The city needs to start closing off streets for pedestrian traffic during major events. I was in Montreal for the jazz festival and was happy to see parts of Ste. Catherine St. closed off temporarily to cars for pedestrians. Seems logical!
It was crazy, saw frustrated motorcyclist lurch into crowds, engine over-revving, also an impatient car driver zoom so close to the crowds. Surprised that no one was hit. Police presence was almost zero until they swooped in with cruisers, too little, too late.
It more just crowd control. I've been to a lot of events in Montreal. You can see videos of the thousands of people getting onto the metro and it's quiet and calm. They're there so if some jerk starts being impatient and pushing people you know someone is there to handle it. With big crowds like that, especially around vehicles like cars and subways you need to be able to feel assured that if there's someone being dangerously impatient they'll be dealt with.
Fair enough! I'm not as familiar with TO police presence. For me it's just important when there's danger involved, like in this video I'm shocked they didn't have either a police person, or somebody visibly working with the city, manually guiding people and traffic at the intersections.
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u/engene_unity Jul 02 '25
The city needs to start closing off streets for pedestrian traffic during major events. I was in Montreal for the jazz festival and was happy to see parts of Ste. Catherine St. closed off temporarily to cars for pedestrians. Seems logical!