Thursday, May 21, 2009

Cote-Ste-Catherine road bike path - some finishing touches

The new (and uncompleted and not-yet-officially-opened) Cote-Ste-Catherine road bike path is almost finished.


Finally, we can cross at Villeneuve, previously a death-defying experience (and an Olympique-calibre sprint!)

The new lights at the eastern-end of the path at Villeneuve will begin operation on 8 june, and then cyclists will be easily able cross Cote-Ste-Catherine at this hard-to-cross intersection. Then you descend Villeneuve and you access several north-south bike paths (avenue du parc, ruc Clark/parc-jeanne-mance (& Rachel), St-Urbain, etc.


Notice the narrowed intersection to permit faster pedestrian crossings.

Notice too, the space for a car AND an bike has been reduced to a car OR a bike. How long before a cyclist gets crushed under a car? We blame fad-driven Montreal city traffic planners for a very bad decision. It is a fact that this street is supposed to be a bike-friendly-link between Cote-Ste-Catherine road and the Plateau Montreal. This narrowed-road is NOT bike-friendly.

What it SHOULD be is that new piece of narrow green lawn should be a bike lane, so bikes can get around cars when it is the bikes-walk signal, so bikes and cars do not take this difficult intersection at the same time. Splitting up the traffic flows for the different-speed vehicles (bikes vs cars) makes it safer for everyone.

Anybody listening? Anybody, with the power to change this dangerous design, that is.


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