New bike path coming on Christophe-Colomb
A new bike path will be installed along Christophe-Colomb between St‑Grégoire and Gouin this summer – Radio‑Canada says this fall – connecting up four boroughs and making the street calmer and safer for all users.
mare 19:57 on 2023-02-01 Permalink
Finally! They installed a bike path on CC in a few days (with green pylons) during the first pandemic summer (the one with the clean air and reduced car traffic). It was great and sooo fast. Super wide, on both sides of the street, and long uninterrupted blocks, and no separate traffic lights (yes, so less safe), so you had more than 25% chance you didn’t have to stop at every intersection. And the car traffic was actually abiding the speed limit, because there was only one lane. My favourite bike path in the city.
There were some issue, like near the underpass of the 40, and some steep ramps near schools, but overall it was great.
And then they took it down again, and it didn’t come back the next summer.
I’m glad they’re bringing it back. It will be a good replacement of the bike path on Boyer, that is just too narrow, damaged by tree roots and with weird connections at Jarry and several other intersections. And the section North of the 40 that goes through a small forested area had so many potholes it was scary and is never plowed so in the winter I alway used the sidewalk.
DeWolf 00:44 on 2023-02-02 Permalink
The VAS (as it was officially known) was a highlight of summer 2020, which was obviously an otherwise bleak summer. The reason it didn’t come back is because it was paid for using Quebec’s emergency pandemic funds. It was such a revelation, not only to have a safe, direct and very speedy north-south cycling route, but also because it really succeeded at calming traffic. It was better to walk along, to walk across, and even to drive on because you no longer had to deal with impatient drivers trying to do 60 in a 40 zone.