The bridge bike path, still dangerous
There are calls to widen the narrow, tricky bike path, on the Jacques‑Cartier bridge, but it won’t be done anytime soon.
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Blork 11:00 on 2024-11-22 Permalink
They already widened it once, in the mid-1990s I believe. Before then the paths on both sides of the bridge were the same width and were designed only with pedestrians in mind, not bicycles. Here’s a photo from 1990 taken on the east side path. You can see how scary narrow it is, given that cycle traffic moved in both directions. At the time the west side path was just as narrow. https://flic.kr/p/SE7mex
It would be a huge task to widen it again. In the meantime there are definitely things they could do to improve safety. For example, replace the metal chicanes with something flexible that won’t cause injury if you hit one. And illuminate them at night!
There are also some places along the path where bits and bobs protrude a bit into the path from the structure on the side facing car traffic. Surely those can be dealt with easily.
It would also help if it were made VERY VERY CLEAR that pedestrians should use the path on the east side and bicycles on the west side. Mixing pedestrians and bicycles on a narrow enclosed path where the bicycles frequently get up to 30 or 40 kph is a recipe for disaster. Especially given that most of the pedestrians (in my experience) have no idea how to walk on a mixed use path (hint; walk facing oncoming traffic, not with oncoming traffic at your back). If I had a dollar for every pedestrian I saw on that path who was SURPRISED that a bicycle came up behind them…
And finally — and I know this is hopeless — encourage cyclists to not ride like maniacs on the path. Most don’t but plenty do. You regularly see grinning MAMILs practically breaking the speed of sound on the downhills as they get their lighter-than-air racing bicycles going at top speed. Or worse, people on 100kg electric cargo bikes racing down the hills at full power. Both are dangerous and both should be discouraged.
DeWolf 00:43 on 2024-11-23 Permalink
I could be mistaken, Blork, but isn’t St. Helen’s Island only accessible from the west side of the bridge?
Daisy 07:58 on 2024-11-23 Permalink
No, if you’re on foot on the east side path, you open a door, go downstairs and walk across the river in a structure underneath the bridge, go upstairs, open an door, and you’re on the west side.
Nicholas 11:03 on 2024-11-23 Permalink
There is a technically easy, cheap solution that would anger a lot of people: turn one car lane (probably west side) into a two-way bike lane (which would be wide enough for both directions and easy passing), and then make the current sections on each side pedestrian-only. Especially with rush hour traffic down since the pandemic, having two car lanes each way at all times will probably work out fine once the Lafontaine tunnel is done. As with most street issues, how we allocate our public space is a very politically fraught question, but is technically simple. Just because the status quo is like this doesn’t mean it should continue to be.
MarcG 12:42 on 2024-11-23 Permalink
Well said, Nicholas.