Separating bikes from pedestrians
Westmount wants footbridge over park cycling path
Westmount wants to separate cyclists and pedestrians in Westmount Park.
The city will ask Montreal’s agglomeration council to fund the lowering of the busy de Maisonneuve Blvd. bike path and the construction of a footbridge over the path.
The bridge would link the under-construction Westmount Recreation Centre with the rest of the park. The de Maisonneuve path, a popular route for commuters cycling between the west end and downtown, runs through the park.
Westmount included the proposed pedestrian bridge in an artist’s rendering of the recreation centre, which is to open in November 2013.
But the bridge “is just an idea at this point,” Westmount Mayor Peter Trent said. “We’re getting quite a few bikes, which is great, but it means that for people going from Victoria Hall to the new recreation centre, it’s not going to be fun to cross the stream of bicycles.”
Cyclists and pedestrians “don’t really mix when they’re going at 90-degree angles to each other,” he added.
“We’re getting a lot of complaints from residents about speeding cyclists in that area, in fact on the whole length of the bike path.”
Trent said the bridge itself would only cost $50,000 but the work required on the bike underpass, including drainage, the roadbed and a retaining wall, would be costly.
The city does not yet have an estimate on the overall price tag, Trent said. The proposal will be sent to the agglomeration council in 2013.
The council, made up of elected officials from across Montreal Island, oversees island-wide services, including bike paths.
“If they won’t pay for it, I don’t think it’s going to happen because it’s a sizable enough amount,” Trent said.
“But we feel that since Westmount is the host to cyclists, mostly coming from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, it would be only fair that the agglomeration kick in on this cost.”
The footbridge proposal comes a week after the city of Montreal rejected the idea of a bridge that would have separated bikes and pedestrians from cars below on Décarie Blvd. and Upper Lachine Rd. The city cited space and security concerns.