyone’s mind, these days. In brief, Griffintown is now a hot topic for Montreal. It’s a great up-and-coming area between University and Guy (some say all the way to Georges-Vanier) from Notre-Dame to the waterfront. Imagine a bustling and friendly new neighbourhood right south of the downtown core. Unfortunately developers have come in and are keen to make it into another short-sighted Dix30 eyesore, fraught with gigantic condo buildings and big-box stores, alienating residents. This decision was taken with no real public consultation whatsoever.

There will be a march to from Griffintown to the Hotel de Ville organized this Sunday April 27 at 3pm starting at the horse palace at 1220 Ottawa, down by the canal. I personally, have never been one to rally for causes, deferring to other more zealous individuals to fight for common beliefs. However, the Griffintown cause is one that affects all of us in this city, and more importantly, I’m convinced that the strength of the people actually might just make a difference. So if you’re interested in keeping Montreal beautiful with well-thought out urban planning and attention paid to those of us who love and live in this city, come join us on the march!

Sites of interest:
Save Griffintown
CSRG
Facebook event

Help support the cause!

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The police is asking for your help to identify the idiots who have sullied our city’s reputation all over the continent. Several movies and photographs of the rioters have been posted on the SPVM website along with contact information should you recognize any of them and are feeling in a vindictive mood.

After you’re done, check out Fagstein’s excellent listing of various Habs riot myths.

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Well… what a day! The Habs won last night. One step closer to the cup. So much joy and a great reason to celebrate, but of course, human nature dictates that people shouldn’t just feel joy and happiness, but they must also disturb everything around them through senseless riots. What’s wrong with tasers? Nothing. It’s just people.

Next, we have a possible shooter at the Cegep du Vieux-Montreal according to American authorities. The school is closed and the doors are locked. All measures for prevention seem to be paying off since nothing has happened yet and hopefully, nothing will happen.

Like I said, what a day!

Next game, Thursday!

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It may not be the same at being in the Bell Centre or La Cage aux Sports but Twitter certainly makes for a more enjoyable game. I felt like laurentlasalle, TanMcG, JohnnyCanuck, stephdau and JeromeParadis were right here with me.

• Game on!
• The Bruins are playing much much better than last time.
• The throwing of the puck behind the blue line, it displeases us.
• Now we are pleased. 1-0 Mtl.
• Don Cherry’s vest, it burns, it burns us!
• I like this second period much better that the first one. Now 2-0 Mtl.
• @laurentlasalle @JeromeParadis Price is certainly a prime candidate for the first star of the night.
• Gotta make sure that the families of our cherished Russian players remain gainfully employed…more vodka.
• Bad defensive play, they never should have had that return. 2-1 Mtl.
• Even though the Habs were one man down, Kovalev got some one-on-one quality time with the Bruin’s goalie…just before Boston tied it 2-2.
• Somebody slip some Valium to Kovalev, he almost caused us to miss out on another power play.
• Kostopoulos got hit on the face…and we have blood. At least we’ll end the game in a power play.
• We hit the goal post with 0.1 sec remaining…overtime!
• @laurentlasalle Nope, just saw the rerun, 0.1 sec.
• For those of you who can’t see the abomination that is Don Cherry’s vest.
• YYYEEEAAAHHHH! We win it 3-2. I just could not believe that we could spend 6 min in power play without nailing one.

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Montreal is in a hockey frenzy with the Canadiens starting the playoffs tonight against Boston. As winners of the Eastern conference, this is one year where bringing home the Cup may be more than a die-hard fan’s pipe dream. Even for those not usually into hockey, it’s easy to get swept up in the excitement. All over town, fans are displaying their Habs flags. It’s pretty clear what most of the city will be watching tonight.

I remember the last time the Habs brought home old Stanley’s Cup. I was still in university taking a summer course and I managed to convince the prof to let the class out so that we could all go over to Sherbrooke and watch the parade. I say we’re overdue for another champion parade. It’s time. Bring it.

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It’s annoying for anybody who want to go through the stairs, but it’s nice to see everybody enjoy nature.

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According to an article in La Presse, Gaz Metropolitain has discovered that they need to dig 40 holes along the Main.

I’m speechless. After everything The Main has gone through in the past two years. What all the merchants and citizens of that area have gone through, it’s unimaginable that Gaz Met has just woken up to realize that they now need to rip the street open again.

Unbelievable.

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