Vision Vélo 2025

November 16, 2017

Imagine tomorrow's Quebec by bike!

We are pleased to present Bicycle Vision 2025, the result of a participatory process orchestrated by Vélo Québec as part of its 50th anniversary, to imagine the Quebec of tomorrow by bicycle. Some 70 leaders and activists from the worlds of business, mobility, research, tourism, recreation and sport from eleven regions enthusiastically took part.

Although the exercise has no scientific pretensions, the results of this collection of ideas speak for themselves. It confirms that cycling is an issue present in all walks of life, and that it brings together an impressive variety of players in our society ready to pool their energies to advance cycling.

Here we present the foundations on which the vision is based, the priorities that emerge from it and the objectives that rally the cycling community. Our wish is, of course, that as many organizations and individuals as possible adhere to this Bicycle Vision 2025 and contribute to its implementation in all forums. In this way, collectively, we can take cycling even further and make it a vector for change in our society.

Suzanne Lareau
President and General Manager
Vélo Québec

Vision Vélo 2025 is built around 3 priorities

Based on the almost universal concerns of road safety, road sharing and accessibility to the various uses of bicycles (transport, leisure, sport), the Bicycle Vision 2025 exercise has identified three priorities:

  • Investing in bicycles and improving the quality of infrastructure to increase use
  • Encouraging cycling as a means of transport must become a reflex when developing or redeveloping streets and roads.
  • Mobilizing society's key players to promote cycling

Vision Vélo 2025 is based on the many benefits of cycling

  • Efficient people mobility
  • Health and healthy living
  • Quality of life and neighborhoods on a human scale
  • Environmental quality (reduction of atmospheric pollutants and GHGs)
  • Economic development and regional vitality
  • Tourism development

Vision Vélo 2025 has 5 objectives

1. Recognize the right to safe travel

Quebec's road safety record continues to improve, but we all agree that we need to do more and better. It's important to address the sense of insecurity that is often a barrier to cycling.

Safe cycling should be a right, not an act of bravery. So why doesn't Quebec take the same approach? Vision zero, which would become the guiding principle of a strategy to avoid the tragedies that are still all too common on our roads?

In 2025

  • A new Road Safety Code is now in force, taking into account the contemporary use of bicycles. It is based on the principle of prudence, systematically giving priority to the most vulnerable.
  • Visit Vision zero fatalities and serious injuries is in place and guides the various strategies of the Quebec government and the municipal sector with regard to road development and safety issues.
  • The practical education program Cycliste averti, designed for elementary school children, is now available in all Quebec schools.
  • Driving courses and truck driver training include a section on cohabitation between motor vehicle drivers and vulnerable road users.

2. Providing Quebec with superior infrastructure

Transforming the environment is essential to offer cyclists safety and comfort, and to encourage new people to use bicycles regularly.

In 2025

  • The development of cycling space in our municipalities takes into account the needs of cyclists of all ages and skill levels.
  • All sections of the Route verte are overhauled and upgraded.
  • Places and routes have been formally identified to enable cycling for sporting purposes.
  • A network of mountain bike trails is in place in every region of Quebec.

3. Obtain from the Quebec government a firm commitment and concrete actions in favor of cycling.

Cycling is more popular than ever, but its potential remains under-exploited and its development under-funded. With all the government policies recently adopted (GHG reduction, energy strategy, health prevention policy, physical activity, sport and recreation policy 2027) and those to come in the area of sustainable mobility, everything is in place for the Quebec government to make firm commitments to promote the development and use of bicycles.

In 2025

  • The Quebec government applies a cycling policy with clear, measurable objectives.
  • The Quebec government finances cycling infrastructure, in partnership with the Canada Transportation Infrastructure Fund (CTIF), to the tune of 100 M$ annually.

4. Make cycling a key component of sustainable mobility

Exploit the full potential of the bicycle and increase its range tenfold by taking advantage of technological advances, such as the electric-assist bicycle, to lower the distance barrier and make it more accessible. Efficiently combine active and public transport with new forms of mobility.

In 2025

  • Citizens have access to a financial assistance program for the acquisition of bicycles, including electric-assist bicycles.
  • You can integrate cycling into all your urban and inter-city journeys by accessing transport with your bike and benefiting from appropriate facilities such as bike stations.

5. Mobilize players from all walks of life to promote bicycle use

If it is to be known, disseminated and become a reality, this Bicycle Vision 2025 must be supported by as many partners as possible over the coming months and years, in a variety of contexts and on different platforms, in order to raise the profile of cycling in our society.

In 2025

  • A network enables leaders who contribute to the development of cycling to mobilize quickly on various issues likely to advance the cycling cause.

Contributors to Bicycle Vision 2025:

Chakib Ahmimed - Gabrielle Anctil - Michel Archambault - Paul Arsenault - Louis Barbeau - Edith Beausejour - Magali Bebronne - Sylvie Bernier - Aline Berthe - Jean-Yves Bilodeau - Denis Brochu - Jean-François Bruneau - Lynda Chabot - Mario Chamberland - Carl Clements - Marc Delesclefs - François Delwaide - Coralie Deny - Jacques Desjardins - Alexandre Désy - Louis Drouin - Vincent Dussault - Raymond Dutil - Alain Ferland - Guy Garand - Louis Garneau - Pierre Gaudreault - Julie Gélinas - Marie-Josée Gervais - Alexandra Goyer - Etienne Grandmont - Félix Gravel - Steven Guilbault - Nils Henner - Marie-Hélène Hudon - Alexandre Joyce - Luc Labrecque - Michel Labrecque - Pascal Laliberté - Daniel Lambert - Lucie Lanteigne - Suzanne Lareau - Anaïs Laurent - Pierre Lavoie - David Lecointre - Nicolas Legault - Michel Légère - Jean-Maxime Lemerise - Eric Leonard - Guy Maguire - Yvan Martineau - Paul McKenzie - Catherine Morency - Gilles Morneau - Eric Notebaert - Hugues Ouellet - Réjean Parent - Francine Patenaude - Xavier Peich - François Pepin - Jean-François Pronovost - Jean-François Rheault - Sidney Ribaux - Claudine Roy - Christian Savard - Martin Soucy - Annick St-Denis - Charles Thériault - Jean-Sébastien Thibault - Juan Torres - Ben Valkenburg - Daniel Varin - Emerson Velasco - Christian Vermette - François Vermette.

We thank them sincerely.

Contribute too!

Join Bike Vision 2025 and share it with your community: #visionvélo2025

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