“We must make sure that all cycle paths are safe. Unfortunately, there are cycle paths that are not, like this. »»
This is what Soraya Martinez Ferrada said in front of the Port-Royal West cycle path in Montreal.
We must admit that it is skillful. If the candidate for the town hall of Montreal offers an “audit” of all the cycle paths of the city, it would be in the name of the safety of cyclists.
Difficult to oppose so much kindness, right?
Mme Martinez Ferrada goes so far as to promise to dismantle certain cycle paths if these prove to be dangerous. And this, even if setting up a track and then demolishing it can look like a waste of money.
“There is no security cost,” she said.
Under the cover of embodying a sense of responsibility, this reasoning is filled with blind spots.
First, “the audit” of the cycle paths offered by Soraya Martinez Ferrada already exists largely. By browsing the interactive zero vision cards of the city of Montreal, you can trace all collisions with serious injuries or deaths since 2014, whether they involve pedestrians, cyclists or motorists1. We can even search the data by scenarios, to retrace for example all the accidents involving a car turning to the left having struck a bicycle which crossed an intersection.
Such a tool can tell us what avenues are problematic, if any. Note that no accident was listed on that of Port-Royal West deemed “dangerous” by Mme Martinez Ferrada.
Photo Marco Campanozzi, the presses
Port-Royal West cycle path, in Ahuntsic, in Montreal
The other problem with the proposal of the Montreal overall candidate is that mobility experts all say the same thing: a cycle path, even imperfect, protects cyclists better than no track at all.
You mme Martinez Ferrada is really concerned with the safety of cyclists, she should therefore also extend her audit to the streets which do not have cycle paths, but which should accommodate them.
We finally know that several cycle paths in Montreal are so popular today that they arrive at saturation. My colleagues recently told us that bicycle trips reached records in June and July in Montreal, totaling 4,986,165 passages for these two months2. Go ride at peak time on the Rev Saint-Denis, rue Rachel, boulevard de Maisonneuve or along the Lachine canal and you will see it: it’s dense and it plays hard.
This is all the more true that electric vehicles are now zigzag between non -motorized cyclists. The solution to this is not to withdraw tracks, but to continue to extend the network to meet demand and improve the well-being and safety of users. A household of vehicles authorized to circulate there could also be envisaged. But that, Soraya Martinez Ferrada does not talk about it.
Do you want my opinion? If Soraya Martinez Ferrada’s proposal has so many holes, it is because it is not aimed at improving the well-being of anyone, but rather to stir the old anti-Vero feeling for partisan reasons.
By offering an audit on cycle paths, but not on roads or sidewalks, Mme Martinez Ferrada sends a message: cycle paths represent a problem.
We would like to see the debate take place at a higher level. It is not a question of denying that cycle paths, like any infrastructure, can generate certain drawbacks. And that some could be better arranged.
But the day when all cyclists in the city jump in a car, we will see what congestion is. And we will realize that cyclists are not the enemies of motorists. This false war that Soraya Martinez Ferrada maintains does not serve anyone. And it diverts us from the real challenges of Montreal, which are not lacking.
Speaking of cycle paths, The duty We recently learned that particularly creative solutions have been proposed to circulate bikes on the Jacques-Cartier bridge3. With its steep slopes and chicanes in which pedestrian and cyclists intersect, the current track makes it see all colors to its users, as also reported The press2.
Photo Alain Roberge, La Presse Archives
The cycle path on the Pont-Jacques-Cartier, a cycle axis which is increasingly borrowed, especially since 2019
Spirals giving access to the bridge, bridges allowing to avoid the crossing of cyclists and motorists, cycle paths installed under the apron: the engineers of the consortium formed of the firms Parsons and WSP really thought “out of the frame” when they submitted their proposals, in 2020. The problem: the cost of the selected adjustments was estimated at the time between 277 and 340 million Dollars.
In front of such costs, the federal state company responsible for the Jacques-Cartier bridge said they wanted to push the work when replacing the bridge deck. It seemed logical to me … until I asked for when this replacement is planned. The answer sawed my legs: 2060.
I am not saying that it is necessary to invest $ 300 million for a cycle path on the Jacques-Cartier bridge. We are talking about a lot of money – the equivalent of the whole sum planned by Montreal to develop the cycle network by 2033.
But it is staggering to note that this debate has never won public space and was buried until 2060. Are these sums really unreasonable given their impact? Are less expensive solutions possible? We should at least talk about it.
Meanwhile, the CAQ has already released 275 million to start the third link in a lobster locker from which it will be expensive to extricate. And that is without counting the incredible amount of energy spent talking about this project deemed largely useless by all studies.
If that shows one thing, it is that it is necessary to start to consider active transport as a serious mobility solution and not as a toy or a recreational whim – even less as a boxing bag to which we type to attract votes.
1. Consult the zero vision collision map of the city of Montreal
2. Read the article “Not always easy, pedaling in cohabitation” by Mark Suciu
3. Read the article “ambitious plans for bikes on the Jacques-Cartier bridge” of the Duty (Subscription required)
What do you think? Take part in the dialogue
