green514.com

Here’s an oldie (15 yrs as a coop and still running) but still a goodie, the Frigo Vert. Bonus if you’re a student at ConU, seeing as it’s right across the street from the GW campus on Mackay. Small, mostly clean with all the usual suspects inside. Check it out if you’re […]

With all this talk about new tramways running around town, I was wondering what all that infrastructure would cost (some say 44Million/km, some say 80).
On my end I think it’s a complete waste of money to build:

the tracks
the nasty power lines
the special track clearing machines for snow and ice
the service depots for trams
the ’stations’
and ummm […]

Water.  Buzzword of the next century.  Oil is so passé.
Watching a client drain (mostly) and  then refill his swimming pool with a an unmetered water supply strikes me as the very heart (or at least the kidneys) of our wasteful ways.  No consideration goes into the costs of flushing tens of thousands of litres down […]

Excerpt from Michelle Lalonde’s article in the Montreal Gazette (May 5, 2008)
It was all about the smell. A few years ago, I was working on a recycling story that required I take a tour of the St. Michel Environmental Complex. Inside the giant sorting centre of the plant, two things struck me immediately. First, the […]

The city created this crosswalk last fall on the corner of Atwater and St-Antoine.  It is by far the coolest crosswalk I’ve seen to date.  I didn’t witness the process, but it from I can tell the asphalt has been ground down in the cobblestone pattern shown to a depth of around 5mm then the […]

Norman better be sporting some protective headgear when he eventually returns to a redesigned square next year.  These pigeons are anxiously awaiting his home-coming.

We took part in Montreal’s Urban Ecology Centre sponsored event a few weeks ago and attended a few great workshops like:

Heat island effect and how to cool the city
Cote-St-Luc’s pilot (now going full steam ahead) compost program
Green roof design
Eco Habitation presentation on building greener

Part of the Heat island effect workshop involved a little tour of […]

There is much more to synchronizing traffic lights then getting cars to move faster through our road networks.   Montreal is in the (much overdue) process of rolling out a synched core with a projected completion of Q4 2008.
The impact isn’t trivial. Even changing the delay of lights by a few seconds could reduce road […]

When you pull up behind a line of 5 or more cars waiting to dump their refuse/recyclables at the local eco-centre, you have a gut reaction that at least one city service is working well for it’s population. In theory you could walk up, or even bike up with your goods, just bring a […]

Found another hidden gem in NDG (yes working there has proven quite fruitful) called ‘A Votre Santé’. The whole gamut of organic products from vitamins and baby care products, to cereals and cheese. Don’t let it’s tiny entrance fool you, it’s really huge inside with a wide and well selected choice of goodies.

- […]

there are two incredible magnolia trees in bloom on Vendome right now, but don’t you DARE park under them…

One of Alan DeSousa’s pet projects during his tenure on the council has been trying to improve air quality in Montreal.  I’m unaware of any legislative changes he has enacted to make this happen.  Have you?  Comment if you do.
With our first smog alert occurring earlier then ever before on the island things need to […]