This is Montreal

July is peak season for biking in Montreal. It’s also one of the months when the most cyclists are hit by cars. The numbers show that a handful of intersections account for a large number of collisions involving bikes. CBC reporter Patricia Kozicka breaks down what makes these intersections so dangerous and what can be done to fix them.

A teenager from Blainville is asking international groups to investigate the environmental impact of Stablex, a US-owned hazardous waste site in his community. 14-year-old William Guindon argues that Canada and Quebec have failed to apply their own environmental protection laws, so now he’s taking his fight global by filing requests to the United Nations and to an environmental watchdog under the Canada-US-Mexico agreement (CUSMA). CBC journalist Sarah Jesmer looks at the controversy around the site, and what power these international bodies have to respond, particularly in the midst of trade tensions with the US.

In the lead up to the fall election, CBC Montreal host Sudha Krishnan is launching a series of conversations on Quebec identity — from two women with South Asian roots talking about how they’ve seen identity issues evolve since the 1970s, to young supporters of Quebec independence, to anglophone Montrealers defending their linguistic institutions.

The federal government’s proposed Alto high-speed train would link cities from Quebec City to Toronto with trains travelling 300 km/h or more, cutting travel times by up to half. But not everyone is on board. Farmers and rural land owners are worried about expropriations — some haunted by the legacy of the Mirabel airport. And with a Quebec election looming and sovereignty on the table, the Parti Québécois is not interested in jumping on the Canadian nation-building train.

Water restrictions this summer have brought the importance of clean running water into focus. But how did Montrealers get clean before they had indoor plumbing? For much of Montreal’s history, it was a dangerous proposition: People risked drowning in the Saint-Lawrence river or catching diseases from a backyard privy. The solution? Public baths. Reporter Gloria Henriquez dives into the history of Montreal’s public baths — and why not everyone was allowed to use them at first.