urbanMSP

Canada's party city, with a weird side.

http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20141 ... n-montreal

Projet Montreal, a sustainable urbanism party, defeated the incumbent to win the mayor's seat in an upset last night. Valérie Plante is also the city's first female mayor. Their biggest campaign pledge was a new 29-station, TBM-built metro line.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/ ... -1.4388700

How Montreal removes snow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQujcjTZEG8

Apart from the quarry at the beginning, the real interesting bits (IMO) are around the 53 and 56 minute marks--we have lots of narrow streets, and so some creativity was needed. It's not sufficient just to push the snow to the side; it really needs to be removed--hence the machines that suck up the snow and drop it into dumptrucks, or the liberal use of bulldozers.

In general I'd say things are pretty good at least in the walkable, transit-served neighborhoods. That said, the last time we had a proper blizzard, a dude casually went by on cross-country skis in the middle of the road while I was standing on the sidewalk waiting for the bus.

Also funny is a very different approach to snow emergencies. There's no complicated system of "snow emergency routes" and even/odd-side days. They come through and put up bright orange no-parking signs, then a couple hours later come through blaring sirens to let everyone know that they gotta move their cars, now.

They also provide some free overnight parking that can be used during the clearing.