Organised (?) Chaos, aka: Festival Season
Five and a half hours after the end of our last post, upon my return from Victoria, I found myself astride one of my beloved BIXI bikes in the Tour de l'Isle.
25 not entirely flat kilometres on a 3-gear bohemoth.
Jet lagged and fed primarily on trail mix, we hauled ass around parts of Montreal heretofore unknown, and were duly rewarded with chocolate milk and free, reusable water bottles - which as I had left mine in Victoria on my 28 geared speedster, was greatly appreciated!
Despite being half asleep, I enjoyed the ride. Well I did, once those fellow cyclists who awoke that Sunday convinced they were part of the Sky Pro Cycling team heading out for Stage 2 of the Tour de France, peeled off at the 8km mark!
However this event is a serious bone of contention for many Montrealers.
More specifically, the ones in cars.
As you can see there were a few of us.
Yes, I'm in there somewhere.
The only way this could be done at all safely was to close a LOT of roads, some of them fairly major thoroughfares, and any that may cross them, to ensure that we could take our Sunday Ride safely!
As you can see from the map below, it makes going East to West (which is kind up/down on the map) on the island a little difficult. They were closed from 6am until 4pm on a Sunday. #nobrunchforyou!
And this event only marked the start of "Festival Season" here in Montreal. (Or as motorists call it, "Hell".)
I know I know, I have already been to more festivals this year than in the last two years in Vancouver. What differentiates the summer "festival" months, is that there isn't ONE festival going on each weekend, there are usually four or more. And they aren't confined to a weekend, oh no, they run 7-10 days!
And they are largely FREE.
So people come! Lots and lots of people!
And they close the streets for them.
Lots and lots of streets.
As an example, last weekend, we had the following to pick from:
Mural Fest 7-17 June
Festival Mondial de Biere (Beerfest) 6-9 June
Portugal Fest 8-10 June
Franco des Montreal (Francophone Music fest) 8-17 June
Fringe Fest 28 May-17 June
and the Formula One Grand Prix 8-10 June
Needless to say, we hit 'em all!
I am so happy we chose to live in a centrally located, transit and BIXI accessible location and can actually get to them! If you lived anywhere off or up island, the Herculean effort of simply getting to the action would undoubtedly prove too much!
Any ONE of these event could cause traffic chaos in a city that is already gridlocked due to road closures for far more mundane things like new pipes and replacing blacktop destroyed by Antarctic like winters. Then there is that damn Turcott Interchange, which gets closed every weekend. And the work on the new Champlain Bridge, which closes the old one every so often.
It is supposed to be done this Fall, but if you believe that, well I have a half finished bridge to sell you!
Exits get shut off, traffic directions do a 180, and GPS is likely to send you to a road that ceased to exist yesterday.
So amidst all this, one might wonder at the logic of holding the largest Francophone music festival in the world in the downtown core, while at the same time hosting the most highly attended Grand Prix in the world, which brings over 300,000 people into an area less than 1 km away and ALSO closing the roads in vast majority of the Plateau for TEN DAYS for Mural Fest.
It pretty much sucks to be a driver in Montreal from June to September.
Unless you like losing your front axle in a baby elephant sized pot hole they haven't closed your street to fix yet (hello Ave Du Parc? I'd like my molars back!), or crawling along, in 100% humidity, your voiture burning the $1.46/litre gas, as you sit trapped in a 46 minute delay on a bridge that may or may not fall into the fleuve, only to find every 2nd road on the island closed once you do finally get there.
If you like that you will be in HEAVEN! Maybe that's why they don't mind the winter.. black ice is nothing in comparison to all that B#$%^T!
"Ben Là et Tabernouché", I say!
(What the? For real? Shoot, dang, crikey, cripes!")
Far be it for me to be on the side of the motorist. I am not. But really there are limits.
CBC radio on Friday morning summed it up. "If you want to drive to the island this weekend leave yourself lots of time, if you want to leave, you might be out of luck!"
Or as The Gazette said, "On your mark, get set, take the metro!"
And pray it doesn't break down!
