Saturday, January 10, 2009

The Future ...............then The Past

Remember when they started to build the old Decarie Expressway,and of course tied it into the Turcot Interchange & all our other highspeed roadways of the day...Montreal was on it's way to being a truly modern city,with elevated highways to zip you all over town in half the time it used to take............and although that doesn't seem that long ago, it's time has come to  renew, and so the old Turcot will disappear,the ville marie expressway will be revamped,and so old is new again,ground level highways will be the norm,& most likely speed limits will be reduced & enforced (I imagine) ahhh   We are getting older , aren't we?    ..and to think a lot of it started with that mess of spaghetti looking streetcar tracks at Saint Lawrence & Saint Catherine,..many moons ago: All the stuff we saw ,has now come & gone,.probably to be reinvented in the future as a 'new idea'..................as they say There is Nothing New Under the Sun....         hf&rv

3 comments:

carolyn bennett said...

happy new year to all who have secured the continuity of this site, guy, les, maggie, winston etc.
we are relocating to virginia in july as jack is retiring from tampa fed court, and time to go home, family there.
i guess we will both have small jobs, golf and keep up with lifes adjustments in general.
fondly to you all
carolyn bennett

Les F said...

hi Carolyn,..good to hear from you, So it's goodbye to Florida ,Hello Virginia,well that's a beautiful place too....and the golfing idea sounds fine......lol. What about the Bahamas,is that still on each year ? You guys did use to go there too,didn't you? Anyway nice of you to pop in.......HF&RV

Ken McLaughlin said...

It was the automobile companies in the US that killed electric trolleys. Buses were cheaper short term but once the track was down trolleys cost next to nothing to maintain. Buses on the other hand constantly needed repair and had to be outright replaced every so many years. Most cities in North America tore up the most of the track systems they had especially close to downtown. And of course today they are all talking trams and light rail high speed systems for commuting. A classic case of what goes around comes around. Our whole economy has been based on gas and cars and only today are politicians finally begrudgingly admitting that that wasn't such a great idea. Electric has always been cheaper and sustainable and there were alternative fuel possibilities being worked on all over the world 100 years ago but the monopolies had their way. As I like to say, we can put a man on the moon, but we can't build sustainable vehicles? We've been getting totally conned right out of our socks for a long time.