Last year, Kristian S. Villadsen and Louise Kielgast of Gehl Architects visited Montreal to tell us how we might "Copenhagenize" our city (the video of their talk at McGill can be found here) by improving bicycle infrastructure and creating liveable and human-scale public spaces much as has been famously done in the Danish capital, Copenhagen. Montreal, for all its pretences of being a "European" and "bike-friendly" city received failing grades from the urbanists and, having visited Copenhagen myself, I am inclined to agree (not that ...

The third season of the Bixi bike sharing program has started with a few changes. More docking stations have been added to four more neighbourhoods, especially in the previously unserved central-western areas of the city such as NDG and Westmount (who grudgingly allowed a mere four stations to be set up in their city) while base times before needing to pay for trips have been extended from 30 minutes to 45. Also new is the addition of advertising on the bicycles themselves. Despite a promise at the initial launch that there would be no advertising on Bixi bikes, they rolled out this spring with red, white, and green sponsors from three different companies covering a portion of the rear wheels. The backlash was quick to come with a Facebook group that now has nearly a thousand members and a CBC Daybreak story that interviewed a membership holder who vowed not to renew due to the presence of the advertisements. The company who oversees the program was quick to respond to the criticism with a plea for users and the general public to put up with the ads to help the program cover costs. Indeed, more than just sponsorship was needed; the city just bailed out the company with a $108 million dollar loan after they threatened to pull the bikes from the roads and close up shop. Obviously, unhappy Montrealers quickly took to vandalizing the ads in a variety of ways. Michel Philibert, porte-parole of Bixi is calling it "un phénomène marginal" but one sponsor is displeased about the negative attention the problem is bringing to its brand. One journalist took a walk around and found that of the 170 bikes observed, 42% of the ads were vandalized in some way or another. If people at Bixi are at all surprised, they obviously haven't been paying attention to the Bixi programs they have been exporting to other cities, particularly London where their "Barclays Bikes" fell victim to an anti-Barclays sticker campaign within hours of its launch. Initially, I was put off by the ads on the bikes, but after spending an afternoon walking around downtown taking photos of some of the vandalism, I was pleased to find that the ads have provided a new, mobile space for Montrealers to spread messages and/or express their creativity. Much of the vandalism is simple tags either on a sticker or done with a marker while others are quite artistic. My favourites are the ones that covered the expensive advertisements of giant corporations in favour of advertisements for small local events or causes. Not only can these messages be put on bikes all over the city, but owing to their being a means of transportation, also move from place to place as the bike is borrowed and replaced. Below (after the jump) are some examples of how the ads have been re-appropriated by some industrious residents of the city.

Today, NASA's image of the day features a beautiful inclined aerial photo of Montreal and environs taken at night from the International Space Station.  While aerial photos are widespread and now fail to amaze as they once did, it is still rare to see one taken at night.  With a night photo, some details of how we inhabit the city and its surroundings can be seen which aren't so obvious in similar daytime photos.  We can see such things as how different types of lighting are used depending on the type of ...

Devimco, the embattled developer with big plans for the forlorn neighbourhood of Griffintown, south of Downtown, have finally unveiled their new, albeit considerably scaled-down plan for four new high-rise residential buildings, which they are now calling "District Griffin". The four buildings will be primarily residential with three condo buildings and one mixed 150 room, 3 star hotel/office building.  Stores will be located on the bottom floor but potential tenants and sizes remain to be seen.  The buildings will front rue Smith and will be bordered by Wellington to the north and west, ...

On March 29, the STM will launch the 747 "Express Bus" which will shuttle travellers and airport employees between downtown Montreal and the airport.  For anyone who has ever tried to take the bus to the airport, this is more than welcome news.  Currently, one must take a ridiculously convoluted route to make the simple and more than common trip from Montreal to Pierre Elliot Trudeau Airport in Dorval.  It consists of taking the Metro to Lionel-Groulx, catching the almost-always crowded 211 bus to the Dorval train station then transferring to the 204, ...