Personal opinion, Montreal has so much potential! I really mean it. I Lived there for roughly 40 years. The problem is... they never had a competent administration that understand what kind of unique gem they actually have in their hands.
Montreal is surrounded by water, it has 4 DISTINCT seasons, European architecture, influence and vibe... but it's surrounded by "American/Toronto" restlessness. It is multilinguistic and multicultural.
It has probably the most welcoming people in north America...
INSTEAD...
They spent stupid amount of money to make bike lanes everywhere just because it sounded good and looked good in some European countries.... countries where winters has an inch and a half of snow and last 2 months at best.
They spent money to make all those open ground at every street corner because according to them it's safer for pedestrian.... never realising now those same pedestrian will just walk off even further in the streets because of those same open ground
They were actually considering changing station "Champ de mars" to "DU champs de mars" for a 150000$
2 ways streets become one.... 2 lane streets become one... and all of that because they need more bike lanes so the cyclists can ignore all of them and just ride in the middle of the street anyway.
And as bonus, any car driver that dare to drive a little closer to a cyclist will witness their famous middle finger...followed by "on partage la route" while the bike lanes are empty because of pot holes....should I even start on pot holes??
The STM offer garbage services always being late and all while consistently raising it price... and somehow still recording deficit every year.
Explain to me why after 2011 Tsunami, Japan can rebuild 60% of a whole city within a year and a half while it took Montreal 3 years and a half to put a pipe on 3 blocs on Plaza St-Hubert?
Montreal has so much going on for it... so many fun festivals in summers (francofolies, festival de jazz, feu d'artifice loto quebec, juste pour rire, nuit d'afrique and sooo many more) it boast one of the most DIVERSE and actually tasty cuisines in the world.
And somehow they never fail to shit the bed...Unfortunate really.
Montreal is surrounded by water, it has 4 DISTINCT seasons, European architecture, influence and vibe... but it's surrounded by "American/Toronto" restlessness. It is multilinguistic and multicultural.
It has probably the most welcoming people in north America...
INSTEAD...
They spent stupid amount of money to make bike lanes everywhere just because it sounded good and looked good in some European countries.... countries where winters has an inch and a half of snow and last 2 months at best.
They spent money to make all those open ground at every street corner because according to them it's safer for pedestrian.... never realising now those same pedestrian will just walk off even further in the streets because of those same open ground
They were actually considering changing station "Champ de mars" to "DU champs de mars" for a 150000$
2 ways streets become one.... 2 lane streets become one... and all of that because they need more bike lanes so the cyclists can ignore all of them and just ride in the middle of the street anyway.
And as bonus, any car driver that dare to drive a little closer to a cyclist will witness their famous middle finger...followed by "on partage la route" while the bike lanes are empty because of pot holes....should I even start on pot holes??
The STM offer garbage services always being late and all while consistently raising it price... and somehow still recording deficit every year.
Explain to me why after 2011 Tsunami, Japan can rebuild 60% of a whole city within a year and a half while it took Montreal 3 years and a half to put a pipe on 3 blocs on Plaza St-Hubert?
Montreal has so much going on for it... so many fun festivals in summers (francofolies, festival de jazz, feu d'artifice loto quebec, juste pour rire, nuit d'afrique and sooo many more) it boast one of the most DIVERSE and actually tasty cuisines in the world.
And somehow they never fail to shit the bed...Unfortunate really.
