Some notes on where not to drive this weekend. Also on CTV and on CBC.
Updates from April, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Low-lying parts of town are bracing for spring flooding; there’s lots more reportage about areas off island, too.
Friday, all our media are leading with flood stories, as rain is expected Friday and Saturday. Climate change is necessarily changing our relationship with waterways, especially given that we live in an archipelago and authorities allowed a lot of housing to be built in flood zones.
Uatu
Unfortunately the home owners have to move as these floods are becoming more common and constant rebuilding is seemingly endless. Either that or build a floating house or one on stilts that are 10ft. High.
Kate
Or redo the maps and declare certain areas off limits to new building or even transfers of property. No, I don’t know how people will be reimbursed, but it makes no sense for people to be living in flood zones and calling for government assistance every year or two, either.
Ian
The new rules are pretty clear, if you are in a flood zone you can only expect a certain level of compensation depending on how prone your area is. Many of the west island zones are not going to be compensated further in any way, i.e.; if you ar in a known flood zone you can rebuild at your own expense if you desire but it is recommended that you not bother and go elsewhere. While this may seem harsh to folks that have lived in certain zones for generations the realities of climate change affect us as much as Florida, seek high ground, water isn’t going away. In other news I have seen certain formerly prime waterfront properties selling for next to nothing… I guess if you were into rice farming and/or building on stilts it might be a big opportunity.
Kate
Thanks for the info, Ian.
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Kate
Cyclists can now legally get moving when the pedestrian signal comes up at an intersection.
dhomas
I’ve actually gotten a ticket before for “running a red” when I crossed the street with my bike during a pedestrian crossing. This is welcome news, as it’s much safer to cross (carefully) with pedestrians rather than with motor vehicles.
Tim S.
This is unfortunate. It might be safer for cyclists, but it’s not safer for pedestrians. I’m tired of being used as a moving pylon by cyclists who think they can weave in and out of crowds of people. Some cyclists move through a crowd at a slow speed, but some go as fast as any car, especially on flat or downhill slopes. That said, it probably won’t change much because the previous law wasn’t enforced (well, I guess it was for dhomas, but I almost never saw it).
Chris
Tim, when the cyclist and pedestrian are going the same direction, how is it worse? If the cyclist wants to turn, then he must still yield to the pedestrian (as before).
Jack
Tim seeing as the pedestrian body count now almost equals murders in this city, your concern seems….trite.
Ian
Call me utterly insane but when I’m riding my bike and want to cross with pedestrians, I get off my damn bike and walk it, as a pedestrian.
Ephraim
Jack… there are no numbers, because no one keeps statistics on pedestrians hurt in a bicycle accident around here. The SAAQ doesn’t even track it. And death is a minor factor in accidents… very few people die. Still, not fun to be in the hospital, be in traction, walking with a cane or a walker, be off work, etc.
Blork
Ian, you are utterly insane. 🙂
The idea is NOT that the cyclists cross on the crosswalk, mixed in with the pedestrians. The idea is that the cyclists stay on the street (or the bike path), so they go parallel with the pedestrians on the crosswalk.
So there you are on your bike, on the de Maisonneuve bike path, and you stop at a red light (red for everyone). A minute later ALL cars have a red light but the pedestrians have a green — this happens at some intersections; it’s designed to provide safe crossing for pedestrians where NO cars are moving. You can now go through that red light, going parallel with the pedestrians going the same way. No need to get off your bike and walk it. In fact it would be a hazard if you did that because you would be walking your bike on the bike path!
The one problem with this change is that *SOME* cyclists are complete idiots and will see this as license to go through any red light at any time. NO! It only applies when the red light is accompanied by a WALK light for pedestrians going the same direction you want to go on your bike.
qatzelok
Everyone is wasting too much text on the “bad cyclists” meme that commercial (car advertising) media has drummed into our heads.
Every “bad cyclist” is just “a bad driver” without a large car. A step forward.
Chris
Blork, that’s not the only problem with it. There’s the matter of 4 way simultaneous pedestrian crossings, for which there aren’t many, but some. In that case, there is a conflict, and indeed this change to the CSR was delayed for this reason.
Tim S.
Chris, that’s exactly it. Many of the neighbourhoods I walk through – NDG and Westmount, basically, have four way red lights. These changes will make it much more difficult for pedestrians. Yes, cyclists are legally obliged to “yield” – which in practice will often mean “slightly swerve”, but whether a cyclist actually yields or not is, for practical purposes, a judgment call that no cop will bother with, unless they’re annoyed at the cyclist for other reasons. The great thing about red lights is that they’re a simple rule to understand, and complicating things will only harm the most vulnerable users – in this case, pedestrians.
Jack, thanks for your comment. Suffice it to say that if you had to shepherd small children across the de Maisonneuve bike path, as I did everyday for 4 years, you might have a different perspective on what is “trite”. In the meantime, there is no contradiction in protecting pedestrians from cars, trucks and bikes.
CC
If cyclists are going to be taking over pedestrian safe spaces like the “walking man” crossing light, I might as well start taking my car when I go out and avoid those hazards. If it’s not safe to walk anymore, I’ll just drive.
Chris
Tim, technically, the issue is resolved by the placement of a sign near the pedestrian signal/light that indicates cyclists may not proceed, even if the ‘walking man’ appears. This is analogous to one of those no-right-on-red signs you see off-island.
Practically, this is really just codifying the status quo. Nothing much will change.
dhomas
To clarify my comment, when I got the ticket, I was on a bike path. That particular intersection, Berri and Viger, has a lot cars that turn right, crossing over the bike path. Some of the motorists have very little patience due to the traffic in that area (there was lots of construction due to the CHUM being built at the time), and this makes some of them particularly hostile to cyclists that they see contributing to the problem. So, in this case, it was much safer for me to cross during the pedestrian crossing, in parallel to the pedestrians (but not in their midst).
I was very confused when the cop stopped me. She was hostile with me from the onset. I told her that the light was green for pedestrians, to which she replied that I was not a pedestrian (in my head I was thinking of the Big Lebowski saying “you’re not wrong, you’re just an asshole”). I tried to tell her that it was safer this way, but she wouldn’t hear it. (She also contributed to the traffic problem, since she had to stop her car to give me the ticket, and other motorists had to get around her)
I think that in most cases, it’s safer for all involved to allow cyclists to cross during pedestrian crossing. There should be signage specific to those situations when it is not (4-way pedestrian crossings can get a specific cyclist light, for example).
Chris
If climate change is a global emergency, then it follows that we need more cycling.
The blunt truth is that, while cycling, having to completely stop is a big slowdown. Physics explanation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84eB0N-LG6M
Codifications of existing safe practice like going during ‘walking man’ phase and Idaho Stop make it easier and faster for a cyclist to get from A to B, and thus makes cycling a more viable option for more people.
Ephraim
Chris, it’s called momentum and it’s basic physics. What isn’t physics is the slippery slope argument. The cyclist that decides he doesn’t need to stop and/or look and just goes through, the car that decides he can do it at night, etc.
Someone, likely Velo Quebec, needs to educate cyclists as to the rules of the road and safety. And if Velo Quebec doesn’t do it, more and more people are going to ask the SAAQ to step in an ensure cyclists know road safety… it’s a shared system, and needs a lot of mutual (vehicle/pedestrian, with cyclists being a vehicle) respect, which most of us can clearly see is lacking, even in these comments.
Marco
Oh my god. Think of the thousands of pedestrians who are going to be killed and grotesquely disfigured as a result of this law. I can’t leave my house anymore. The morgues are already full of pedestrians massacred by fast-moving cyclists. We don’t stand a chance. (Google translated from English to Internet)
Ephraim
Marco, we went through this before. It’s not deaths, it’s injuries. Deaths are minimal and quick. Injuries are various and mean that people are off-work and may be permanently affected. As stated above, we don’t have statistics because the police, the SAAQ and the hospitals don’t track that statistic. Using deaths to count injuries is like trying to use tennis balls lost in public parks to count the number of telephone poles….there is no correlation as far as we know.
Kate
Ephraim, I did inquire of the public health people about injuries caused to pedestrians by cyclists and the only response was that it wasn’t a significant problem. I know it worries you a lot, but it really is not a big hidden problem in the city.
The thing about this law change is that I believe a lot of cyclists were already assuming they could move on the pedestrian light – not with and among the pedestrians, crowding them out, but on the road. The light offers a little advance on the motor traffic. This merely makes it legal and officially permissible.
Ephraim
Kate, it’s not tracked, so there is no way to know about it. And of course even if they tracked it, so many don’t report it, either. Like many things that aren’t reported, there is no way to know…. for example, bank embezzlement, bicycle theft, credit card theft, etc. People have a tendency to not report it… no statistics, nothing happened.
Someone rides their bicycle over your foot… are you making a police report? Nope. If you go to the hospital, are they tracking that it was done by a bicycle? Nope, they just put you into a cast.
Blork
Short-term, I like this change for the obvious reason that it means that I, as a cyclist, can safely advance on a red light and go parallel with pedestrians crossing on the sidewalk (but not crossing AGAINST the pedestrians). But longer term I’m not so sure. As someone pointed out above, there are intersections where ALL cars have red lights and ALL pedestrians have crossing. This means the bicycles *WILL* cross the pedestrians if they can advance on the red.
I think that kind of 4-way pedestrian crossing is rare in Montreal, but should it be? This new cycling rule works against creating more such crossings, including the mythical diagonal pedestrian crossings that work really well in some places. It makes me wonder if this short-term gain is really just a shot in the foot.
In terms of road regulations, bicycles are (I believe) closer to cars than pedestrians. While I think things like the Denver stop are perfectly legitimate, overall I think bicycle regulations need to enable pedestrian safety, not work against it. (Hmmm… still processing this…)
Kate
Ephraim, our public health people are pretty canny. I am confident they’d be aware of the problem if we really had a significant issue with injuries to pedestrians from cyclists. They don’t think there is. I’ve asked them before and I’m not going to hound them about it.
Remember, no cyclist wants to run into a pedestrian. It’s going to be at least as bad for the cyclist if they hit a person and go flying off their bike, possibly into traffic. It’s not like a motorist who, while clearly preferring not to hit a person either, knows the impact is unlikely to cause physical damage to themselves if they do.
Ephraim
Kate, no one wants to hit someone else, not as a pedestrian, and not a vehicle (motorized or not). That’s always true. But there doesn’t have to even be an impact, for example, someone swerving to avoid can wrench their back. And as I pointed out, there are a lot of elderly and handicapped in the pedestrian crowd. It’s a minor issue for a cyclist to avoid where he’s legally not supposed to be…. and yet, it’s something you have to deal with constantly. Maybe you don’t deal with it as much as I do, since I’m in a pedestrian neighbourhood. Until we have a coordinated effort to actually count accidents, it’s an unknown and will remain so.
And it will get worse soon…. you should see the sidewalks in the southern US with the motorized scooters. Articles are already pouring in… https://www.npr.org/2019/03/30/703102986/as-electric-scooters-proliferate-so-do-minor-injuries-and-blocked-sidewalks for example and https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/pedestrians-and-e-scooters-are-clashing-in-the-struggle-for-sidewalk-space/2019/01/11/4ccc60b0-0ebe-11e9-831f-3aa2c2be4cbd_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ebf2ec68ad59
And then, of course, are the ER costs associated with them. I’m not even sure where they are supposed to be used in Quebec… are they legal for the bike lane? Because they aren’t legal for the sidewalk.
Kate
Ephraim, I certainly live in what you call a “pedestrian neighbourhood” – Villeray’s full of walking folks.
I take your point but I refuse to believe it’s as much of an issue as you say. It doesn’t remotely compare to the hazard both pedestrians and cyclists face from motor vehicles, especially heavy ones.
Please let’s not take up more room trying to convince me. I understand you may have had unpleasant experiences and I don’t mean to downplay them, but on the grand scale, the relatively minor hazard to pedestrians from cyclists has already taken up too much space here.
Your point about motorized scooters is different and may need to be addressed – but that’s a separate issue.
Chris
Ephraim, I know this topic is a pet peeve of yours, but… even if there are a few more injuries because of this, I still think it’s a win overall if it helps get a few more people out of cars and into cycling. Injuries are also caused by car collisions, car air pollution, car global warming, etc. So it’s a trade off. To get more people to switch to cycling, we have to make it faster and safer to get from A to B (which is all anyone wants to do), and this is one way.
Ephraim
Chris… I’m not against cyclists at all. I’m against vehicles (including cyclists and scooters… because believe it or not, they are causing enormous problems in the US already and they are coming….) being in a pedestrian safety zone. To give you an example, I know people in walkers, with canes and at least one who only has vision in one eye…. all people who can’t handle the speed of a bicycle anywhere near them.But no one thinks about that. A single contortion by my friend with a cane and he’s off work for weeks. It’s not something a cyclist thinks about. Cover one of your eyes and see what it’s like to cross the street… not so easy and there is no depth perception with just one eye. And it’s a completely invisible handicap.
Not trying to stop progress, not trying to stop cyclists…. but pointing out what some people just fail to see… that there are people who are affected by cyclists who violate the law. I don’t see a group standing up for those pedestrians. All these people have a right to walk the streets of Montreal safely. A car veering at them is a concern, but so is a bicycle.
jaddle
I like this change. Yes, some cyclists will be asses and fly through an all-direction pedestrian crossing without paying any heed to those walking across. But those people are already doing this, legal or not. I don’t think the law will change anything except to make it legal for those that want to cross carefully and safely, when they aren’t in anyone’s way.
The biggest impact on safety will always be to just get more cars (and especially big trucks) off the streets. Making cycling easier contributes to that.
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Kate
An “aggressive” crowd spilled out of a show downtown Wednesday night, lighting fires and generally being disruptive. There were nine arrests. Radio-Canada doesn’t report which show they’d seen, and nobody else seems to be reporting this incident Thursday morning.
thomas
The incident occurred outside Club Soda following a concert by Tintamere.
Raymond Lutz
Je suis toujours surpris de la lenteur du SPVM devant ce type de comportement. Si les participants avaient été identifiés comme membres du FRAPRU, de l’ATTAC ou du Black bloc, les arrestations musclées auraient été immédiates.
Mr.Chinaski
Un group de post-rock symphonique… il y a rien de grabuge dans tout ça. ce n’est pas logique?
Kate
thomas, late thanks for that data.
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