In the whirlwind of election debates, we often hear about infrastructure, budgets, and numbers. But behind every bike path, there are faces—there are lives. And for many, these infrastructures can quite literally change their lives: they open up new ways to move, to be active, to experience the city.
These are stories we don’t hear often enough.
A friend recently wrote to share hers. She lives in a neighborhood where bike paths were built. In 2021, she was raising four young children under the age of four, with a minivan and on-street parking. A cyclist herself, she still dreaded the arrival of the bike lanes: she feared losing her parking spots and having to walk long distances carrying babies, with toddlers barely able to keep up.
And yet, the anticipated catastrophe never happened.
Yes, some parking spaces disappeared, but others became available — even in winter — and not much farther away. Life went on.
Two years later, as she was trying to find balance in her daily life, she decided to try cycling — even in winter. It was a revelation. The bike became her breath of air, her freedom, her time for herself. It transformed her days, her mood, her physical and mental health.
Today, she worries that certain political decisions could jeopardize that fragile balance — this new way of living in the city.
A few days later, I ran into Mr. Brault, 85, outside a bakery.
Bike in hand, he told me he rides every day, rain or shine.
He knows the cycling network by heart — its detours, its construction zones, its favorite paths. Through his rides, he rediscovers the city, one street corner at a time.
“Cycling is my way of fighting boredom,” he told me. “And of staying curious.”
These two voices have nothing in common — except the bicycle.
For one, it’s a source of balance in the chaos of everyday life; for the other, a motor of freedom and curiosity.
With hundreds of new elected officials taking office across Quebec, now is the time to tell them your stories. These women and men want to hear how cycling changes our lives — and these stories matter more than we think. They give concrete meaning to public policies and remind us that behind every bike path, there are faces, families, and life unfolding.
Our elected officials need courage to keep transforming our cities, to defend decisions that sometimes stir controversy but deeply improve our quality of life. And we can help fuel that courage — by talking to them, by thanking them, by sharing our stories.
Because in the end, these are the stories we don’t hear often enough — but that we should listen to, amplify, and make resonate.
– Jean-François Rheault, CEO