More river ferries this summer
More river ferries will be operating this summer: the ferry linking Pointe‑aux‑Trembles to the Old Port is back, but there will also be a link from the Old Port to Boucherville and another linking the Old Port to St Helen’s Island and Longueuil. More details in the article. A one‑way fare is $5.50.
Thomas 09:12 on 2022-05-18 Permalink
Love to see it! Montreal is an Island, but sometimes you’d never know it.
Presumably our electric boat service on the Back River between the Site nautique Sophie-Barat and the Parc de Beauséjour will be back this year as well (I haven’t seen confirmation, but I was told last year that they’d be back this year with better boats — and the signs are still up)
Daniel D 09:47 on 2022-05-18 Permalink
I am so happy about this! In lieu of weekend trains it will be a great way to explore the region.
mare 09:51 on 2022-05-18 Permalink
Anybody knows if you could bring a bike on those ships? (To a limit, If there’s room.) Then it would be a great start for a bike ride a bit further away from the city. Since we don’t have bike racks on busses you almost need a car to cycle further away (Communautos don’t have hitches to BYO bike rack.)
I bought an electric bike this year so my range is a bit wider now (albeit with slight battery anxiety). Went to Varennes and back last week, but getting up the Jacques-Cartier on the way back took nearly all the juice out of the battery.
Kate 10:52 on 2022-05-18 Permalink
Bikes certainly used to be welcome. The Navark site doesn’t say either way, but you could inquire.
Daniel D 11:13 on 2022-05-18 Permalink
There were loads of bikes last year when I went on the boat to Pointe‑aux‑Trembles, as the boat seemed very popular with leisure cyclists. But like Kate says, probably best to confirm to be sure.
Blork 11:45 on 2022-05-18 Permalink
The boat that used to run between the old port and Ile-Ste-Helene/Longueuil (pre-pandemic) had passenger capacity of 100, and the entire bottom deck was for bicycles. You could probably fit 60 or more bikes in there.
Photo of the boat from the JCB: https://flic.kr/p/9Xv6cV You can see the top deck where passengers sit (no passengers sitting there in this photo), and the bottom deck (the line of square windows) is enclosed and consists of benches pushed up against the windows and then entire centre space for bicycles (a rack runs down the middle, with bikes radiating on both sides, like ribs on a spine).
It’s unclear if those same boats will be used for the new service. I really hope so, because they were fantastic. Sitting out there in the breeze with you bike happily racked down below… it was the cheapest river cruise in town.
Montrealers could bike to the old port, hop the boat to Longueuil, and from the marina (where it docked) you have quick access to the bike path that runs along the river all the way to Varennes, or to Ste-Catherine in the other direction. Or you could do a loop but taking the boat to Longueuil then going south to St-Lambert and across to Ile-Ste-Helene and back to the city, or go farther and take the Champlain bridge back to the city.
Of course those rides still exist, minus the boat part. (E.g., take the Jacques-Cartier across to Longueuil and then south to St-Lambert and back through Ile-Ste-Helene, or go from Griffintown across to Ile-Ste-Helene then south to the Champlain bridge, etc.) But having that boat component made it all the more magical on a beautiful day.
Kate 13:12 on 2022-05-18 Permalink
Here’s the Navark page on river shuttles. They do mention bicycles.
Blork, I did something like you describe back when I was cycling. Went over to Longueuil by boat, cycled into St‑Lambert where I still had an elderly relative at the time, dropped by for a visit, then came home over the Victoria and the islands.
dhomas 15:35 on 2022-05-18 Permalink
@mare my EV isn’t certified to use a hitch (not because it can’t, but because it would affect the range calculations in the marketing material), so I use a different portable bike mount that hooks into the trunk. It looks something like this:
https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/6e9a50ba-b7f2-4349-a18d-a68f55e0d8d6_1.350798ba02202b6e1d5733c9eda5cef5.jpeg
(Sorry for the ugly link!).
You could surely use one of these on a Communauto.
Blork 17:13 on 2022-05-18 Permalink
@dhomas, I doubt that bike mount would handle an ebike because of the weight. Ebikes are typically 50-60 pounds.
Also, the highways of the past are littered with smashed bicycles that flew off of that kind of bike mount. (This is why you almost never see those anymore; they fail. A lot.)
Unfortunately, hitch-mounted bike racks are way more complicated than most of you might imagine, especially for e-bikes. When I was shopping around for a new car last year (after 14 years of faithful service from my compact Honda Fit) it was impossible to find a compact car that could accommodate a class II hitch, which is necessary for carrying more than about 75 pounds of bicycle.
(With the Fit we’d put the lighter bike on a class I bike rack and put the other bike inside the car. Huge pain in the ass, so we absolutely wanted a car that could take both bikes on a rack.)
Every single compact car on the market (including small SUVs like the Hyundai Kona) is only certified for class I hitches. You cannot buy a class II hitch for those vehicles.
So I ended up with a Subaru Crosstrek, which is the smallest car I could find that takes a class II hitch. (We have two e-bikes, with a combined weight of about 85 pounds without batteries attached.)
The important factor is “tongue weight,” which refers to the downward pressure on the hitch. It has nothing to do with how much weight the car can carry or how much it can tow; it’s all about the downward weight. A class I hitch has a maximum tongue weight of 200 pounds. So when you combine two bicycles, the weight of the bike rack, and account for the added pressure from bouncing, there is no way you can have a bike rack for two ebikes on a compact car.
…I mean you could, but only after the manufacturers change the design of compact cars so they can accommodate stronger hitches, but that ain’t gonna happen.
DeWolf 17:49 on 2022-05-18 Permalink
Now that Longueuil is going to pedestrianization St-Charles this summer, I will definitely be up for a bike and ferry ride to check it out. Vieux-Longueuil is very nice.
Blork 18:22 on 2022-05-18 Permalink
Best thing about a bike ride to Longueuil is this crazy passerelle over the 132: https://goo.gl/maps/MRtNWyKYMYGcgvFT7
Margaret 08:05 on 2022-05-19 Permalink
I took the pilot project voyage from Boucherville to the Old Port last summer. What a great way to travel! Bikes allowed, dogs not, as the Navark ferries stop at places where dogs are not allowed (Ile Grosbois of the SEPAQ Iless de Boucherville site). Debouched my bike, cycled from the Old Port to Terrasse St Ambroise for rehydration and then back to the boarding quai along the Lachine Canal again for the river ride to home. Living the dream! 🙂
Blork 09:31 on 2022-05-19 Permalink
Finally had a look at that Navark web site. What a mess. First off, the photo on the landing page (showing a small wharf along the bike path on the 132) is 15 years out of date. It looks nothing like that now. There’s a three-metre high wall separating the bike path from the highway, and the path itself has been greatly improved — almost twice as wide and with a fence on the river side. You can see all this — and the wharf — in this short video I shot there in 2017: https://youtu.be/VdnDEPetz3c
Trying to navigate the Navark site isn’t easy. It’s got all the modern bells and whistles (circa 2015) but doesn’t give you what you need. For example, it has a map of the routes, and the map seems to be interactive but when you click on it all you get is a JPG of the map.
I want to get info on the MVL line (old port to Ile-Ste-Helene and Longueuil) but there’s no “more details” page for it!
WTF Navark!
JaneyB 09:44 on 2022-05-19 Permalink
@Blork – that’s very useful info on bike hitches. Thx!