A pretty chaos reigned on the Berri Street bike path one afternoon last week: traditional bicycles rubbed shoulders with an electric skateboard, an electric scooter, an Uber Eats delivery man on an electric scooter, a retiree in an electric wheelchair and a jogger isolated from the world with his headphones. We felt a certain impatience, a tension between users. As if the track was too narrow.
Montreal’s bike paths break traffic records every year, but the proliferation of “active” modes of travel amplifies the feeling of running out of space. And it’s not just an impression, but the reality, says Catherine Morency, professor specializing in urban mobility at Polytechnique Montréal.
“That’s what’s at stake: we don’t have enough room for alternative modes of transport,” she says from Vancouver, where she observes the same enthusiasm as in Montreal for light means of transport – bicycle , scooter, inline skates, and so on.
The professor sees a positive sign in this sometimes difficult cohabitation between users of cycle paths. This means that city dwellers are adopting alternatives to solo driving. “Cyclists complain that e-scooters take up space and go fast, but you look down the street next door and what do you see? Wholesale pickups F150 quite a bit more threatening,” says Catherine Morency.
For this specialist in transportation engineering, the solution to the streets congested with cars and crowded bike paths is simple: remove space reserved for motor vehicles and allocate more space to active mobility. Drivers who complain about cycle paths are on the wrong target, she says. The more bikes there are, the fewer cars there are, and the more “fluid” traffic becomes.
“As soon as we remove the spaces reserved for solo cars, it increases the transport capacity and we are getting closer to the solution,” she affirms bluntly.
car culture
Like all North American cities, Montreal was designed around car travel. Professor Catherine Morency and her team (Gabriel Lefebvre-Ropars and Paula Negron-Poblete) calculated in 2021 that 73.8% of the road space in the metropolis is reserved for motor vehicles. Pedestrians are entitled to 18.8% of the space, bicycles (and other modes of active transport) to 1.4%, and public transport barely 1%.
“The reign of the chariot is appalling. When we do an objective analysis, it’s clear that we have to rebalance the public space to promote active travel and public transit,” says Catherine Morency.
We should not be surprised by traffic congestion in Greater Montreal: the number of cars registered in the region increased by 40% between the years 2001 and 2019 – a trend which has even increased with the pandemic, underlines the teacher.
Vehicles have literally become obese, which makes congestion worse. In two decades, the share of SUVs in the fleet of passenger vehicles has increased from 4% to 30%. The average mass of vehicles has increased by 19%. They occupy an average area 3.3% larger than in 2001, and an 8.4% higher volume.
The future will be light
The mobility expert is surprised that governments subsidize electric cars. It’s like a congestion subsidy. On the other hand, light electric vehicles (scooters, skateboards, wheelchairs for the elderly and bicycles) represent the future of urban transport, believes Catherine Morency. You’ll have to get used to having them in bike lanes, because people understand that’s the most efficient way to get around town, she said.
The success of the Réseau express vélo (REV) on rue Saint-Denis confirms the appeal of this type of cycle lane protected from cars by a strip of concrete, emphasizes Catherine Morency. The City of Montreal has eliminated two lanes of car traffic to create one-way bike paths (one on each side of the street). More than 161,000 commuters have used the REV Saint-Denis since the start of the year. For the month of April, the number of passages on this bike path, at the corner of rue Rachel, increased by 42% compared to last year.
The traffic on bike paths has exploded in Montreal since the return of milder weather, in particular because of the omnipresence of Bixi. The same excitement is taking hold of Vancouver, another Canadian city that has taken the turn of active mobility.
“Every spring, I am surprised by the sheer volume of cyclists,” says Alex Bigazzi, associate professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of British Columbia (UBC). As in Montreal, the tensions between the different types of users of cycle paths are a cause for concern, explains this specialist in urban mobility.
However, the proliferation of active modes of transport is a golden opportunity to alleviate glaring problems related to “traffic congestion, air pollution, climate change, public health and energy consumption”, emphasizes the teacher. In other words: to gradually get out of car culture in urban areas.
In the street, the scooters
Alex Bigazzi and his team published a vast study a year ago on the cohabitation between traditional cyclists and fans of electric means of transport. They observed 25,282 “active transportation” trips in Vancouver and its suburbs; 1,054 users also responded to a questionnaire on their appreciation of active travel in the city.
Unsurprisingly, experts have recommended banning electric scooters from bike lanes. The BC government has recognized the problem and banned electric motorcycles from bike lanes in October 2022.
“These e-scooters have unnecessary pedals, which are used to pass them off as e-bikes. They are not bicycles. These scooters drive too fast, up to 45 km/h. This creates discomfort for other users. These motorcycles continue to circulate, but we hope that sales will drop, with the new regulations, ”explains Alex Bigazzi.
According to him, the Vancouver police do not monitor the presence of electric scooters on the bike paths, even if they have been banned there. He believes that the solution lies in an information campaign on what is a bicycle and what is a scooter, rather than police repression.
A pilot project allows electric scooters to circulate on bike paths in Vancouver. Cohabitation is going well, but 44% of scooter enthusiasts exceeded the speed limit set at 24 km/h, according to the study.
Since the future of travel in the city will be electric and light, Alex Bigazzi recommends creating separate paths for pedestrians and other active modes of transport (bicycles, skateboards and scooters). “Pedestrians don’t feel safe on multi-purpose paths,” he says. A simple walk on the path of the Jacques-Cartier bridge, for example, is enough to see the mutual discomfort of pedestrians and cyclists.