Montreal City Weblog

Kate 15:46 on 2021-09-06 Permalink Reply  

• John B 16:42 on 2021-09-06 Permalink

  I’ve spent a lot of time in Ottawa post-vaccination this summer, and I brought my bike. It’s… different, in some maddening ways.

  I’ve been staying more in the suburbs than I’m used to in Montreal, so I don’t have the Downtown Ottawa Bike Experience, where I hear things are getting better, with more separated lanes and stuff, but what I have seen is kind of maddening.

  There is a great network of reasonably well protected trails, especially through the greenbelt, but also on some abandoned rail lines. There are also quite a few trails near major roads that are somewhat protected. But they’re all mixed-use trails, with the conflicts those bring, with 20km/h speed limits and they don’t connect to each other! If someone is going to bike in from the ‘burbs they need to be able to have a safe route that’ll get them there reasonably quickly, and disconnected, slow, trails are not that.

  Then there are the “bike paths” on roads. Some are quite wide, like 6-10 feet wide, but it’s still the shoulder of the road, and it’s full of gravel and metal bits, and cars are passing you at 60 – 90km/h. Also, these bike paths seem to just randomly end mid-block, where blocks are >1km long.

  Ottawa is so close to having something great! If they would at least connect their multi-use trails they would have a very large cyclable network. If they would add some actual bike-only lanes that aren’t stuck to high-speed traffic it would be even better. Ottawa is a city full of green spaces where cycling can be super-pleasant, and could become a favoured mode of transportation. If they elected a Valerie Plante it it seems like there are tons of low-hanging fruit that could be improved in a very short time.

• Kate 20:08 on 2021-09-06 Permalink

  It took a long time for Montreal to realize that having bike paths that just stopped was a bad idea and, in at least one case I recall, a fatal one. It confuses drivers and cyclists both.

  You don’t put in a piece of random bike path willy nilly to look like a good guy politician responding to cycling activists. You need an overall plan. It took Projet to do that.

• j2 18:32 on 2021-09-07 Permalink

  I grew up in Ottawa and started cycling to my downtown high school from Ottawa South. Bronson and the overpass above the canal was nightmarish. Overall I loved it and I learned to ride and signal in traffic, since you have rights and responsibilities of a car. The Greenbelt was amazing. Cycling to the Gats to do some mountain biking was amazing. That said I wonder how much has changed in the past 20 years. It’s grown a lot.

  Here, there’s nowhere near as many nice areas to cycle around. I find the drivers are pretty clueless in a dangerous way. The civil engineers seem to like putting cyclists into danger. It’s improved with the bixi but with that has come greater volume and more cluelessness to the cyclists side.

• Max 21:53 on 2021-09-07 Permalink

  Speaking of bike paths, a new downtown segment on Peel is about to come online. This week from the looks of it. Biking up and down de la Montagne has has been sketchy as hell for more than a year with the construction. It’s from Rene-Levesque south to how far I don’t know as I’m Griffintown-averse. Crossing Peel as a pedestrian on the south of side of RL is about to get a lot more civilized too.

• Orr 15:58 on 2021-09-08 Permalink

  Talk to me when the Chemin-de-la-Cote-Sainte-Catherine bike path is directly connected to the avenue du Parc bike path.*
  Until this dangerous gap in the protected-bike-lane network is filled, Montreal gets a hard fail by not taking seriously the need to have a safe & connected & gap-free bike path network along all the major active transport arteries.
  (*This is an essential connection to all riders to the north or Mont Royal and the northwest of the island (think St-Laurent and points west) to get to downtown. See also: rebuilt Rockland overpass was done with zero safety improvement for pedestrians and active transport, and btw the walk-your-bike pedestrian overpass over the rail tracks at UdeM’s new biology building is an insult to active transport users.)