Segacs's World I Know

Archive for the ‘My Montreal’ Category

Our roads, bridges, overpasses, underpasses, interchanges, heck, pretty much all of our infrastructure is coming apart at the seams. This weekend’s collapse of part of the Ville-Marie Expressway was only the latest incident in a long list of signs that our road system is literally falling apart.

Cartoonist Yvon Roy has proposed three new designs to Transport Quebec for road signs:

The critical problems with the Ville-Marie were known about as early as 2008. And, as with the Turcot, the Champlain Bridge, the Mercier Bridge, and – tragically, the De La Concorde Overpass that collapsed in 2006, city and provincial officials are long on finger-pointing and blame, and short on solutions.

The best example of a picture saying a thousand words might have come from the Catholic Church, which, last April, posted a billboard urging people to pray before driving across the Champlain Bridge.

Looks like when Josh Freed predicted that we might soon be prisoners on the island of Montreal, he was a little too close to the mark.

Wow, this is a sea change: Terry DiMonte’s coming back to CHOM. Again:

In the end, Terry DiMonte lasted around 3½ years in Calgary. While there, DiMonte – one of Montreal’s most famous radio morning-men – made it clear he missed his beloved Habs and still bled bleu, blanc et rouge and apparently he wasn’t faking that Montreal nostalgia.Wednesday afternoon, CHOM ignited no small amount of chatter on social-media like Twitter and Facebook – and even in the real world – when the Montreal classic-rock station announced that DiMonte is returning to helm the morning shift at the FM rock outlet.

There’s no chance that Ted Bird will be back with him… he clearly burned that bridge with his acrimonious departure last year. But even without the Terry and Ted show, this is fantastic news.

Terry DiMonte is one of the last great voices of radio. He’s intelligent, witty, sensible, and actually funny without being obnoxious. His return only underscores the fact that they don’t make ‘em like this anymore, because there has been literally nobody who’s even come close to filling his shoes in the past four years.

Dear Bixi,

I wanted to like you. I really really did.

I’d heard such great things about you in your first two years of operations. How your system was innovative. Green. How it was encouraging more people to cycle, reducing traffic congestion, and promoting healthy habits. How convenient and easy and affordable it was. How nice it was to be able to take a bike whenever you want, without having to worry about getting it home, locking it up, maintaining it, or having it stolen.

I didn’t sign up for the first two years, because I lived walking distance from my office. Now, I’m just far enough to have to take public transit, but I thought that Bixi would be a superb solution for 4 or 5 months of the year. This summer, I decided, was the year I would Bixi.

I had some concerns, to be sure. The ride home from my office includes some relatively steep uphill, and I wasn’t sure how much fun that would be on the clunky, heavy Bixi. I’d heard that it was occasionally hard to find a docking station or a bike. A city built on a hill, like Montreal, is inevitably going to end up with a bunch of bikes at the bottom of the hill — especially when Bixi so conveniently gives you the lazy option of biking down and metroing back up. I was a little nervous about biking in downtown city traffic, after being so out of practice on two wheels. But the network of bicycle paths, well maintained by the city and conveniently linking home to office, encouraged me to give it a try.

A first test

It was early May and after weeks of cold and rainy weather, the sun had finally come out. I left the office on one of those perfect spring days, and I just couldn’t bring myself to face the dark tunnel of the metro when it was so beautiful outside. So, on a whim, I entered my credit card at the Bixi station nearest to my office (in Vieux-Montreal, near Square-Victoria) and paid $5 for a 24-hour membership. I punched in the code, wheeled a bike out of the dock, and off I went.

It was a bit wobbly for the first few minutes, and I found the frame to be a bit big for my height and size, making the handlebars awkwardly far from the seat. Still, I got used to it pretty quickly, figuring out how to use the gear shift and controls and even the built-in bell. Not bad. Just like riding a bike.

The path along the waterfront was great. The uphill along the Berri bike path was a bit of a challenge, and I was huffing and puffing by the time I got to the top of Sherbrooke. Still, that just encouraged me even further; surely, biking that route daily would be a great way to get back into shape. And I couldn’t wait to try it downhill the next morning.

When I got to the Bixi station nearest to my apartment in the Plateau, I was at about 27 minutes out of the free 30 that you get with the one-off membership. (Annual subscribers get 45 minutes for free). Unfortunately, there were no free docks available, but I was able to enter my credit card and obtain credit for an extra 15 minutes. The next station over had free docks, so I headed a couple of blocks away and parked it, no problem. I was high on Bixi at that point, ready to sign up on the spot.

The next morning, however, didn’t go so well.

Before leaving the house, I checked the Bixi website, and saw that all three stations near my apartment were listed as having several bikes available. I set out and walked to the nearest one, entered my credit card to get an unlock code and… nothing. There were bikes there, but the ability to rent one was greyed out on the terminal. I thought it was just me at first, and tried it again, but nothing. Nada. Zip.

So I walked two blocks away to the next station. Once again, there were a half-dozen bikes available, but there didn’t seem to be any way of renting them. Frustrated now, I walked over to a third station, where the exact same thing happened.

I dug out my cell phone and called the customer service number, and was placed on hold for nearly 15 minutes (at 20 cents a minute on my PAYG, I might add). I started walking toward the metro, since I was nearing a half-hour late for work and I couldn’t keep standing around by the bikes like some kind of loser. When I finally got through to an agent, I reported the problem. Apparently there was a system-wide problem where all the stations in Montreal were experiencing technical difficulties that morning, and nobody was able to rent bikes.

The whole system is down, I argued. I can’t use the 24-hour membership that I paid for. Surely I’m entitled to a refund.

We’ll request it, he said. But there’s no telling if you’ll get it or when it will be. And no, I can’t give you any way to follow up on that request.

At this point, the wasted time was far more valuable than the wasted $5. I hung up.

So far, a 50% failure rate wasn’t looking too encouraging, and was making me reconsider the whole endeavour.

Second test

Flash forward three weeks. By this point, I’d decided that I would give Bixi another chance. In the last week of May, I signed up for an annual membership online. Come June 1st, I didn’t renew my STM monthly pass, figuring I’d buy individual tickets for those days when I couldn’t Bixi, and rely on biking the rest of the time. I even went out and picked up a snazzy new helmet.

A week later and it was June already and my key still hadn’t arrived in the mail. This was compounded by Canada Post’s strike – not Bixi’s fault, of course, but just an added frustration. Still, the weather was nice, and I’d already used far too many individual STM tickets, so I decided to take out another 24-hour membership while I waited for the key to show up.

This time, the problems started almost immediately. The station nearest to my house had 4 bikes (out of 9 spots), but every single one of them was broken – 3 flat tires and one broken chain. I’d been hearing about an increase in defective bikes, speculated to be caused at least partly by vandalism. Apparently the rumours were true. Anyway, I dutifully went to the next station a couple of blocks down and picked up a bike and was off.

My ride to work that morning – all downhill – took exactly 11 minutes. It was fun, coasting downhill in the summer breeze. I could really get used to this as my primary means of commuting, I thought.

Before I’d left the house, I’d checked the site to see if there would be any docks available near my office. There appeared to be a significant number available at the nearby stations,  so I figured I’d find one by the time I got there.

Unfortunately. that was not to be. I went to five different Bixi stations to try to park the bike. Each one of them thought it had available docks, but the docks were broken and didn’t recognize the parked Bixi. To make matters worse, the stations – assuming they had available spots – didn’t allow for a time credit for an extra 15 minutes of time.  I tried using the tool on the station to find spots at nearby docks, but none were found other than the broken ones. Another hapless Bixi-er who I met at one of the stations had his iPhone app loaded, and was looking for parking. He said it indicated that there were no available docks anywhere in the neighbourhood, or anyplace close by.

Once again, out came the cell phone and I called the customer service line. Once again, I was put on hold for nearly 15 minutes. This may not seem like a lot, but when you’re being charged by the minute for your phone, by Bixi for your overtime, when you’ve already wasted 20 minutes going station to station, and when you’re late for work on top of everything else, it’s a serious hassle.

When the agent came on the line, I explained the issue and he checked the system. He suggested two nearby stations that he said had docks available, but I’d just come from both of them and knew those docks were broken – which I reported as such. His next suggestion was for me to stay with the bike while he called dispatch to send a technician out. But when he put me on hold to check how long that would take, he said that nobody could come anytime soon. Instead, he wanted me to keep the bike – bring it into my office or whatever – and he said that I would be refunded for the extra usage charge later.

Yeah, right. I explained I’d requeted a refund nearly a month earlier for the last time I tried Bixi and had problems. That had never arrived. Why should I trust him? Besides, I had nowhere to store the Bixi. That’s the whole reason I was using Bixi in the first place, so I wouldn’t have to lock it and store it and be responsible for it.

Three strikes, you’re out

I explained that I’d signed up for an annual subscription but the key still hadn’t arrived. Cancel it, I said, Cancel it and refund me my money, as well as today’s money, since after this experience, it’s obvious that Bixi is just more trouble than it’s worth. There’s no way I will be able to rely on it as any kind of daily means of transportation.

As of right now, that refund is still pending. Not to mention, the hapless bike, which I left at the broken dock, and half expect to be charged for, despite clearly letting the agent on the phone know that I’d already spent nearly an hour with him and if he couldn’t offer any kind of solution for me, then it was no longer my responsibility. If they try to charge me for it, I’ll fight it, of course.

Bixi, you were a great idea in theory. But you have too many problems this year. Ridership is up, sure, but you have far too many broken bikes and broken docks. There are no bikes available in the Plateau in the mornings or downtown in the afternoons, and vice-versa for the docking stations. The redistribution of bikes from one station to the next, which from what I understand was relatively efficient last year, seems nonexistent this year. There don’t seem to be enough employees or resources to cope with the multitude of problems. And Bixi is getting into PR problems regarding its financial viability, the ads on the bikes, and its business model.

In short, it’s a great idea that is being poorly executed. And in the meantime, I have unfortunately gone back to public transit. the STM may have frequent metro breakdowns, bus re-routings, and all kinds of other issues, but it now has a claim to fame, too: More reliable than Bixi.

And how sad is that?

Did I blink and miss something? Or did Cote St-Luc just turn into Roswell?

While a sighting this week of a strange, lighted object above Cavendish Mall is “probably explainable,” astronomer and UFO-studies buff Chris Rutkowski said Thursday, from his perspective, the jury is still out on the question of whether Earth is receiving visits from extraterrestrials.

Once again, it’s that time of year when Montreal pays lip service to being green with the AMT’s annual Car-Free Day.

This event is touted as a great chance to change people’s habits. In fact, it’s anything but. It’s just a stunt, designed to get some media attention while changing exactly nothing. This is the seventh year that this event is being held, and in that time, car usage has gone up, not down. The small closure zone and the fact that it takes place at off-peak hours will mean that most people probably won’t even notice it. And those who do notice were either already part of the converted, or will just be further put off by the ongoing attack on car users without providing viable alternatives.

Hey, anti-car activists, here’s a novel idea: Instead of focusing endlessly on disincentives to car usage – of which there are already plenty – how about focusing on some incentives to alternative modes of transport?

We’re in the conference finals, baby!!! WOOHOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here was the scene in McLean’s Pub with about a minute left in the game:

Penguins are going golfing. Habs are moving on to the conference finals for the first time since 1993. And – say it with me – we all know what happened in 1993.

The whole city is partying right now. Think I’ll go join them.

GO HABS GO!!!

Commando Trad in Papineau metro station:

(Hat tip: Rae.)

Yesterday was Winter Solstice, and everyone’s been feeling the lack-of-daylight blahs. The cold temperatures aren’t helping, either. Winter came on fast and strong this year, and people seem to have hibernated more quickly than usual. Or maybe that’s just winter amnesia speaking (that same curious syndrome that makes people drive like idiots in the first annual snowfall – what, you thought winter wouldn’t come this year?)

With only a few days till Christmas, people are scrambling to finish their shopping and their preparations before heading out to visit their families. Or else they’re pack for all-inclusive trips south to a sun destination. For me, it’s none of the above – but I am very much looking forward to a few days off to catch up on my sleep. That is, if I can manage not to get sick in the meantime.

The good news – other than the Habs’ two wins in a row, that is  – is that from today onwards, the days start getting longer.

Spotted around downtown Montreal in the minus-20-feels-like-minus-30-with-the-windchill weather:

• A cyclist (you have to be pretty hardcore to cycle in this weather) wearing a full ski helmet, ski goggles, and a ski face mask, every inch of his face protected against the cold.
• Two women, both wearing their jacket hoods with faux fur pulled over their face and eyes, walk smack into each other in a pedestrian head-on collision, neither one willing to brave the wind enough to watch where she is going. They apologize, of course.
• The underground city tunnels about as crowded I’ve ever seen them, full of pedestrians who, like me, have decided that walking through shopping malls and government buildings is preferable to braving the cold for too long.
• A man belatedly stringing up Christmas lights outside a storefront, cursing and swearing to himself as he tries to assemble them without removing his gloves. Good luck with that, buddy.
• The guy handing out the free metro paper outside Square-Victoria metro is reportedly sporting a runny-nose moustache.
• Endless greetings in multiple languages that are variations on “F—, it’s cold!”

I love winter. But I love it more when it’s warm enough to snow. Where’s this global warming thing that they keep talking about, anyway?

Mike Boone finds the Spoonman – perhaps Montreal’s most famous busker – annoying, and he wants him to shut up:

Spoonman has been “playing” his “instrument” outside Ogilvy for 13 years.

It seems longer.

As one of those eccentric Montrealers who stroll downtown’s main drag without headphones, I endure daily exposure to the Spoonman. The clacking, which was clicking until he switched from metal to wood, is annoying all year round, but never more so than when it provides discordant accompaniment to what is transpiring in the Christmas window.

I’ll say the same thing to Mike Boone that I said to the City of Montreal when they tried to pass a law to silence him five years ago: Let the Spoonman play!