Cycling in the new city of Montreal

2001 municipal elections in Montreal

With the «One Island, One City» project, Montreal has reached a crossroads in its history. The new municipal administration has more than one challenge to meet, particularly in terms of transportation. Gérald Tremblay's team has just taken office, and must now turn its commitments into reality. In an interview with Vélo Mag magazine, Mr. Tremblay was clearly sympathetic to the idea of greater bicycle use in the city. In order to turn this sympathy into an unwavering commitment from Mr. Tremblay and his team, Vélo Québec submits the following proposals for consideration.

Putting an end to stationary bikes

Cycling is extremely popular in Montreal. Nearly 9 out of 10 residents have ridden a bicycle in their lives. More than half a million Montrealers cycle at least once a week.

Our population's love affair with the bicycle and what it symbolizes in terms of quality of life now transcends borders. In fact, interesting cities, including Montreal, often have in common that they are tempting to walk or pedal. Montreal has more bicycle paths than many other places in the world. However, cities such as London and Paris, once thought to be hopelessly hostile to cycling, have decided to speed up the pace. Our lead will not last long if nothing is done to breathe new life into cycling facilities that date from another era.

In fact, over 90 % of Montreal's bicycle lanes were built between 1975 and 1985. The Drapeau-Lamarre administration, whose love affair with cycling was a well-kept secret, was, along with the Communauté urbaine de Montréal and the Ministère des Transports du Québec, the true architect of Montreal by bike.

Since then, the public has elected cycling mayors. These mayors have led administrations that have taken valuable steps to promote cycling, and each has produced its own draft policy. Each time, these projects have received the unanimous support of the cycling community.

And yet, despite strong feelings in favor of cyclists and cycling, none of these excellent cycling policies has gone beyond the project stage. Montreal's cycling network has been stationary for over 15 years.

Behind the scenes, we've often been told that the best initiatives suffer the axe of the motoring prejudices of traffic engineers, or are stifled by the inertia and lack of resources given to civil servants.

We've always accepted this kind of explanation, telling ourselves that Rome wasn't built in two days. Now that the Montreal machine has been humming along for too long, Vélo Québec has come to say that a change of gear is needed.

While the cycling network has made little progress, bicycle use has increased and even diversified. In addition to developing into the popular recreational vehicle that it is today, the bicycle has become a means of transport for more than 140,000 residents of the island of Montreal. In a central district like the Plateau Mont-Royal, some 10 % of trips are made by bike. That's a hell of a lot more, by the way, than can be observed in many European cities, where the average share of bicycle trips is around 5 %.

Cycling has gone from being a phenomenon to a part of everyday life in our city. Cyclists take their bikes out not only for the weekend ride or stroll, but also to work, to run errands, to visit friends or simply to enjoy a drink on a terrace. To meet demand, as the saying goes, the cycling network needs to be designed with these new, multiple uses in mind.

But since it hasn't increased, Montreal's network is clogged with cyclists, as well as a host of other friendly users: skaters, skateboarders, strollers, runners, wheelchairs, not to mention pedestrians who seem to find it more comfortable to walk side by side than on some sidewalks.

Having been designed for another era, Montreal's cycling network no longer corresponds to the needs of today's cyclists. We say we need to plan a new generation of bikeways. We need to move to a new category of paths that take us from one point to another by the best possible route, rather than detouring us through the city's many small streets and alleys.

Bicycle-friendly downtown

One of the first projects is to make the downtown area accessible to cyclists. As a place of work and study (with three universities and two CEGEPs), entertainment and shopping, the downtown area is highly frequented. Yet it remains a major obstacle for cyclists: no safe access, little parking. To the east, the cycling network stops at Berri Street, to the west at Green Street. In between: nothing! For cyclists, downtown is a physical barrier between east and west.

The downtown area would benefit from being more accessible by bicycle, as is the trend in modern cities that focus on quality of life and understand that real economic development must be based on reduced pollution and improved public health. It doesn't take a keen sense of observation to see that traffic in downtown Montreal has reached a saturation point that should be cause for concern.

A friendly link between boroughs

We've just pointed to a certain inertia that has paralyzed Montreal. But it gets worse. A whole club of municipalities has sprung up whose cycling record is nil. To give the future a chance, we won't be handing out dunce caps.

The most distressing result of this insensitivity to reality is the unfinished tour de l'île. The project to encircle the island of Montreal with a bicycle route is one of Montreal's longest-standing cycling dreams. Despite the efforts of Montreal, Verdun, Lasalle Lachine, Beaconsfield and Pierrefonds, the western part of the island has never been completed. One of the good things about the emergence of a new city is that it offers the opportunity to unblock a situation that has seemed hopeless for a long time.

Vélo Québec wants to launch a major project to complete the planning and implementation of the island's bicycle network, which will not only complete the tour of the island, but also efficiently link the various parts of the island. In the context of the emergence of the new city, these bike lanes will form a convivial link between the various boroughs. They will help create a sense of belonging to the Montreal community. After the verbal and legal storms of recent months, a few pedal strokes from one corner of the island to the other will undoubtedly help to soften the blow.

A child-friendly city

We want to reverse the trend of families moving to the suburbs. Vélo Québec supports this objective. But we won't succeed if traffic doesn't slow down and parents still feel that the streets are an asphalt jungle. Why not make the streets safe so that Montreal's children can do something as simple as cycling or walking to school? It's a win-win situation. Life in our neighborhoods will be better. Our children will be able to acquire an autonomy of movement that will contribute to their maturity and relieve parents of the cab chore. What's more, they'll be more physically active, a major consideration at a time when many are sounding the alarm about the risks to the future posed by the growing obesity of the younger generation and their tendency to shun physical activity.

By calling for the creation of safe streets for children to cycle to school, Vélo Québec is proposing to adjust the focus and put priorities back where they belong. The city is inhabited by humans, and must be designed with them in mind. Under the pretext of reconciling the fluidity of automobile traffic with economic progress, the city has been subjected to the exclusive needs of the automobile. The result was an urban nightmare that those who could afford it soon fled.

It's often forgotten that, on the island of Montreal, a third of households don't own a car. This proportion rises to 63 % among downtown residents. In most neighborhoods, residents complain about traffic - too many cars, too fast - which degrades quality of life. We need to rethink our travel choices. Let's give priority to pedestrians on the streets - which, we admit, is quite a cultural contract in Montreal and Quebec - and then give a little more encouragement to cyclists and public transit, and a little less to individual motorized vehicles. We're not talking about a great revolution, but simply an update of the way today's urban citizens want to make the city their own.

We need a bicycle office!

These changes require investment, as well as the building of a team to get on with the job. In recent years, the number of staff assigned to cycling has been reduced, to the point where much of the city's cycling expertise has been lost and nothing has been done to update and expand it. This is why Vélo Québec is calling for the creation of a bicycle office. It should be set up within the Traffic Department. It would bring together a small multidisciplinary team. It would be dedicated to the planning and development of bicycle lanes, as well as to bicycle safety education. This office would liaise with the Police Department, as well as with the Parks Department when existing trails cross Montreal parks.

We want promises and commitments!

In the spring, Vélo Québec intends to propose a draft plan for Montreal's bicycle network to the new city. A working committee will be set up in the coming weeks. It will be made up of experts from Vélo Québec, outside firms and representatives of the new City.

For this plan to take shape, we need a firm political commitment from the mayoral candidates. This commitment must translate into a clear determination to develop our cycling network, starting with the downtown area. It must be aimed at completing the bike path network, which is currently suffering from fragmentation. We'll need to establish direct connections between the entities making up the new city, serving employment hubs, transit nodes, entertainment and shopping arteries.

The commitment we're calling for must include the development of a local network making schools accessible to children who wish to cycle there. It's a neighborhood-wide transportation plan that emphasizes pedestrian and cyclist mobility, and enables the youngest children to get around safely.

These commitments must be translated into human resources, action plans and investments. With this in mind, we're calling for a bicycle office staffed by a team of professionals and technicians.

Doubling the existing network

There are currently 350 kilometers of bike lanes on the island of Montreal. The scheme that Vélo Québec plans to draw up would double the existing number of kilometers. These projects could cost as much as $35 million, equivalent to the $43 million currently being spent on rebuilding the l'Acadie traffic circle. Phased over 9 to 10 years, the work would cost $3 to 4 million a year.

Let's not forget that a policy aimed at encouraging the use of bicycles has immense beneficial effects on the health of a population in general. Cycling is also a non-polluting mode of transport. It helps to reduce greenhouse gases and other nuisances caused by automobile traffic, all of which also affect the health of a population. As an individual mode of transport, the bicycle is an incredibly efficient vehicle for short distances. Combined with public transport and other measures, it can, in urban environments, form a transport cocktail that can compete with the use of the private car.