Montreal City Weblog

Kate 13:49 on 2023-07-08 Permalink Reply  

• Chris 16:31 on 2023-07-08 Permalink

  How is this possible?? Losing all that car access should have bankrupted them, no?? /s

• waffles 22:01 on 2023-07-08 Permalink

  ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* It’s time to put a real bike lane on mont-royal *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

• Tofu va Vohu 08:52 on 2023-07-09 Permalink

  I was walking there yesterday at the north/east end, and people were enjoying themselves even though it was crazy hot out. People were strolling, socializing, biking, dining, and shopping. I saw one woman using a scooter to transport a large potted plant she’d bought, and another couple carrying some lumber. The public piano at Parc des Compagnons de Saint Laurent was played by several people. It was all really pleasant and enjoyable!

• Forgetful 08:59 on 2023-07-09 Permalink

  waffles, I’d rather see high quality bike lanes perpendicular to Mont-Royal; providing better active and micro mobility access to the street, but keeping Mont-Royal itself a priority pedestrian space. Kate surprisingly didn’t share the news, but don’t forget that e-scooters and other throttle vehicles are now allowed on paths. The volume and speed of bike path users is increasingly becoming incompatible with pedestrian spaces.

• waffles 14:25 on 2023-07-09 Permalink

  Mont-Royal needs a proper bike path to keep cyclists in a lane of their own. There’s already a bike paths on streets that run perpendicular & parallel to Mont Royal, but folks want to bike on Mont-Royal too, to get to the shops n things. Currently, the ‘priorité piétonne’ , 1-metre distance thing isn’t being respected: cyclists are dinging their bells to disperse pedestrians, MAMILs and other cyclists who ‘gotta go fast’ get upset at having to use their brakes, fleets of chaotic bike tour groups (mostly inexperienced cyclists in neon helmets). I see lots of pedestrians having close calls with cyclists razzing by, often older folks and women. It’s causing many pedestrians to be too scared to actually walk in the street, the sidewalks are the only safe spot for slow & unsteady walkers. A delineated bike path would make scrapes easy to avoid.

• Nicholas 15:04 on 2023-07-09 Permalink

  The closest bike paths parallel to Mount Royal are Rachel and Laurier. That’s just not enough for a high density area like the Plateau, especially for a street with so many destinations. Gilford is under construction and Marie-Anne only has a contra flow lane east of Brébeuf, and both are too narrow to comfortably salmon west of there. Both those streets should get more diverters/modal filters (like the kind on Gilford at Lanaudière that stops through car traffic but allows bike traffic), and that would help alleviate some of the pressure on Rachel. Mount Royal itself is tricky, because it really does deserve bus service, an actual bike lane, and pedestrianization (plus morning deliveries), all year round, and the street is just not able to support all that comfortably all the time. Maybe the solution, in addition to routing through bike traffic on adjacent streets, is more pedestrian streets in the Plateau (Laurier East, Duluth year round, Rachel, dare I say St Laurent and St Denis) so fewer people come to walk on Mount Royal, and then it won’t be so crowded that bikes make pedestrians uncomfortable.

• Ian 16:38 on 2023-07-09 Permalink

  Maybe if bicyclists want to use pedestrian areas, they can get off their bicycles and walk them. If that’s too inconvenient, they can lock the bike up and continue on foot, unencumbered. Even car owners don’t insist that they be allowed to drive on the sidewalks, that cyclists and now e-toy enthusiasts insist they should be allowed to go wherever they want is just weird.

  I get the whole urge to reduce the number of cars in the city & I absolutely see the value in pedestrianization – but I really don’t understand why the mixed-use implementation is allowed, as it’s at the expense of pedestrians and the mobility impaired.

• Tim S 17:08 on 2023-07-09 Permalink

  Thank you, Ian.