Friday, February 22, 2008
- After the Canadiens' big comeback game this week, Yves Boisvert reflects on hockey as outil de montréalisation.
- If Montreal pedestrians are not knocked down by motorists more than others in Canada it is because we've adapted to their aggressive ways, says this La Presse writer. I think it's true. In Toronto I've been aware of disconcerting motorists by hanging back to let them pass, where a local would have sauntered casually in front of the oncoming traffic.
- An objective report by an American consultancy says that the CHUM and the MUHC must work together, or else they won't be able to build the world-class research centre that each group dreams of. I wonder if the consultants pondered the effort and friction that would follow from those two prickly organizations trying to create and steer such an entity together.
- Grocery stores are mounting a protest against the Quebec law obliging them to redeem empty containers, saying consumers should just put the empties into their recycling boxes.
- A Toronto developer has struck a deal with the city to build a $200-million shopping centre in the old Francon quarry in Saint-Michel – this isn't the Miron quarry but the one that lies further east. Initial neighbourhood nervousness seems to have been overcome by a promise of jobs.
- Litany of problems created by the construction sites at Guy and de Maisonneuve with expectations it could all take three years to complete.
- The agglomeration wants to get Quebec government money for a scheme to compost organic urban waste or turn it into energy.
- A lot of people showed up last night at the ÉTS for the first dog and pony show on the proposed Devimco plan for Griffintown, so many that extra chairs were hastily added and some folks stood gazing down from a staircase and landing above. The sketches shown looked like a mashup of Nuns' Island and parts of René-Lévesque Boulevard, so that the repeated mantra of échelle humaine was kind of a joke. Devimco knows what people want to hear – green spaces, sustainability, bike paths – but they could learn that just saying these phrases does not make it so. ...Amusingly, another developer is annoyed at Devimco for blithely handwaving "his" part of the Peel Basin into its plans. It might be interesting if developer competition introduced more consultation and diversity into the process.
- Butterflies fly free in the Botanical Garden's big greenhouse, till the end of April; review of Houdini on at the Segal Centre; review of The Elusive closing after this weekend; thoughts on flypostering as a cultural source; Adrian Tomine at D&Q; Margie Gillis does two nights at PdA at the end of the month.
- Lachine mayor to fight plans for a new flight path for cargo planes leaving Trudeau airport early in the morning.
- mtlweblog's blog
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