Is there somewhere in governments an old DVD (or even VHS) player whose dial flashes to indicate that it is always noon, no matter the time of day or night? This would serve as a useful reminder.
The DVD player can reveal something about its users: they want to take advantage of the latest technologies, but they don’t know how to get there fully. There are DVD players on which noon flashes constantly everywhere in Quebec: in health, in education… you would bet that noon flashes in transport as well.
Public transit is probably the DVD player of transportation in Montreal. We pay a lot for our gadgets, but we don’t know how to use them properly. Its administrators give the impression that they prefer to travel by car anyway, because users seem so far from their priorities.
CDPQ Infra manages the REM like a private company: the new train set must become profitable. At a total cost of $7.95 billion, this will require sustained efforts over several years.
To make it easier to achieve this profitability, the Regional Metropolitan Transport Authority (ARTM) reorganized all public transportation on the South Shore to direct it exclusively to a REM station. The result is that most users who took the bus on the South Shore and only disembarked in Montreal must now disembark in Brossard, extend the duration of their journey and pay an additional premium to board the REM.
You also need to know exactly “how” and “how much” to pay. Because the ARTM continues to use an outdated OPUS system rather than adopting a modern payment method.
To take a light train, the urban tram, the metro, the bus, a bicycle or an electric scooter elsewhere in the world, you pay with a credit card, a telephone or a connected watch (Sweden has even tested a chip under the skin, for a slightly dystopian moment).
Elsewhere, you have the choice between more than one mode of transport to arrive at the same destination. And, yes, their payment systems can also calculate the distance of trips to adjust the price accordingly.
Repair, but how?
There was a lot of talk last week in Quebec about Bill 29, which aims to “protect consumers against planned obsolescence by promoting the durability, repairability and maintenance of goods.” In this case either, we don’t really know how to set the time…
Funny coincidence, California adopted a law similar to Law 29 on Tuesday, September 12. California becomes, after New York and Minnesota, the third American state to legally regulate the repairability of devices sold in their country. It will require manufacturers to provide the public with replacement parts, tools, software and documentation for at least three years for devices costing less than $100 and seven years for devices costing $100 or more. necessary for their repair.
Quebec also wants to impose a universal charger on brands of electronic devices, as Europe will do from the fall of 2024. The European Union has gone further than requiring a universal standard. It imposes the USB-C charger on everyone. Including Apple which, until this summer, was not for this measure. As we saw this week, Apple will finally comply.
The European Union calculates that this new law will avoid, in Europe alone, the discharge of some 11,000 tonnes of waste each year from 2025. Out of the 54 million tonnes of electronic waste produced annually in the world.
This is a positive step, but rather timid. And which could also become obsolete.
A new type of contactless charger, called Qi (pronounced “chi”), could emerge as the next standard in electronics. Its use, already quite widespread, could be multiplied by five by the end of the decade.
People who adopt it will no longer need their USB-C cable. It will disappear at the bottom of a drawer, at the ecocenter or in the trash.
When it comes to waste management, we sometimes act as if it were always noon. But it is one minute to midnight.
Help yourself
If you have an LG (or GE, or Bosch, or…) brand dishwasher that is not too old and its door suddenly gives way, it is easy to repair it yourself. Time required: 10 minutes. Total cost: $15. All you have to do is replace the two nylon cables that hold it, which end up giving way due to rubbing on the pulley that completes their mechanism. These cables are found behind a side panel held by four screws.
A certified technician will do this for you for around $200.
Ask the government to look into this and in four years you will be forced to impose a universal nylon cable as the only mechanism allowed for dishwasher doors. You may have already paid $800 for a brand new dishwasher. Manufacturers in the meantime will have adopted the steel spring.
People who dare to get their hands dirty to do the repair themselves probably know how to set the time on their DVD player.