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- Canada - Montreal
-- 2005 Montreal's worst ONLY!
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| Originally posted by malek Apparently our street layout is a mess... an idiotic view our city from the Toronto Star: Where east is west and north is south Not easy to get from here to there Nov. 26, 2005. 01:00 AM Every time I step out of an elevator, I turn the wrong way. Whenever I leave a building I forget how I got there � every direction looks the same � and geez, where did I park the car? Some people have an inner compass, but I wound up with a roulette wheel that's always spinning. I am directionally disabled, and I blame it on my hometown Montreal, a cartographically crooked city that's ruined my sense of direction. Why? To start with, Montreal's streets are cockeyed and don't conform to the cardinal points on the compass. It is the only city in North America where the sun rises in the south and sets in the north � and nothing else is where it's supposed to be, either. Look at a Quebec map and the city's wealthy "west end" enclave of Westmount is actually deep in Montreal's east end. Similarly, Sherbrooke St., our city's longest east-west axis, actually runs north-south. Montrealers flock to cottage country in the Laurentians, an area that everyone calls "Up North," but it's really Out West on the map. Confused? So am I. Our city's distinct geography goes back to the 1700s when some unnamed planner mistakenly assumed the St. Lawrence River ran east-west, when it actually runs north-south. Our main roads were laid out perpendicular to the river, and declared to be north-south streets � when they really run east-west. It was a historical geographic mistake that's left us 90 degrees off-kilter ever since, although that's just the start of our problems. Aggravating my directional difficulty is the fact that Montreal is hard to navigate anyway. Toronto is a tidy North American city built on a grid, with most streets running in neat, straight lines that are easy to follow. But Montreal was inconveniently built around a mountain, Mount Royal, which gave the city is name. It's really only a 213-metre hill, but it's a giant roadblock in the middle of our city's geography that's always getting in the way. Countless streets suddenly stop dead at Mount Royal, forcing us to drive around it on winding mountain roads with names like C�te des Neiges (Hill of Snow) and C�te St. Antoine (St. Antoine Hill). Sure the "mountain" makes our city scenic, mysterious and romantic just like all the guidebooks say. But that's just another way to say confusing. If we were a more efficient city, we'd pave the mountain over and replace it with expressways so directionally dysfunctional people like me would never get lost. Given our city's eccentric geography, Montreal planners could at least have made life easier for us by creating a well-ordered street system. Many American cities, like Philadelphia or Manhattan, have numbered their streets, while some even put their avenues in alphabetic order (or name them A, B and C), just so idiots like me can find their way around. It lacks poetry, but at least I can find my hotel. As usual, Montreal chose anarchy, with no street name system at all. Toronto's streets are similarly disorganized, but at least you can always ask for directions from strangers who will say something like: "Go left at the third intersection, then bear right at the fourth street after the third flashing light � and if you end up on the expressway, you've passed it." If you think that sentence was hard to follow, imagine trying to do it in your second language, like we Montrealers often have to. Adding to our challenge is the fact there are two unofficial pronunciations for most city streets, such as Rachel (Rashelle in French), Guy (Guee) and Pine (Painh). U.S. tourists frequently stop me to ask where they can find "St. Lawrence Blvd.," our main "north-south" street, even though they are already standing on it. That's because the street sign is spelled "Boul. St. Laurent." (And anyway, St. Laurent really runs east-west.) In my early years, I put my directional problems down to my own personality, a hard-wiring mistake in my navigation system: a manufacturer's defect. But with the recent growth of victims' rights groups, I've finally realized it's not my fault. I now believe my inner compass was destroyed at a young age by Montreal's confusing landscape. I am a victim of Directional Abuse Syndrome and, like all victims, I deserve compensation. Perhaps you do, too. If any of you are lost souls from Montreal aimlessly wandering your city's streets, you too may be a victim. Join me in my struggle to right the wrong directions of Montreal's geography. Support my demands for: # A free global positioning system (GPS) for life, paid for by Montreal City Hall. # A large cash settlement to make up for my directional trauma. # A recovery period spent near the equator every year (in mid-winter), to realign myself with the Earth's magnetic field. I hear Trinidad is very calming at this time of year. With luck, the streets there are numbered. http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...id=970599119419 |
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| It lacks poetry, but at least I can find my hotel. |
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