Montreal bike path improvements

The Montreal Gazette reports a new bike has opened in the lachine borough of Ville St. Pierre which allows cyclists to safely access the Lachine Canal bike path. The path goes along Notre Dame St., Gowans Ave., des Erables street, St. Pierre Avenue, and Gauron blvd.

This path is path of $7.5 million worth of upgrades this year to Montreal area bike paths. This years upgrades include 30 km of bike path and 320 bike parking spots. There are 370 km of bike paths on Montreal island.

Here's a quote from a press release of the City of Montreal on bike path improvments:

Cette année, l'administration Tremblay investit un total de 7,25 M$ dans le réseau cyclable. De ce montant, 3 M$ sont consacrés au développement de nouvelles voies. Ces sommes s'ajoutent aux 5,3 M$ consentis entre 2002 et 2005 pour de nouveaux projets d'infrastructures cyclables.

Any day now the Rachel bike path is supposed to be connected to the Clark street bike path. THis was announced on August 4. I'll go investigate and see if it has happened yet. It basically involves pain on the road, so it' isn't like rocket science. They could do a lot more if they'd just paint more bike lanes on certain existing streets, like de Maissoneuve blvd, which is "the missing link" to permit cyclists to cross downtown Montreal east-to-west.

Here are some videos I took of some bike path improvements. Despite the best efforts of the bike path designers, the improvements stil require intelligence on the part of the cyclists and pedestrians. This does seem to be the bigger challenge!

VIDEO: Click here for clueless pedestians on improved bike path

VIDEO: Click here for clueless cyclists at improved bike path intersection

Here are some bike path improvements I'd like to see:

Pont Jacques Cartier Bridge
Bike path link between Rachel bike path/Park Lafontaine and access to Pont Jacques Cartier Bridge north entrance to the excellent recently expanded bike sidewalk. THis access is across a very busy car access to the bridge on Papineau street, and it needs its own mini bridge to safely access the bridge sidewalk. From papineau you follow a cratered and potholed sidewalk that also needs rebuilding. Expand the section of dangerously narrow bumpy sidewalk on the Longueuil (south) side of the bridge. Add bike path to connect with bike paths on the south shore, to Tiffen at the very least, and a much better link to the spiral cyclist bridge to Chambly.


Pont Mercier Bridge
Rebuild the sidewalk for bikes. It is a danger zone. Connect the bridge with a bike path to Chateauguay.

Education
There seems to be a large number of cyclists who are dangerously brainless. There has to be an effort to educate these people about the "rules of the road" which at the very least includes stopping at stop signs and not going the wrong way on one way streets.

I could go on, but there's other things to write about.