Something I’ve noticed with the local bike path conversation is how limited to NDG it is. I’m no expert but I am an Uber Driver this winter and I see a fair number of people cycling this winter around the city. Definitely more than the past. They just aren’t so common in NDG.
I quickly found data to substantiate this theory. The city installed cyclist counters around to track how many people use certain bike lanes. It’s not an exact science, but it shows that on average more than 200 people used the Jacques Cartier Bridge daily in the coldest of temperatures back in 2021.
On average the number of winter cyclings is growing year over year. In science land, people try to use data, to see the trends and plan for the future. Despite what people see today in their neighbourhood, there is something shifting in winter, and that thing is more than the number of cyclists.
There’s less snow and it’s not as cold
I cycled from April until December the year of 2020. It was mid December when I had to finally put the bike away. I could have cycled this year until January. I want to address the argument of “cycle season”.
That season has changed. It is at least a solid month or two longer than it used to be back in the day. Since climate change is largely the old people’s fault, it’s ironic that the mostly older folk pointing out the limited cycle season don’t see how they made the season longer by supporting the politicians they did.
If you are already used to cycling at 0 degrees with no snow or ice on the ground, it’s not that far of a stretch to start wondering, can I handle the snow cycling? You see the people out there and eye them on their cycle with some envy. They get to cycle and I’m here on this bus (I don’t feel it in my car though). More importantly I’ve met enough people who safely get through the winter cycling to know I’m just a second bike and some gear away from starting the adventure.
Something else has changed, the city built protected bike lanes and now the cyclists do come. A lot of people who live in an area far from the focus of that effort, don’t see the tides shifting under the water. I remember one person in the recent bike path debates saying they don’t believe 100 people cycle around. There is a lot of delusion out there when it comes to cyclist populations.
What is Montreal urban development?
You can go to the wiki page for more info, but quickly, urban development is the process of improving transportation, distribution and communication networks. Arguably, one of the main jobs of a mayor, is to be a top level urban developer person who focuses the ship in a direction. When it comes to the topic of transportation you can have a car-centric city or a pedestrian-centric city.
Montreal is a city designed for cars. There are a lot of people out there who cover this topic on YouTube, but a lot of moves have been made to facilitate cruising the island in a whip. I’m not here to tell you if this was the right move, but it is the choice that was made. Somewhere along the way people got worried about the planet dying and maybe never seeing a white Christmas again, and started to shift the focus. Mostly this took place with the younguns, who are now old enough to hold positions of power.
Millennials are pushing 40. Gen Z is starting to invade middle management and politics. A lot of us are like, ya know what’s bless? Cycling and alternative modes of transport. When you really do the demographic research, there is a growing demand for bike paths and pedestrian only streets. You can see the huge benefit it is for Verdun, Wellington is popping in the summer.
The city is trying to grow and evolve to meet the needs of the population who can’t afford homes and cars quite so easily as the last generation. But I can assure you people actually do use Bixi, we just don’t have enough of them in NDG for it to be as visible.
Too much of the conversation is in the present day
The bike path, and Bixi availability in NDG suck. People are poorer than ever and bicycle prices went up over covid. If there was a Bixi stop, closer than a 10 minute walk away, I’d consider using Bixi over my own bike sometimes.
When people look around NDG and see the one lonely cyclist here and there, I feel they focus on the loneliness and forget two important details. One is that NDG is a part of a bigger city, where it is two skips and a hop away from downtown. The other is that how people behave today is not the same as tomorrow.
Here’s a real example of how change can manifest, old people used to sell their homes, and now they don’t. This is a real factor in the current house price crisis. The boomers seem to have created a societal shift that has unprecedented consequences. Also people used to die in their 50’s and now the average death age is in their 70’s. The way things used to be will never be a reflection of the future, and it’s mostly cuz the Boomers are healthy. Which is wonderful, I’m glad there’s a good chance I can reach my 80s.
I think that cockblocking the property access of younger people by chokeholding availability in the market (mixed with foreign developers and billion dollar deals) changes the reality of urban existence. Talking about how things are today, ignoring the drastic shifts in motion when someone my age, 36, cannot afford a house in NDG, feels neglectful. That little rinky dink house on Rosedale or whichever street, was half listed at half a million dollars. The welcome tax is fucking stupid on that.
Y’all are forcing us young people to consider places like St Jean Sur Richilieu, as I can realistically get a house there, and drive to work two days a week while working remotely the rest of the time.
The other reality is a lot of the older folk will not actually live to see the benefit of the investment. They don’t actually care about what the future generations need. They care about parking spots close to their home and other home-owning parent issues that dominate local politics.
So I’m not accused of ignoring mobility issues
This comes up every single time people talk about bike paths. I believe mobility issue concerns are valid. Entrances to stores and restos should be accessible. The little ridges on the sidewalks for blind people are really cool.
I am sympathetic to the needs of people. I had to help a 97-year-old woman across a snow bank in my Uber recently. It’s really not fun to be at that place in your life where you cannot walk. I recognize if I am blessed to live that long, it’s probably my future.
There are also people out there born with mobility issues. This isn’t just a single population-group thing. There are plenty of people my age who are trying to live without impediments of city design that ignore them. We as a society do not focus on their needs a lot of the time.
That being said, when talking about urban development, I don’t know if something like bike path networks hurt people with mobility issues. In theory if the government linked people up with affordable scooters, they could be zipping around town on a protected network feeling independent. I see people clearly ahead of my age in life, zipping past me on the De Maisonneuve bike path in NDG, with their fancy mobility whip.
I don’t really think people understand issues like snow removal, but I can assure you that no one’s ignoring people with mobility issues on that topic. They focus on specialized care facilities over residential homes. Unfortunately if people want to live amongst the civilians, the assumption is that most people on the block don’t require that specialized assistance. Perhaps that is ignorance, but when you see the city’s priority, they do at least try to keep it in mind. The apartment complex my grandfather lived in before he passed had streets/sidewalks cleared before the regular houses.
It’s just sometimes people live in houses with their family. That is a lot harder to plan for, at a top level. I don’t have a solution, I just have an explanation.
Change is messy and people should know that
Have you ever changed a habit in your life? I bet that you found that process messy. We as a society and culture are going through the growing pains of change. One of those topics is bike paths. I think it represents a fundamental shift away from car culture that used to dominate the “American” idea of cool.
Now people see cars as a representation of pollution and death. They are still cool, and beneficial but deep down a lot of us know/believe that we need to give up our reliance on cars to save ourselves from climate change. It creates this strange conflict. Maybe you are reading this and find that preposterous, be that as it may, I don’t speak for just myself on this topic.
Like I said earlier, cars aren’t as accessible to the youth, neither are the homes where you can park said cars. The potholes are pretty bad still, I guess we don’t whine about that anymore. I actually missed out on a 500$-700$ Uber day on New Years Eve over a pothole fucking up my tire. But frankly that feels like beating a dead horse (what a dumb expression eh?).
In order to think about the version of Montreal I will retire into, we need to not be so present-time centric. You can’t talk about how many people are on the roads today and ignore that in 5 years, there could be a large increase in winter cyclists. If we build out a nice network of lanes, and have more Bixis, you will see a vast increase in winter cyclists.
Trying to store extra bicycles in a 4 and a half apartment with no storage locker is a lot. There are plenty of reasons why people in NDG aren’t snow cycling today, but would if they could do it conveniently. All that to say, maybe Terrebonne’s bike path is a bad idea, but the future is going to have a lot more cyclists in it, all year round.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone