Montreal's great, save the pavement

Montreal, my hometown (a native) is great. The neighbourhoods, downtown, the mountain, the food (bagels and smoked meat!) and the legacy of this ever-so-bilingual city, of writers, poets and yes, even politicians (a gas to see the intersection of Rene Levesque and Robert Bourassa boulevards) is great. Here are some observations after being away a couple of years. The city has increased bike lanes dramatically an the pioneering Bixi bike service - a huge local industry now delivering rental bikes to cities across N America - is incredibly popular. Despite the temptation to try one I prefer to walk, with fave routes along Rue Sherbrooke and the stairwell up the mountain to the "lookout" over downtown, and across to Mount Royal Cemetery, adjoining the Catholic Notre-Dames-Des Neiges, Canada's largest. Besides visiting relatives' graves I visited Leonard Cohen's (photo), rather commonplace and not surprisingly piled with stones. Then descending north into affluent Outremont and heading east to The Plateau, a fashionable district of bars and bistros, or west by Universite de Montreal (Ecole Polytechnique) and stumbling across College Jean-de-Brébeuf, the intellectually formative institution of former PM Pierre Elliot Trudeau. A new discovery was Little Italy in Mtl's northeast along the very pedestrian and vibrant Rue St Hubert and the Le Roi du Smoked Meat. It's always wonderful discovering a

new smoked meat place, this one opened in the year of my birth 1954! (For the record, I avoid the iconic Schwartz's, a tourist trap if ever there was one). I also noticed that the city's notorious law breaking traffic seems to be calming. Cars don't seem to speed like I remember and pedestrians actually obey Don't Walk signs. I put it down to changing generations. There are still problems. The city's roads are in terrible shape. Rue Sherbrooke and The Boulevard - two showpiece streets - have great swathes of uneven pavement, patched asphalt, and potholes big enough to hold cats. Where does all the tax money go? On a visit to Beaver Lake the curb ramp next to handicapped parking was disintegrating (photo), an obstacle for wheelchairs as my partner is disabled (I posted on a Mtl FB group and got numerous sympathetic comments, and yes I've complained to the city.) Moreover the city's great transit system could use a do-over in the fare dept. My 'Opus' smart card from two years ago still had four fares on it but they had expired! Mtl should join other cities and allow credit and debit cards. The airport is still an horrendous mess. I needed to pick up my partner last weekend and was glad I took the bus there and taxi returning. Traffic was so bad it took half an hour just to reach the terminal from the ring road let alone trying to find a parking spot. But a newcomer might be hard pressed to believe this is a French city. Yes, the signs are mostly 'en Francais' but the conversations on the street, especially downtown, often are more English than French. 

- Ron Stang, Windsor Ontario Canada, a frequent traveller