Montreal

A bewildered American tourist who vacationed in Montreal this summer recently wrote a letter to the Gazette, the local anglophone daily, wondering why announcements on the métro are delivered only in French.

The newspaper's response and the quotes it extracted from various officials highlighted an interesting contrast in policies between Montreal and Paris public transportation services. While in Paris, announcements are routinely delivered in three languages (French, English and a rotating third major language), Montreal metro will only play a pre-recorded bilingual tape in an emergency situation ("fire! get out!"). "Routine" messages such as announcements of delays are delivered only in French as a matter of policy...

Read the rest of: "Montreal Métro Passengers Lost With No Translation"»

You gain some, you lose some. While the city is busy adding thousands of hotels rooms (we wrote about one new project last month), some in the hospitality business decided they'd had enough of the Montreal market.

The management of the Omni Mont-Royal hotel on Sherbrooke street has announced its decision to close the 32-year old 299-room property (which had previously been operated under the brands of Westin and Four Seasons) on Dec 10th, citing "operational difficulties"...

Read the rest of: "Hotel Omni on Rue Sherbrooke to Close"»

The voting process for the name of Montreal's citywide bike rental program is over and the winner is chosen. The system is going to be called "BIXI".

Over the next month, demo bikes will be wheeled around the city and public demonstrations will be held. According to the city's mayor, Gérald Tremblay, by next spring Montreal will count 2,400 bikes at more than 300 solar-powered stations...

Read the rest of: "BIXI: Bike, Taxi, Montreal"»

Construction crews are still crawling over the central tower of the new Hilton Garden Inn on Rue Sherbrooke, but the hotel is already open for business, as made evident not only by the banner that says as much, but also by a quasi-permanent line of cabs picking up departing guests...

Read the rest of: "New Hilton Garden Inn / Centre-ville"»

I've been looking for the perfect breakfast crêpe in Montreal for a long time. It hasn't been easy, but I think I've just found it.

This treat is called "Bonne Journée" and comes from the kitchen of "Crêpe Café" - a small café that is named after what it makes best.

Read the rest of: "Bonne Journée from Crêpe Café"»

Back in July, Apple opened a flagship store in Montreal of which yours truly has already had an opportunity to be a customer.

The store is ninth in the list of Apple's flagship stores world-wide (the others are in San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, London, Tokyo, Osaka and New York) and the first of the kind in Canada...

Read the rest of: "Apple Opens Montreal Flagship Store"»

Montreal will soon get its own city-wide bike-rental system clearly modeled after Paris' Velib. It will work almost exactly the same way as Vélib: you pick up your bike from any of the stations, pay at the station or simply swipe a card, use your bike and return it to any station you deem convenient.

The only (minor) problem is, the system is still to be named. So, the city is asking everyone's opinion. Here are the options: BIXI, Bycik, MontVélo, VélO2 and VillaVélo...

Read the rest of: "Montreal Bike Rental System Looking For Name"»

The Montreal Jazz Festival 2008 has just finished and the city is already fevereshly preparing for the 2009 edition. You might think this is an overstatement - after all, there's almost a year left! But in fact, in this short year, one of the most important concert spaces, the plaza between Place des Arts and Rue de Bleury will have to be completely redone. The models and renderings for the new Place des Festivals were made public a few days ago and the city's mayor took the opportunity to assure everybody the project is "on schedule, on budget"...

Read the rest of: "Montreal to Get New Plaza in 2009"»