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Cabot Square Redux: not quite paradise, kind of a parking lot…

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This used to be much greener; the interior of Cabot Square is now paved over in a special kind of asphalt
This used to be much greener; the interior of Cabot Square is now paved over in a special kind of asphalt

After about a year’s worth of work, Cabot Square re-opened to the public on Wednesday July 8th.

The major improvement involves two outreach workers who will now use the square’s renovated stone kiosk (vespasienne) as home base to provide services to the primarily Aboriginal homeless community that (up until the renovations began) called Cabot Square home. Whether this homeless population returns to spend their time in Cabot Square remains to be seen, but the mere fact that these outreach workers have their own workspace within the square is in and of itself a progressive step in the right direction. From what I’ve read, the kiosk will also serve as a café where the proceeds will support the homeless (or the outreach program that helps the homeless). This is also good – Montreal is well known for its dearth of coffee-purchasing opportunities…

Other improvements: apparently there’s daily programming (music, dance, theatre) organized throughout the summer, and free wifi. I have a greater interest in the latter rather than the former, but again, glad to see it and I hope these activities are well-attended.

However, as you can see in the above photo, much of the square has been covered over in a slick ‘water-permeable ground covering’ that looks an awful lot like asphalt and for that reason looks awful.

Green space in Cabot Square is now defined by oversized curbs
Green space in Cabot Square is now defined by oversized curbs

This is not to say that the square was completely paved over – just that too much of it was. The paved portion flows around ‘green islands’ – there are now several such ‘islands’ in the newly renovated square, sharply divided from the walking paths with large curbs that integrate a few benches and subtle anti-skateboarding dimples. Within the green islands, plants surrounding the bases of several trees. Elsewhere in the square, younger trees planted to replace those removed during the renovation are surrounded by small circles of wood chips.

The division between green and grey isn’t subtle – it’s very clear where you’re supposed to walk and where you’re not.

There’s almost no grass per se, no flowerbeds either. In its previous incarnation, there were patches of grass and no physical barrier between the somewhat symmetrical paving-stone walking paths and the green space.

The new arrangement reminds me of a trip to the Biodome; nature in the new Cabot Square is ‘grade-separated’ – look, but don’t touch seems to be the overriding design philosophy, which is ironic given how Aboriginal politics often involves efforts to sustain our interactions with the natural environment (i.e. preservation with an aim towards common appreciation etc.)

While there’s no doubt the new Cabot Square is slick, clean and modern, it’s also much less of a park. It feels more like a transit point than an urban refuge, and this is odd given that there’s so much less going on around Cabot Square these days (i.e. the Forum closed in 1996, the Children’s Hospital just relocated and the square isn’t the major bus terminus it once was). Considering there are plans to increase residential density in the area by building more condo towers and apartment buildings, I figured city planners would have gone in a different direction, aiming to provide an urban refuge instead of a kind of shaded crossroads.

It occurred to me that the paved surface will certainly make the space easier to clean, and further allows city vehicles to drive around inside the square without ripping up the ground and grass. Except that these posts have been installed at every entrance and seem pretty solid. I’m not entirely sure what their purpose is… I think it’s to slow down cyclists.

Questionable Purpose

There’s a greater irony here: before the renovation Montreal police would regularly drive directly into the square and either park their cruiser near the statue or do a quick lap before heading back out. Tactics such as these are intended to intimidate and drive people away. It also destroyed the paths and and the grass. Municipal workers would do the same when they were ostensibly working at maintaining the square.

Now the square has a paved interior with wide paths and large curbs to ensure the division between green space and walking space, but these posts make it impossible for any car or truck to enter the square (and Montreal police pledged somewhat to treat homeless Aboriginals more like human beings).

One thing I noticed when visiting recently was the removal of shrubs, decorative fences and bus shelters that once ran around the square’s periphery. I completely approve of this, and wrote about the necessity of opening up sight lines in the past. The former arrangement of bus shelters and shrubs made it impossible to see across the space and for this reason made it an ideal location for homeless people to congregate (Place Emilie-Gamelin and Viger Square suffer from the same problem).

So that being the case, it makes me wonder if the homeless Aboriginal community (or any members of the broader homeless community for that matter) will return to the square.

The picnic tables have been removed, as have a number of park benches. Garbage and recycling has been moved to the periphery, largely at the entrances (in a move I could only assume was based on a recent STM decision to do the same with Métro stations, wherein garbage and recycling has been removed from platform level and relocated to receptacles located up near the ticket kiosks). This is one of those ideas that’s good in theory but rarely in practice (i.e. people have about a 30-second tolerance limit to carrying garbage; if a garbage bin isn’t immediately available, they tend to just drop it on the ground).

And as to those anti-skateboarding dimples on the curbs? Again, useful in theory, but given that the entire square has been paved over, the whole square is now far more inviting to skateboarders than it was previously. Moreover, on all sections of the curbs that ramp up from ground level, there doesn’t seem to be any dimples at all.

Put it another way, when I visited the square last week, it was a group of skateboarders who were making best use of the space. I don’t think this is what the city had in mind.

Underwhelming

Here we see an example of one of the myriad ‘activities’ slated to take place in the square. I think this was for a caricaturist. Elsewhere there was a small group of somewhat depressed looking ‘street performers’ dressed like pirate-clowns; I’m assuming this was entertainment intended for children…

Again, more good stuff in theory, but only time will tell whether this actually leads to a major vocational change for the square. There seemed to be a lot of people working (ostensibly) for the city that day, and supporting this over the long term may prove problematic what with austerity budgets.

Renovated Vespasienne

And here’s the renovated vespasienne. It looks great, but it didn’t look like the café component was fully operational. It’s unfortunate there’s no landscaping around the base of the edifice (no flowers or plants), as this gives the impression the vespasienne grew out of the pavement.

Perhaps the single biggest lost opportunity was the Métro entrance kiosk located at the northwest corner of the square, in that what is arguably the most problematic structure in the square was left as-is. The Métro entrance in the square was once very useful indeed – keep in mind Atwater was the western terminus of the Green Line for about a decade, and up until 20 years ago the Forum was the city’s primary sporting and concert venue. Thus, it was useful to have a large Métro entrance located directly across from the Forum to help manage the crowds. Ever since the Forum stopped being a important venue this Métro entrance hasn’t been particularly useful. It, and the long tunnel that connects it with the Alexis Nihon complex diagonally across the street, hasn’t been very well maintained and all too often stinks of piss.

And as such it will remain – I suppose getting the city’s parks department and the STM to cooperate on a city beautification project may have been a little too difficult to coordinate. Thus, the STM kiosk remains an oversized, underused and aesthetically disconnected element of the square. Had they removed it the square could have had an entrance from arguably its highest traffic corner. Instead, the structure remains as a lasting visual obstruction to what’s going on inside the square and will likely continue to serve as something of a homeless shelter in its own right.

At the end of the day it begs the question – is this really the best our city can do?

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Montreal Cops, the Homeless Problem & Paradoxical Undressing

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Today’s news is that the Montreal police (SPVM) will discipline an unnamed constable for threatening to lock a homeless man (seen on a remarkably frigid day last week in nothing but shorts and a t-shirt outside the Jean-Talon Métro station) to a pole unless he stopped being a nuisance. Apparently police were called because the man had been ‘acting aggressively’ inside and around the Métro station. The video of the altercation, and the constable’s poorly-considered comments, is posted above.

Many were quick to condemn the constable for his apparent lack of humanity, and indeed it’s pretty inhumane to lock an inappropriately-dressed homeless man with aggression issues (and possible mental problems) to a pole outside on a day when even the most acclimatized Montréalais would think better than to venture outside.

The question is, was the constable serious?

I should think not. I don’t honestly believe the constable had any actual intention of locking the poor man to a pole. I would like to say I can’t imagine Montreal police would ever do such a thing, but unfortunately the force has consistently demonstrated a bad habit of abusing the fundamental right of the citizenry to be free of unwarranted police aggression. The conduct of the SPVM at annual May Day demonstrations, during the Printemps Érable or its predilection to shoot first and ask questions later are all justification enough to be critical of the SPVM.

Though again, I don’t actually believe this particular constable actually intended to lock this man to a pole on a freezing cold winter day.

I don’t think any individual police officer in this city would actually think they could get away with such brutality, especially anywhere near a major Métro station. That the constable’s offending remarks were captured on video is proof enough – imagine the shit storm if the video had been of the police locking the man to a pole and then driving off?

That’s full-blown inquiry territory. It would imply the constable didn’t fear any negative repercussions from his superior officers and this in turn would suggest such appalling actions are ‘normal operating procedures’ for the SPVM. But such is not the case. The offending constable will be reprimanded, though not dismissed. My guess is he’ll be riding a desk for a little while.

Again, if he had in any way been serious I have a feeling the bull’s upper brass would very quickly have gotten rid of him, but this doesn’t seem to be the case.

SPVM spokesman Commander Ian Lafrenière indicated disciplinary actions could range from a verbal warning to a suspension, but didn’t indicate what would happen. He did elaborate, however, that the constable did try to help the homeless man and that his comments were completely unacceptable.

The exchange highlights a crucial problem in Montreal and other major cities; police are more often than not the primary point-of-contact with our homeless population, not social workers or specialized therapists.

And as we all know, police aren’t social workers, nor are they psychologists or nurses. Yet we expect them to play these roles despite the fact that far too few have even had a cursory training in these domains. Is it any wonder they sometimes fail spectacularly? And do we really want the police to be responsible for our city’s homeless population in the first place?

Montreal’s Homeless Problem

The first question we need to ask ourselves is: how many people in this city of 1.65 million people are actually homeless?

Unfortunately, what statistical information we have is both limited and old – 15 years old to be precise.

The last major study of homelessness in Québec was conducted in 1998-1999 and revealed that there was somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 people ‘who had used services intended for the homeless’ at one point during the year here in Montreal. Of those, more than 8,000 had no fixed address during the time of the study.

It’s hard to say whether these figures are still relevant, for example, we’ve had something of a major economic crisis these last few years, and I would imagine this may have put more people into precarious living situations.

But if we’re to assume that these numbers are in fact accurate, and that we have a somewhat stable homeless population of between 6,000 and 10,000 people, then I think we have a legitimate homeless problem and need to start coming up with some solutions.

And appealing for more donations to food banks and homeless shelters isn’t going to cut it. At a certain point we’re going to have to bite the bullet and acknowledge that the homeless problem is indeed everyone’s responsibility, and that both the city and province need to collaborate of finding a long-term shelter solution for people who otherwise run the risk of freezing to death on a city street.

I saw just that about a decade ago Рa homeless man who had died of severe hypothermia and exposure, lying half-naked on the sidewalk outside the McGill M̩tro entrance on President Kennedy and University. When I saw him the paramedics had just arrived and his clothes were strewn about, possibly as a consequence of paradoxical undressing.

Paradoxical Undressing

Watching this video reminded me of a of some aspects of hypothermia that may help put what we’re seeing into context.

In the case of the threatened homeless man, or of the dead man I saw lying on the sidewalk, both were inappropriately dressed given the extreme cold. In the case of the former, he’s seen wearing shorts and short-sleeved shirts on what may have been the coldest day of the year thus far. With regards to the latter, he appeared to have taken his clothing off.

As it happens, people suffering from hypothermia are known to take their clothing off in what’s called ‘paradoxical undressing’. They also tend to be highly confused, agitated, confrontational, aggressive and, in the final stages of hypothermia, will attempt something called ‘terminal burrowing‘ wherein the victim seeks out small partially enclosed spaces in which to lay down.

Suffice it to say, I have my suspicions that may have lead to the man’s apparent aggression and lack of clothing. He likely spent the night out in the cold and had been desperately trying to get warm inside the Métro entrance to no avail. The Métro isn’t heated – warmth is generated primarily by concentrated, captured body heat that keeps most station platforms relatively warm throughout the year, but most of that warmth would have dissipated at the upper level of the vestibule.

In sum, this guy, regardless of his existing mental state, was likely being driven crazy by the cold, and I would expect a nurse, paramedic or even a social-worker with experience working with the homeless would know this instinctively. By contrast, I expect cops to know the highway driving code and Miranda rights instinctively.

Is homelessness a right?

A fundamental philosophical human-rights question is whether or not any individual citizen has the ‘right’ to be homeless.

I don’t think so, but I would counter that the state, as agent of the common interest, has a responsibility to provide food, clothing and shelter to everyone who can’t (for whatever reason) provide it for themselves.

I suppose the Ayn Rand types would argue that any legislation of the sort would do nothing but help lazy people be lazy, and that it would ultimately lead the whole of society to simply give up trying and live off government hand-outs.

Being a reasonable person, I think such thinking is ludicrous.

Regardless, it’s an interesting question because this is Canada and most of us believe that we have some kind of an inalienable right to live off the land much in the same fashion as our colonial-era ancestors. If it isn’t a right already, I would expect most Canadians would support any measure which stipulated we all have the right to pitch a tent on unclaimed land and camp for as long as our supplies last. And as long as we’re all responsible and clean up after ourselves, no harm, no foul. It’s part of the Canadian aesthetic – we love the outdoors and our culture has been shaped in no small part by the lifestyles and experiences of frontier living and seasonal nomadism.

But this can’t possibly apply to cities and their homeless populations, and we can’t cavalierly insinuate that homeless people are homeless because they choose to be, as if they were simply camping in our parks, alleyways and public spaces.

The primary reason why we can’t look at homelessness as a choice is the fact that most homeless people in Montreal, as elsewhere, suffer from mental illness, not to mention poor diet, poor general health, drug addictions etc. (and, taking it a step further, are suffering from all this at the same time). As such, it’s inconceivable that anyone would think the average homeless person is in any way capable of making a conscious, rational choice to be homeless.

Ergo, I think it ultimately comes back to the state, not only to provide for the homeless, but to make sincere and long-term efforts at rehabilitation.

However, in order to guarantee the success of such a program, people can’t be permitted to sleep on the streets.

This last point will doubtless irk many progressives who would nearly instinctively imagine the police rounding up all the homeless in the middle of the night and putting them in some kind of a prison. This isn’t what I’m proposing of course – I think we need a large centralized shelter that can accommodate many thousands of people at the same time (and for prolonged periods of time), in which a wide variety of services are made available to help get people off the streets and back into the realm of productive society.

But of course, it would likely require police to force obstinate homeless people into such a facility, even if there were specially-trained social-workers whose job it was to incentivize and convince the homeless to take up the offer. Fundamentally, the movements of the homeless can’t be limited (up to and including the right to wander the streets all day), so perhaps a specific law that could be enacted would simply say no one has the right to sleep overnight in a public place.

No easy answers here, just more ethical and moral questions the people of a modern city need to ask themselves.

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The Shame of Montreal – SPVM Brutality Over a Noise Complaint

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What the fuck SPVM? You guys we’re the no.5 top local twitter feed on Cult #Mtl’s BOM list; frankly I expected better.

Le Devoir is reporting that the man wrestled to the ground in the video above is the proprietor of a business on The Main, part of which was closed to traffic Thursday for the MURAL festival. It was a typical street fair, in which the businesses habitually extend their services out onto the street and we’ve seen on The Main countless times. It’s crowded and loud, not my cup of tea, but something I think we’re all quite accustomed to.

Apparently another business owner thought the man (owner of or somehow involved with La Vieille Europe) was playing his music too loud and called 911.

Why that individual didn’t first contact a representative of la Société de développement du boulevard Saint-Laurent or the festival organizers is beyond me, and frankly I think its a bit much to call 911 for a noise complaint during a street festival. Perhaps it was a dirty trick to tank La Vieille Europe’s business, like when competing nightclubs send their stooges to set-off pepper spray canisters in the air ducts of their competitors.

In any event, according to police spokesperson Ian Lafrenière five constables were dispatched to deal with the ‘large and well-built’ individual – this is standard practice, apparently, and after about eight minutes of negotiation, the proprietor refused to turn down the music and was ordered to place his hands behind his back, an order the mena refused.

It’s at this point that a smaller, more cowardly constable decided to use a choke-hold to bring down the man. Again, according to Lafrenière, this is standard operating procedure for the SPVM.

He then relates that this incident will be reviewed (internally) and that Montreal police aren’t infallible.

Well isn’t that dandy.

Let’s step back – a noise complaint necessitated an arrest?

How would you react?

Handcuffing someone (without their consent) is a major violation of individual liberty. In the case of a dangerous criminal it’s thoroughly justified, but for a noise complaint?

Noise complaints typically result in a fine that’s all too often contested in court.

But five constables wrestling a man to the ground with a choke-hold? That’s excessive.

The crowd was, as you might imagine, passive and resorted to filming this act of police brutality rather than intervene to help. I can understand why. Just last year we got a chance to witness a mass of police brutality incidents, and it hasn’t been too long since the SPVM just up and shot somebody under questionable circumstances. A hospital worker, a teenager, a homeless man – the SPVM has a bad history when it comes to needlessly killing Montrealers.

In any event, a damned shame I’m glad was caught on video. The SPVM has been moving away from acting in the public’s benefit for a while now, and the secretive ‘Police Brotherhood’ has proven itself unwilling to cooperate with civilian authorities to review practices and allegations (all too often with widely disseminated video evidence) of police brutality.

Which makes me wonder – with the powerful organized crime syndicates, street gangs and all manner of criminal problems we have in this city, why isn’t the SPVM making more of its resources available to combat the real criminal problems in our city? Dispatching five constables to take a man down over a noise complaint is simply a blatant waste of resources and abuse of the people.

And while some are saying it would have been so simple (and a non issue) if the man had simply complied and but his arms behind his back, I can only say this – how much individual freedom are the people willing to lose? What are we willing to compromise for the benefit of the police?

With the NSA spying scandal unravelling it’s becoming increasingly clear that Western governments (the supposed guarantors of liberty and personal freedom) have in fact been spying on their own populations and people all over the globe through electronic means for quite some time, all without any oversight or public knowledge. Well haven’t things changed now – the United States has been working out of a Stasi handbook with more sophisticated tools. And though they, much like our own government, military and ‘law-enforcement’ officials have said this is to keep us safe and secure from terrorism, they only seem to be capable of taking down the dumbest, most inept terrorists. At the local level, it seems as though police – who are supposed to serve and protect the public – are instead being used to oppress and monitor them.

This isn’t what I signed up for.

Montreal needs a transparent police force that brutalizes less and thinks a bit more before they act.

Shame.

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Public may panic if provided with basic statistical information…

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Montreal's Finest

So apparently the Montreal Police think the public would panic if we knew the Métro’s actual crime statistics, as they apparently have been feeding us bullshit for years.

The Gazette filed an access-to-information request a few years back to get the following basic data from the SPVM: what kinds of crimes happen in the Métro? How often are crimes committed and how do the stations rank in terms of occurrence? Pretty basic stuff I’m actually a bit astonished the Gazette specifically had to request (i.e. you’d figure this would be public knowledge, available on a city website).

The SPVM said no, that divulging such information could compromise their crime-fighting efforts to such a degree they’d be starting from scratch. After a bit of a back and forth the issue has wound up in front of the Access to Information Commission which has so far balked at even reviewing the case at all (which makes me wonder why they wouldn’t – what do these commissions do otherwise?)

During discussions the police lawyer argued that making this information public may cause a panic, as though she knew the SPVM’s argument stats published in the English-language daily might ‘tip-off’ common criminals and derail their efforts was a bit short on substance.

The Gazette, by contrast, argues such information would pretty much reinforce what seasoned Métro riders already know – some stations require a bit more vigilance and situational awareness than others. The Gaz goes as far to suggest the information “could warn métro users about potential dangers and allow them to take preventive measures”.

I don’t think there’s much more that can be done aside from being vigilant, and I’d like to know how many Gazette readers take the Métro come to think of it, but I digress.

The Gazette has a point – this information should be public (and I’d argue far more accessible as well).

The point isn’t so much to warn riders of where they ought to keep their guard up (hint – always be aware of your surroundings, free life pro-tip for ya), but rather to feed a knowledge-hungry citizenry the vital statistical data it needs to study and assess the actions of its elected officials and civil servants.

I want to know where crime is happening to see if the cops are doing their jobs, to see what might be facilitating the crime at those specific stations. Is it the poverty of a nearby neighbourhood? Or is it bad station design?

As I mentioned earlier, the cops made an effort and provided what they call data, though it didn’t quite measure up. For one, they only provided limited information about each of the lines on average, grouping the interchange stations (like Lionel-Groulx, Snowdon, Berri-UQAM etc.) together with the Yellow Line to create some kind of an equilibrium, this despite having highly detailed information for every station at all hours of the day and night.

To put it bluntly, submitting official SPVM data concerning crime in the Montréal Métro wouldn’t pass a CEGEP-level research methods class. Not only is this statistical garbage, it’s purposely deceptive.

And if the Rob Ford scandal is any indicator, the SPVM should be concerned. They run risk of creating a panic by inferring the data would cause a panic. Despite the data’s still secret, unseen status, it may be able to damage police efforts anyways; nothing quite gets under the skin of a young journalist like denied information, and this city is swimming in reporters.

Dumb move gumshoes.

Now I wanna know too. And why doesn’t the STM have this kind of information? Wouldn’t they have some kind of an idea about the crimes that are taking place in the Métro system too?

In any event, the real crime in my eyes is that I can’t get platform gyros:

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This is why we can’t have nice things – Cabot Square Edition

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SPVM squad cars in Cabot Square - 2013
SPVM squad cars in Cabot Square – 2013

A couple of nights back I was having a smoke in Cabot Square, arguably our city’s most dysfunctional public place, before a flick at the Forum. I think Cabot Square could be a great place, but a number of changes would have to be made, both inside and out.

As I was strolling around in the rain I noticed there was scarcely any grass, just lots of mud, gravel and poorly defined walkways. Immense and surprisingly deep puddles gave way to muddy tracks – who the hell had been driving through the park? It’s no wonder the park’s in such poor shape – someone’s been driving through it.

A couple of hours later I emerged from the Forum and got my answer – squad cars. I took the photo above, apologies for the poor quality.

I’ve seen the SPVM pull this manoever before. In lieu of parking the car and patrolling on foot, they drive through. More efficient I suppose, but it tears the shit out of the lawn/grass/paths/everything. When I was taking the pic two squad cars had lined up their driver’s side windows in the way cops do to maximize their field of view. I’ve seen the same at Place du Canada and in the middle of Place Emilie-Gamelin.

Cabot Square is one of those places that just doesn’t seem to work. Most people avoid it if they can, as it’s often overrun with drunks, addicts, pushers and a hodgepodge of local loonies. It’s poorly maintained and in the centre of an urban neighbourhood in a prolonged transformational phase. It hasn’t been renovated in a while and there’s no plan in place to fix it up (to the best of my knowledge), yet the city continues to dump seemingly unwanted sculptures there.

On the rare occasion the space is empty you can appreciate it for what it might be. It’s not hard to imagine what it would look like if the pathways were well defined, the square well-lit, with fresh, thick grassy areas, benches and picnic tables. It’s still located in the middle of a very active urban pole – there’s no reason it should look this bad and function so poorly.

But then again, we don’t treat it very well.

The cops shouldn’t drive their cars through it – it’s disrespectful, it’s actively ruining an already marred public space.

What I find ironic is that the cops who are doing this are ostensibly doing so to get the bums, drunks and roving bands of teenagers out, as it’s perceived that those groups are responsible for the damage to the square. And in the process render the space somewhat inaccesible. Who’s going to go relax on a bench next to some squad cars?

What I find odd is that Montreal police don’t apply the methods they use to patrol Carré St-Louis as they do Cabot Square. The two public spaces are somewhat similar in terms of size and design and have reputations for being a touch seamy.

But for the most part the worst you’ll have to deal with in Carré St-Louis is some young punk wannabe pushers and a couple of loud, moany drunks. Cops come by on those ridiculous tricycle Segways and bikes. There’s something disarming about police wearing bicycle helmets… I can imagine it sets a better tone of mutual respect. Such is not the same in Cabot Square, where police have been known to apply a lot more muscle, if not batons and aggressive overtones.

Sometimes I wonder whether if the difference lies in the predominance of homeless Aboriginals in Cabot Square – police in this city have always dealt with homeless Aboriginals poorly. You don’t see too many hipsters getting kicked to the ground in Carré St-Louis for drinking in public.

Cabot Square has a few other problems which, if corrected, could allow Montreal police to survey the area just as well, but without having to drive through park to keep an eye on things. If the space is ever renovated I’d hope they consider giving it the Dorchester Square treatment, which is to say better lighting and well-defined pathways to say the least. The city also elected to reduce the total number of trees in that square during it’s 2009-2010 renovation, an unpopular move that ultimately allowed for better lines-of-sight across the square.

Cabot Square could benefit from a similar makeover, as it has a rather thick hedge and decorative metal fence obscuring the view across it from nearly all points. Same story with the clutter of ill-lit and poorly placed sculptures and the bus shelters scattered around the square’s periphery. Further isolating the square from its environment are the two pavilions on its western edge; I’ve never seen the vespasienne open and the Métro access kiosk acts more often than not as a daytime make-shift homeless shelter. Together they form a kind of a wall.

Removing the hedge and decorative fence would certainly help things out a bit, as would removing some of the trees – there are so many in the square the grass doesn’t stand much of a chance to grow. The STM kiosk is massive and doesn’t nearly hold the same amount of daily traffic as it did thirty some odd years ago. It could be replaced with a Hector Guimard styled Métro entrance, as we have in Square Victoria, allowing a significant obstruction to be removed and effectively replaced. Running some kind of service from the vespasienne would also help things along, namely by bringing space-conscious small-business owners into the public sphere, not to mention the potential customers. The vespasienne in Dorchester Square is home to a bistro that seems to be doing alright – hard to imagine the same couldn’t be the case in Cabot Square.

Another issue – the bus shelters. This one’s a bit of a head scratcher as I can’t quite figure the rationale behind building many small shelters when the STM used to have one large shelter that served all the many buses stopping at the terminus. Whereas many smaller shelters invariably become public toilets, one large shelter could feature a public restroom, security and a control booth. Moreover it could be heated. Why the larger terminus building was demolished is a total mystery to me.

Final thought, and I know I’ve said it before, but I really hope Dawson ends up occupying the Children’s Hospital when it eventually moves to its new home at the Glen Yards campus. If this were to happen, Cabot Square would transform rather quickly as it became a satellite of the college’s campus, a backyard of sorts. Even though this in and of itself might not get the city to renovate the space, at the very least the presence of a lot of students will make it a little more inviting and result in the space being used a little more than it currently is.