Problems on the Rachel Street bike path
The Rachel Street bike path dates from the 1980s and was built to an older standard – two‑way, yet only three meters wide. But it’s not going to be upgraded anytime soon.
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DeWolf 11:32 on 2025-08-19 Permalink
At the very least, more needs to be done to make the intersections safer. St-Denis/Rachel is chaotic. The city was testing different light configurations (eg priority left turn for cars from Rachel onto St-Denis), but now it’s gone back to how it was before.
Ian 16:15 on 2025-08-19 Permalink
Light configurations are the Achilles heel of on-island intermediate safety, imo.
Ian 16:16 on 2025-08-19 Permalink
Intermodal not intermediate, damn autocorrect
CE 16:26 on 2025-08-19 Permalink
That bike path is almost an historic relic by now. It;s kind of locked in now with the landscaped median that was built years ago. The intersection of Rachel and St-Denis really show how far we’ve come with cycling infrastructure. I remember when the Brébeuf/Boyer bike path was one of the busiest in North America and one of the only ways to go north-south in the Plateau away from traffic. Now it’s not even a second-tier bike path (de la Roche and Christophe-Colombe are much better ways to go north-south if you’re not taking the REV).
I hope someday the de Maisonneuve is reconfigured to be more like the REV St-Denis or, even better, it’s kept as a secondary path and Sherbrooke gets the REV treatment.
Blork 17:25 on 2025-08-19 Permalink
Do the cops still use it as a parking lot? https://flic.kr/p/RsYxNb
Nicholas 17:31 on 2025-08-19 Permalink
Induced demand happens to bikes too. There are now many north-south routes through the Plateau and western Rosemont, and they’re all busier than the previous single option back in the day. Downtown east-west really could use better on de Maisonneuve, or add a lane on Sherbrooke too, but it is nice that Viger/St Antoine/St Jacques is mostly done, with just some work left in St Henri, and once Old Montreal is pedestrianized we’ll be able to deal with the few blocks of conflict next to the Old Port. North-south downtown is better too, though a few more options would help.
But Rachel really is a pinch point: biking east-west is great within each of the Plateau and south-eastern Rosemont, Laurier is great and Gilford works well east of Mentana and Marie-Anne was just upgraded east of St Denis, but between the two boroughs there are the tracks, and not many options: Sherbrooke is dangerous, St Joseph is narrow and has a conflict with pedestrians, and Masson is fine but far for many. There’s also recently-improved de Rouen, but that’s down the hill. There’s just too much demand on Rachel, and they either need to twin it on Rachel or put in the Sherbrooke REV, or build another bridge or tunnel.
As for St Denis and Rachel and the like, I wonder if continuous green/all directions green/tegelijk groen would work: you have one phase for cars on St Denis, one for cars on Rachel, and then one phase for bikes and pedestrians in all directions, where you can go diagonally and follow your desire line. (You also allow bikes to go right at any time, as you aren’t crossing car lanes, so it works great for turning right and left.) It sounds absolutely chaotic, and it is, but it actually works well even with huge numbers of people: you go slowly and navigate between people and because of the spread out space it works. It’s one of those things you are absolutely convinced can’t possibly work until you see it work and see the stats that show throughput up and crashes down. It’s most associated with Groningen in the Netherlands, where it’s been used safely for nearly four decades, and is being introduced in Belgium next year.
Ian 17:56 on 2025-08-19 Permalink
To be real, the Rachel path really was made simply because so many bicyclists kept getting hurt on Rachel.
Back in the before times, any street with a bike path on it meant that street was crazy dangerous and you should probably avoid bicycling it. It was a different time.
CE 19:17 on 2025-08-19 Permalink
The bike path on des Pins has probably taken some pressure off Rachel. Many times a week, I bike along Parc La Fontaine to Roy then over to des Pins to get to the western Plateau and beyond. In the past, I would have used Rachel or Sherbrooke. I might have biked on des Pins a few dozen times in my life before the new bike lanes were installed.
Nicholas 13:39 on 2025-08-20 Permalink
CE, I think you’re right for the western sections, but east of Brébeuf it’s still very crowded. The light timings especially at des Erables and Frontenac are also not great, so you get huge bunching; often not all bikes will make it through in a single light cycle. That’s not a crisis, but it shows how a wider lane would really help.
CE 15:34 on 2025-08-20 Permalink
Even though I think the new paths have taken some pressure off Rachel, it’s more crowded than ever on all sections. I use it many times a week but try to avoid it during rush hours because it’s so packed!