Montreal bike lanes

[Melalvai]

I was in Montreal last week for a conference. Naturally when everyone else is talking about seeing beautiful churches, and shopping, I'm looking at bixi stations and bike lanes. A couple of afternoons we rented bikes and wandered around.

I was really amazed at how many cyclists I saw the first morning. They really accumulated at stop signs. It was impressive.

The bixi bikes are so cute. There are stations everywhere, at least everywhere I was, so there are lots in the touristy areas. I noticed they have lights that are probably generator powered as they are on when the is shining. They are obviously not built for speed, but are heavy and durable! They are comfort bikes but I wouldn't be comfortable for long--they aren't meant to be distance bikes either. I kind of intended to try one, but didn't get around to it. They are $5 for the first half hour, you can take as many trips as you like and when your total time adds up to a half hour then you start spending a little more, I think $1.50 per half hour after that or something, up to a maximum I don't recall. Cheaper than a cab maybe?

The infrastructure is very developed, miles and miles of it, but I felt it was poor design. Most of the bike lanes that I saw had BOTH bike lanes on the SAME side of the street. That means one lane is going against traffic. In the places I was walking, pedestrians were definitely at risk of getting hit by a cyclist, the sidewalks weren't always well integrated. In one place I saw the bike lanes on the OTHER side of the parked cars, smack in the door zone!

There are a lot of miles of bike paths. We rode around for 5 hours without leaving a bike path. They are mostly fairly well done. There were certainly some stretches that I thought would be better to be integrated with the street. They intersected streets too often and ended up having stop signs, or arrete signs, very frequently.

The Estacade (Mile long bridge) and the Seaway are VERY nice.

I'm fairly critical of the bike path and bike lane designs of Montreal, but I'm also very impressed by the sheer quantity of infrastructure. Well done Montreal (with some room for improvement)!

http://www.kemenel.org/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=718&g2_serialNumber=1

http://www.kemenel.org/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=721&g2_serialNumber=1

http://www.kemenel.org/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=724&g2_serialNumber=1

http://www.kemenel.org/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=727&g2_serialNumber=1
The bicycles even have their own stop light!

[shootingstar]

That would be a miracle if Vancouver ever got its own bike traffic lights.

Those bike traffic lights...are like what one finds in Copenhagen, some German cities, etc.

That bike lane with multiple bike stencils...the cycling advocate gone mad. :)

I wrote a paragraph (http://thirdwavecyclingblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/bike-designs-for-bike-share-systems-challenging-one-size-fits-all-or-ways-to-avoid-some-pain/) about my impressions of bixi bike from Montreal. There were demo models for us to try here in Vancouver last year. The weight of the bike wouldn't thrill me chugging up a hill downtown with multiple traffic light intersections. We have a few hills downtown...(in addition to others elsewhere but that's not the point of bike share. Only for a few kms. of riding. Probably under 5 kms. or alot less.)

Note: Just skim down in the above link, to the paragraph that starts "In May 2009...." to find my bixi commentary.

When I was in Europe this spring, I didn't try any bike share bikes. Some of them required sticking in your credit card, etc. Besides I had my own bike. But we did see the bike share models for several cities. By the way, the Copenhagen bike share model in the above link I gave, will be changed to a different model after the city had a bike share model design competition.

My comments about bike share does not negate the value of bike share at all. It's just I'm fussy about bike fit for little shrimp like me. :) In Paris, after introducing their system, Velib, they found that more locals bought bikes. Bike share gets people to try a bike for short distances. I guess some locals work out the financial logistics that if they wanted to bike regularily they may consider buying a bike instead.

[shootingstar]

I enjoyed cycling around in Montreal. Have cycled and visited city 3 different times. My partner was keen to discover its cycling infrastructure so off we went.

[Crankin]

When I went on my tour in Quebec, we rode on a couple of paths that had both lanes of bike traffic on one side of the road. I hated the feeling of riding against the traffic, even though I was clearly separated from the cars. It was awkward when we had to get back onto the road. I can't imagine why paths are designed that way, except to save space for the cars.

[shootingstar]

By the way, those multiple bike stencils on intersection pavement, is done all over Paris too. It is to give a clearer signal to drivers instead of coloured pavement boxes.

[Thorn]

When I went on my tour in Quebec, we rode on a couple of paths that had both lanes of bike traffic on one side of the road. I hated the feeling of riding against the traffic, even though I was clearly separated from the cars. It was awkward when we had to get back onto the road. I can't imagine why paths are designed that way, except to save space for the cars.

Yeah....at times I though Quebec had done a great job on infrastructure and then there would be those two way bike lanes. :mad:

There was one of those two-way bike lanes in St. Jean sur Richeleau on a busy road. If you road on the right side across the street from the bike lane, the cars were irate. But if you road in the bike lane contrary to traffic, you were in quite a quandry when the lane *stopped*. Now you had to thread yourself to the other side of the street. You'd routinely see people continuing to ride on the left hand side of the street when the lane ended. I feared for their safety.

But, we're no different here. The lastest in my neck of the woods is putting in "side paths", known anywhere else as a side walk. When run along a busy street with driveways every 50' or so, it is a recipe for an accident.

I guess if I'd rather have the stupidity of 2-way bike lanes than side paths -- both are unsafe, but at least in the bike lane I'm more visible...

[Melalvai]

shootingstar, that was my impression of the bixi bikes even though I didn't actually ride one. I wasn't super impressed with my rental bike for the same reason. But it's cool that they have the bike share thing.

In addition to the Estacade, the mile long pedestrian/cyclist bridge, several bridges had bike/ped access. One was very narrow. One bridge was SO tall, and since the race-track island was closed we either had to go back the way we came, or go over that really really high bridge. We weren't sure we had time to go back that far. But I knew that I could not go over that bridge, even though I could see cyclists up there, it clearly had bike/ped. I hated to make us go back, but I just could not do it.

I feel like I ought to feel some shame or regret for not trying it. But I don't. Every time I think of it I feel immensely relieved that they didn't make me go over that thing, and I still feel scared of it just thinking of it. It was SO high.

Guess I'm finally learning (and accepting) my limits!

[shootingstar]

shootingstar, that was my impression of the bixi bikes even though I didn't actually ride one. I wasn't super impressed with my rental bike for the same reason. But it's cool that they have the bike share thing.

With bixi's latest model on market, they've apparently made some enhancements. ie. adjustable seat post height and other things that I'm not clear. Dearie is at a cycling conference in the U.S. right now and was chatting with bixie sales rep. who showed him certain things about their bike models.