Bikes vs no bikes
La Presse has an op-ed headlined Montréal n’est pas qu’une ville de vélos in response to last week’s Montréal ne sera jamais une « ville de chars » !. In this new piece, the writer lays out that not everyone is able to cycle, the population is aging, there are families with kids, not all jobs are amenable to having people arriving sweaty or wet, and so on, so the city can’t act as if everyone’s a potential cyclist. As Suzanne Lareau, who headed Vélo Québec for 19 years, and is stepping down at the end of the year, says about it: “C’est décourageant d’entendre des arguments vieux de 30 ans avec tout ce qu’on connaît sur les crises climatique et de santé publique.”
PatrickC 13:56 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
Discouraging maybe, but the arguments in the op-ed did not seem to me so unreasonable that they should be dismissed out of hand..
Raymond Lutz 14:43 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
I plan to ride a bike until I die, even if I have to (gasp) ride a tricycle (or bettrer yet a recumbent trike)… You’re fit to drive? you’re fit to ride.
Michael Black 14:50 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
The best muscles I had were in my legs, and related areas. It came from always walking. And then I got sick, and I’m still working at getting back to “normal” (which I fear may never be my previous normal). There are lots of reasons people can get weaker as they get older.
Of course, if you spend a life driving everywhere, you won’t be in great shape when you arrive at “old age” and then it’s probably too late to change.
Another four years and I can get a senior bus pass, at which point I probably will.
Kate 15:10 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
Raymond Lutz, I stopped cycling a few years ago. It wasn’t exactly a decision. I still have a bike, although it needs a tune-up. But I never went out for a ride without an unpleasant experience. I’d get home shaken up by a close call in traffic or having a yahoo scream at me from a car window, it was always something. This dovetailed with a time I was working for someone who wouldn’t let me bring my bike inside, and I wasn’t going to leave it on the street unwatched for hours. One day I guess I came home and locked the bike in the back yard, and didn’t take it out again. A little while later, I stashed it in the storage locker to keep it from theft and rust, and there it sits.
So I lost the habit. I miss it sometimes but not enough to spend money on fixing the bike up because I have a feeling I’d encounter the same problems again.
Kevin 15:56 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
I rode my bike a lot more before I broke my back.
If the streets were paved, I’d ride more often, but getting to the point where I could ride to the office even twice a week will take a lot of work.
Ian 16:21 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
I was a solely a transit & walking guy until I was in my mid 40s. I probably ride the Bellechasse bike path more often than the majority of people that post here, one end to the other. I used to ride my bike to work until I started working at a location a bit further away where it was easier to just take the metro. I never owned a car until I started working in Ste Anne.
Similarly, most people that I know who bike every day work about a 30 minute bike ride away, tops.
Transit west of Dorval is a joke – if there was even a decent train service I would happily sell my car for scrap tomorrow. It’s a pain in the ass to own & take care of one. Even so, transit is extremely frustrating and there are a lot of people that have reason to regularly go places that are simply too far to bike for a variety of reasons – and I don’t care how fit you are now, there is a good chance that one day you will be old and infirm but even if it never happens to you, to be dismissive of people that can’t bike – for any variety of reasons – is rude and dismissive.
Again, 3rd option:
Montreal is not a city of cars, but it’s not a city of bikes either. It’s a city of people.
If you want people to get around, and we know not everyone can ride all the time, and we also don’t want people to drive, the most obvious option is to focus on transit. Putting in bike paths is an easy win superficially but if you do this without improving transit, of course they will be frustrated.
walkerp 17:06 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
I hate these argument so much. The dominant majority acts like their entire world is being upended when the tiniest slice of their power is being chipped away. Our streets are packed end to end with cars. You can never not see a car. People are killed by them slow and fast and it is one of the highest killers in our country. And you want to add a few bike paths and suddenly it’s “bikes are taking over the world, what about the poor drivers?!”. It’s the same fake arguments that were trotted out when the ban on plastic straws was first announced. Oh my god what about handicapped people?! How will they ever drink again?!
Holy shit people do you not see that the entire west coast of America is on fire right now. We are in a climate emergency that is going to make covid seem mellow. Is it really that hard to change your lifestyle. Yes, some people need to drive. Nobody is saying they can’t. Those exceptions to not negate that we need to get away from this mode of existence and fast.
Ian 18:36 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
It’s not wall to wall cars in Manhattan… because they have good transit, not because they have bike paths. In fact it’s a remarkably bike-hostile city… but yeah, you can walk the streets at 3 am and not see almost any cars throughout most o lower manhattan. It’s a very walkable city.
Again, the issue with making such a big deal about bike paths is that it creates a false dichotomy between bikes and cars, There is a 3rd option that works all year, and serves everyone’s needs regardless of ability or health. Public transit. And no, I don’t mean PPP bullshit like the new train line that will actually make things worse for getting around and is an obvious money grab by big developers.
Chris 21:34 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
Of course not everyone can cycle. Not everyone can drive either. Nor walk for that matter. But our cycling mode share is like 1% on the island, and maybe 10% on the Plateau (ish, I can’t be bothered to look it up). We could do much much much better, especially in central neighbourhoods.
It’s too expensive to move buildings, so we’re stuck with the amount of space we have between buildings now. That space has to be divided between pedestrian, cycling, transit, and car space. It’s the latter that has the vast majority of that space currently, either for driving or parking. This whole thing is really a fight for finite non-enlargable space. There’s no way to have substantially more walking, cycling, and transit *without* taking space away from cars. And we must. There can still be space for driving, just less.
It saddens me how so many people have, with minimal resistance, accepted all kinds of lifestyle degradations and burdens due to covid, but refuse to do the same for climate change. We humans suck at long term thinking. 🙁
>If the streets were paved, I’d ride more often
ROTFL. Amen to that. Many motorists don’t realize cyclists hate potholes way more than they do!
>It’s not wall to wall cars in Manhattan
Wait, what? Manhattan *is* wall-to-wall cars. *And* wall-to-wall pedestrians. *And* wall-to-wall transit.
Blork 21:35 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
The “Montréal n’est pas qu’une ville de vélos” is pretty tame and reasonable. Unfortunately it’s 2020 and we’ve all been ruined by Facebook, so many people will go there expecting to see some kind of anti-bike, pro-car screed, and when they don’t find one they’ll interpret it that way anyways.
But the fact remains that we have (a) winter, (b) other types of bad weather, (c) an abundance of urban triplexes where there’s no place to leave a bicycle short of lugging it up two or three flights of stairs every day, (d) and abundance of workplaces where there’s no place to leave a bike and no accomodation for sweaty workers, (e) a human population full of injuries and ailments that make cycling less easy than for younger people, etc. etc. etc.
That doesn’t mean abandon all bike paths and pave over every green space for a parking lot. It’s just a realistic view that cycling is an important part of the city’s life and system, but there will be no gigantic revolution that turns Montreal into a city like Copenhagen or Amsterdam. So think and act accordingly.
Jonathan 08:07 on 2020-09-15 Permalink
If the people who could bike or take public transit actually did that, there would be more road capacity to accommodate those who have little choice but to drive.
The idea is to make sure that the most efficient/just way of transport is encouraged and that the way we construct and adapt our living environments encourages this kind of ‘transport landscape.’
That is what is driving (no pun) the reallocation of road space in Montreal these days.
People are acting like we are removing roads. Other than making a handful of commercial streets as pedestrianized for parts of the day (accessible to delivery trucks in the early morning), there is no road that has been made inaccessible to a personal vehicle.
Meezly 09:13 on 2020-09-15 Permalink
The popularity of electric bikes and scooters are increasing every year. I see those Rad bikes everywhere. Great for older riders and they’re more likely to have the disposable income and it will solve the sweat problem. But we still need more parking options at work and on the sidewalks.
It’s true many people would love to ride bikes but they are held back by fear of cars, which is very valid. The city already frees up lane space for biking in the warm seasons and then the cars and transit buses reclaim these lanes during the winter.
And what Chris and walkerp said, parts of the world has been on fire throughout 2020r. We’re facing a climate emergency and everyone needs to think more radically. Covid and climate are not so different from one another.
Chris 10:10 on 2020-09-15 Permalink
>The popularity of electric bikes and scooters are increasing every year.
IIRC, those “Bird” e-scooters are not street legal. They should be allowed. For all their faults, they are less harmful to society than automobiles.
>But we still need more parking options at work and on the sidewalks.
Agree we need more bike parking, but it should not come from taking away pedestrian space on the sidewalks but by taking away car space on the roads.
Blork 12:09 on 2020-09-15 Permalink
Those Rad bikes (the ones with the 20″ fat tires) weight 65 pounds (more if you add accessories) and cost almost $2000. Where are you going to store that if you’re 60 years old with a bad back and you live on the third floor of triplex? (This is not an edge case I’m describing…)
Meezly 12:24 on 2020-09-15 Permalink
I don’t think I was saying those Rad bikes are the answer, just observing how popular they’re getting, so I’m assuming people are figuring out how to acquire and store them?
mare 15:05 on 2020-09-15 Permalink
I vaguely had the idea to rent a garage (I see signs around here offering them for $75/month), change the garage door to a (double) normal door, install 2 story bike racks and electronic locks (code changes monthly) and rent out the spaces for $10/month for year-round bike parking.
I have friends in Amsterdam that park their bikes that way. A little less convenient, but they have good bikes and those are stolen in a heartbeat in Amsterdam, and now they’re are dry and safe from thieves (they still lock them of course). They don’t have a car, so their bikes are used every day.
You could probably fit more than 20 bikes in a one-car garage, so the investment in bike racks, doors, locks, and insurance will be recouped pretty fast. You probably can even buy a garage, and the revenue would easily cover the mortgage. You might even go bigger and make a whole network of these bike garages, one in every alley, and even get a subsidy from the boroughs, etc, etc.
Unfortunately I’m too busy to set this up, but it would probably be a viable business.
MarcG 15:34 on 2020-09-15 Permalink
@mare: I don’t follow your math. If you rent the garage for $75/month and have 20 bikes at $10/month, you’re only making $125/month. I don’t see how that could recoup the cost of bike racks, doors, locks, and insurance very quickly.
mare 19:55 on 2020-09-15 Permalink
@MarcG there’s a reason I’m not a successful businessman. 😉