The Blork Blog

One of the driving forces in my life is to find, and when I can, correct, bad information. By “bad information” I generally mean:

• Information containing chasmic gaps
• Incorrect information
• Poorly stated information
• Information that is unnecessarily hard to find

Lucky for me, the world is awash with bad information. I see it all the time, on an almost daily basis. Sometimes I think I should start a blog dedicated to nothing but pointing out, and when possible correcting, bad information. But that blog would end up taking over my life and I’d have to quit my day job, which, by the way, is all about good information.

Loyal readers of this blog will recall that I sometimes discuss bad information on the present blog. For example, there’s the recent post about Videotron’s bad information regarding its high definition channels. Then there was my rant about Mobile TV on Telus phones. And I’m not above tooting my own horn by showing you how a rewrite can turn a pile of poo into something meaningful (or at least understandable).

But mostly I just suffer and grumble and rant about it over dinner. (Hmmm. For the sake of my relationship, maybe I should start that other blog…)

Here’s a recent one. At the Longueuil Metro and bus terminal, which has been undergoing a large scale reorganization of the grounds and approaches over the past year (and will continue for another), they recently uprooted the bicycle parking. In the loop where the racks to accommodate hundreds of bicycles were, the following signs appeared one day:

Translation: “We must relocate the bike racks on Friday, July 4 at 5:00 AM. All remaining bicycles will be handed over to police headquarters.”

I don’t know how much advance warning was given for the move because I haven’t been riding my bike to the terminus lately. But I wouldn’t be surprised if these signs went up on July 3.

OK, what’s missing? How about where the hell is the new location for the bike racks?!

In the five years I’ve been commuting through that terminal I have on several occasions seen signs warning of something or other being moved, and they usually give the address of the new location. However, if you’re familiar with the area around the terminal you know that the streets are not typical and nobody really knows what their names are. So if a sign says “the clinic has moved to 2100 rue de Sérigny,” that means nothing; especially since rue de Sérigny has essentially five different locations (see below).

The many faces of rue de Sérigny (red arrows). The yellow box is the terminal; the main public entrance is at the top, so all that stuff around the sides and back is largely unknown to the average person.

No, what we need is a map. It doesn’t even have to be a fancy map, just a map that shows the old location and the new location, along with a few key buildings (like the terminal), for reference.

In this case, I’m sure there are people who still haven’t found the new location for the bike racks because they’re all the way around the other side of the terminal, on one of the rues de Sérigny, in an area that was essentially a “no go” zone before the reorganization. You certainly can’t see it from the old location, and it’s not like the new location just springs to mind.

Old and new locations; about 400 metres apart, with several buildings and and the bus departure gates in between.