Sherbrooke St. offers ‘strongest demand’ for cyclists

Could Sherbrooke St. become Montreal’s main east-west corridor for cyclists? A new coalition of cycling groups and environmental organizations is pushing for it. With 4,000 cyclists a day already using the congested street in the downtown core in the summer, there’s an obvious need, proponents say. They want to see an 18-kilometre bike path running from the street’s western boundary in Montreal West all the way to Highway 25 in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. It would traverse Notre-Dame-deGrâce, Westmount and downtown Ville-Marie. Despite the fact it has no cycling lane, the downtown section of Sherbrooke St. sees nearly half as many daily cyclists as the de Maisonneuve bike path that runs parallel one block south and has 8,500 summer riders a day. “When you’re deciding where to put a path in a park, you let people walk. And wherever they walk, that’s where you put a path,” said Dan Lambert, spokesman for the Montreal Bike Coalition. “We’re already seeing 50 per cent of cyclists using Sherbrooke St . ... “What’s driving this is the idea of providing safe access to people who choose to get around by bicycle on a very important street.” The de Maisonneuve bike path is narrow with cyclists riding close to one another in both directions, resulting in accidents with fellow cyclists and left-turning vehicles. The city’s goal is to increase the percentage of the population that uses cycling to commute from three per cent to 15 per cent in nine years. “That’s five times what we have now,” Lambert said. “There’s no way the de Maisonneuve bike path can accommodate that.” In addition, de Maisonneuve ends in eastern Ville-Marie, whereas Sherbrooke St. runs considerably deeper into the heavily populated eastern sector of the city. At public consultations held to discuss the creation of a new bicycle network in the city dubbed the Express Bike Network (EBN) or Réseau Express Vélo (REV), the unanimous choice at all sessions was a path on Sherbrooke St., Lambert said. “That came across as the strongest demand from cyclists.” The coalition of nine groups coming from the five boroughs and municipalities traversed by the new bike path is holding its first formal meeting Thursday. It includes bike and pedestrian associations, Vélo Québec and the Conseil Régional de l’Environnement. Feedback from the city and Mayor Valérie Plante has been positive, Lambert said. But Plante cautioned that implementation could be complicated because the path will run through five independent jurisdictions and because of merchants concerned about losing parking spaces and business. The Plante administration said Tuesday it’s not closing the door on the idea, but nothing definite has been determined yet as it is still planning its Express Bike Network. In Westmount and N.D.G., the neighbourhoods with the highest concentration of businesses on Sherbrooke St., the path could be created by eliminating a lane of traffic, as opposed to parking, Lambert said. The bike path would run next to the sidewalk, then there would be a line of parked cars and then the traffic lane. In N.D.G., parking would be forbidden during rush hour to make way for the express bus lane, as is the case now. In areas of Ville Marie and Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, where businesses are scant, parking could be eliminated. Recent studies have shown that cyclists and pedestrians spend more money and stop into shops more frequently than drivers who are intent on going home and less inclined to stop and shop, Lambert noted. “If the city wants cycling to grow on key arteries where there are a lot of important destinations and direct routes, they have to provide safe access because that is the main thing that is holding back cyclists,” Lambert said.