Quote of the week:

"Parliament should act… no more appeals." - MP Paul Martin, expressing his view on the next step if the Courts of Appeals in B.C. and Ontario uphold lower court rulings favouring same-sex marriages. John Manley, Sheila Copps and Joe Clark also came out in favour of same-sex marriages.

Un-fare fight

While you, personally, have probably resigned yourself to coughing up the extra 25 cents it's going to cost each time you take public transportation as of July 1 - when the MUCTC implements the second fare increase in six months - rest assured that the always feisty lobby group Transport 2000 have not, and are working hard to have the proposed fare hike re-evaluated.

"What this hike amounts to is an unfair tax on people who cannot afford to operate a car - people, many of them lower income, who have no choice but to take public transit," says Transport 2000 director Normand Parisien. "The MUCTC hopes to generate an additional $6-million from this hike, but even with that and the $6-million they will be getting from City of Montreal taxpayers, they will continue to fall $6-million short of addressing their current $18-million deficit."

Parisien is concerned that unless the powers that be come around to his way of thinking, and soon, the end result of this latest MUCTC budget crisis will be even more fare hikes in the near future. Earlier this week, Transport 2000 presented city council with an alternative plan that would see motorists shouldering more of the cost of public transit by increasing parking fees across the entire island of Montreal. Says Parisien, "Motorists benefit from an effective public transport system, so why shouldn't they help pay for it?" » Chris Barry

Pedestrians power up

Sure, Toronto's got SARS, Alberta mad cow and the countryside West Nile virus, but Montreal still has its 700 killer crosswalks, for the most part unpoliced and unrespected by scofflaw motorists. To make matters worse, city workers, mirroring motorist indifference to the crossing scene, have so far neglected to repaint the yellow stripes this year, an annual rite of spring.

But before you stroll into the pit of despair, the good news is that city pedestrian czar Jeremy Searle has yet another pilot project starting in a few weeks, which will see five new crosswalks installed in NDG.

The crosswalks entail "a sloping triangle coming from the sidewalk, about a foot high made of cement, with posts and a sign with a gavel and the words ‘$200,'" says the veteran NDG councillor.

Last year, four such crosswalks were installed in St-Laurent, resulting in a car compliance rate going from near zero to 70 per cent in a few weeks (although having a cop standing around with a notepad possibly boosted vehicular compliance).

Searle is also getting cops to hand out "I Respect Pedestrians" stickers starting in a few weeks. "Philosophically, they're unlike ‘Baby On Board' stickers. I never liked those because they tell other people how to drive," he says. The stickers will help because, according to Searle, many drivers are reluctant to stop at crosswalks for pedestrians "because they're afraid how the drivers behind will react." » Kristian Gravenor

Party for the Publique

Concerned urban dwellers: Montreal's bilingual community newspaper Place Publique is holding a fundraiser this Wednesday, June 3, to celebrate its 10-year anniversary. The benefit will feature a variety of acts, from klezmer to jazz to stand-up comedy.

The paper was the brainchild of a group of activists who, back in the early '90s, fought off developers to protect housing in the Milton-Parc area around the McGill ghetto (those buildings remain part of one of the country's largest housing co-ops). Since its establishment in 1993, says managing editor Gerald Doucet, Place Publique has kept to its mandate of covering municipal and environmental issues from a progressive, educational standpoint. Often working with the Urban Ecology Centre, Publique has also held workshops that basically "teach people how to live in the big city without totally fucking up the environment," Doucet says.

The paper is available by subscription or can be found in about 250 spots (cafés and like) in Montreal's downtown/Plateau area. The issue now on the stands takes a look at the talent that will be performing at the benefit; support for local artistes has also been on the paper's to-do list. "Basically," says Doucet, "community is the key word."

Pick up a copy of the paper, call 282-8378 or go to www.ecologieurbaine.net for the lowdown on the show. The benefit takes place Tuesday, June 3 at the Salle Gesù (1200 Bleury) starting at 7:30 p.m. Tix are $15. » Alexandra Spunt

Rear view

17 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
May 22-June 11, 1986

On the cover: Posters, and a history and examination of the medium as an art form. "If urban living is to be enjoyable living, the poster can make the city environment a pleasing museum without walls," writes Melanie Reinblatt.

• The Mirror examines the state of radio as the CRTC plans to receive applications for four new stations. Montreal, it is revealed, is lacking in quality radio broadcasting, although hopes are raised that applicants CRSG at Concordia, McGill's CFRM, CIBL and a jazz station will revitalize it some.

• PiL plays Montreal June 14. Brendan Kelly writes that frontman Johnny (Rotten) Lydon "turned the dreaded 30 in the last year and he's also come up with a comeback LP [Album] with a more healthy, aggressive spirit than anything PiL's done in six years."

• The Mirror previews the Silence Elles Tournent women's film fest, which, organizers hope, is "satisfying a huge demand…to have access to contemporary films being made by women throughout the world, and to women's films from the history of cinema."

Angel >> Booze and good judgement Two recent studies at Queen's University suggest that, contrary to popular assumptions, drunks can be less impulsive and more responsible than sober people. The first test offered three groups of undergrads, two sober, one drunk, a choice between receiving $15 immediately or $30 later; surprisingly, the sober ones chose the $15, while the drunks held out. Another study found drunks responsive to strong "inhibiting cues" - visual aids - that warned against unsafe sex. Look forward to drunks slurring generalizations about being in full control of their abilities and how drinking doesn't change them one bit, goddammit.
Insect >> Booze and Yam In other alcohol-saturated news, a man was allegedly murdered by his friend over the weekend, in Lachine's high-crime Duff Court neighbourhood, motive unknown. It was known, however, that the two were heavy drinkers who would get into fistfights with each other, often after arguments over the last beer or who won at Yam, a dice game. According to the report in the Gazette, both the accused and the deceased were described by neighbours as nice enough when sober, which was unfortunately rare. Alcoholism is cited as a problem in Duff Court, a district that contained the highest concentration of low-income housing in the province last year.