Today, Montreal is one of America's most prominent bicycle cities. It's a credit to the activists of the 70s - notably Bob Silverman, Guy Rouleau, Claire Morissette and Michel Labrecque - who waged epic battles to gain recognition and respect for cycling.
At the time, everything had to be done. With slogans like «We want lanes», «My bike's gas, it's me», «My bike is paid for, not your car» and «Vive la vélorution», cyclists demanded many things, including access to bike lanes and the Montreal metro, as well as shared use of the road.
The militant action was led by Le Monde à bicyclette and Vélo Québec, the two organizations having their own strategy but a common goal. The first weekend in June, International Bicycle Day, celebrated worldwide, became the perfect opportunity to demonstrate... and we didn't miss a beat! From 1977 to 1983, Vélo Québec and Le Monde à bicyclette organized a demonstration on this day. It's not uncommon to see a procession of over a thousand cyclists speeding at 10 km/h through the streets of the city, covering the few kilometers separating Parc La Fontaine from Dominion Square. It's one way of showing the city and motorists that cyclists have a right to be here in Montreal.
And these actions eventually bore fruit. In June 1982, the Commission de transport de la communauté urbaine de Montréal - now the STM - offered 5 $s a photo bicycle permit giving them access to the last car on weekends. The permit was no longer required as of July 1986. Access to the metro was extended to evenings after 5 p.m. in 1987, and then between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., Monday to Friday, in 1990.
In the case of cycle paths, the first half of the 80s saw the arrival of paths on boulevard Gouin and rue Notre-Dame, not forgetting the north-south axis along avenue Christophe-Colomb and rues Boyer, de Brébeuf and Berri.
In fact, it was to inaugurate these trails that the then Minister of Transport, Guy Tardif, asked Vélo Québec to organize the very first Tour de l’Île de Montréal in October 1985. And when, three years later, the Tour de l'Île entered the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest cycling event, it was clear just how far the artisans of velorution had come!
