Pont Mercier bike path... to nowhere? Links needed on south shore.

Orange line: new Pont Mercier bike path
Missing links:
Blue dots: "Voie Maritime" Saint Laurence seaway bike path gap
Yellow dots: bike path to Chateauguay

The Pont Mercier bridge reconstruction will add a modern bike path to the bridge, similar in concept to the excellent Pont Jacques-Cartier bridge sidewalk/bike path.

This is good news, but we want to know where it goes where it touches down on the south shore.

The end of the bridge is the middle of nowhere. They need to build some connections here.

Starting with a bike path going west to Chateauguay.

Next is to connect to the Seaway bike path that presently ends at Ste-Catherine. This could be along the seaway spit of land (the awesome alternative), which would need stairs from the bridge path. Otherwise something parallel the Rt 132. (But not ON the Rt 132). This will create the greatest loop around the river bike ride in the Montreal area.

Here is information from the Pont Mercier Bridge website:

Archive for the 'Bike path' Category

A multi-user path for the Mercier Bridge

The Mercier Bridge rehabilitation project includes construction of a new 2.1 km multi-user path for cyclists and pedestrians, situated on the west side of the bridge along the Châteauguay off-ramp. This new ramp is similar to the one that has been constructed on the Jacques-Cartier Bridge .

The path will allow pedestrian and cyclist access to the bridge by the end of roadwork scheduled for 2011.

But where will we go from here?

We hope the completion of the first real bike path across the Mercier bridge will spur development of Route Verte and other bike path development in southwest Quebec/Chateauguay river valley region (a.k.a. haut-st-laurent).

Will the recently announced development of a new Route Verte corridor along the south shore of the St-Laurence river be ready when the bridge is completed? Will this development spur a Route Verte in the Chateauguay Valley to Huntingdon and the US Border at Dundee along the abandoned train tracks? (This path is already started in Ste-Martine, but it stops after 5 km near Howick) This rail path is just begging to be redeveloped into a long-distance bike path. (perhaps one of Quebec's best?)

We hope to see big news about this in the couple of years.

Something else we learned is that the bridge is not being renovated or reconstructed, but "rehabilitated." (and once again, we have expanded our cognitive fluency via the strange world of public relations communications)