Neglected bike path dubbed ‘valley of death

Vision and Project Montreal blame city for negligence

by ELISABETH FAURE

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Clearly, NDG drivers don't know how to drive PHOTO STEFAN GUNTERMANN

According to the Montreal Police, 701 bike accidents occurred on the Island of Montreal last year. Two crashes resulted in fatalities and 34 in serious injuries

A dilapidated bike path in the Cote des Neiges/Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough is heating up Montreal’s upcoming municipal election as local candidates weigh in on the faulty strip of road work.

Running along de Maisonneuve Boulevard W. from the Vendôme metro to Concordia’s Loyola campus, the bike path is in a sorry state, pockmarked with large potholes and missing many of the poles that separate cyclists from passing cars.

One local candidate has said enough is enough.

“I am the biggest cyclist in this [electoral] race—I took that path already twice today,” said Peter McQueen, Project Montreal’s CDN/NDG candidate.

A local activist in NDG who has run for the federal Green Party twice, McQueen has called for the pot holes to be filled, new poles to be installed and for the so-called “valley of death” intersection where the path crosses Décarie Boulevard to be re-designed.

“We want a flyover [cyclist overpass], absolutely, at the Décarie intersection. [We] want it to go behind Vendôme metro station,” said McQueen. “It’s tight, but there is just enough space.”
Vision Montreal candidate David Hanna, who joins McQueen in his outrage over the bike path, was quoted in The Link two weeks ago for voicing his displeasure at the haphazard route and also advocates for a flyover.

McQueen said Union Montreal borough mayor Michael Applebaum has been negligent in the path’s maintenance, but Applebaum’s office denies responsibility for its state.
Applebaum’s Chief of Staff Hugo Tremblay said, “the borough is not responsible; it’s a city bike path.”

“This summer we patched a lot of potholes and city hall told us that next summer they’re going to re-pave the path and fix the poles,” he continued.
Tremblay pointed out that municipal bike paths on NDG roads like LaCombe Avenue and Isabella Street were well-maintained.

Union Montreal candidate Marie-Josée Mastromonaco, who is running against McQueen, agreed the bike path is good enough as it is.

“We did as much as we could,” said the self-professed non-cyclist, “especially when you take into consideration that it’s not under our jurisdiction.”

Mastromonaco, current commissioner for Montreal’s French-language school board, said little more could be done to revamp the paths. “We can promise you a lot of things,” she said, “but they’ll be empty promises because the pike path doesn’t belong to us.”

Darren Becker, the press attaché for Mayor Gérald Tremblay, acknowledged that fixing the bike path is a pressing concern.

“We don’t take the situation lightly, as it concerns public safety,” said Becker. “But we have over 500 kilometres of bike paths in Montreal, so we need NDG residents to be a bit more patient. It’s definitely going to be attended to and it’s not going to be a matter of fixing it years from now.”

Becker added that 11.5 kilometres of new bike path is being created in NDG on Fielding and Girouard Avenues, which will provide residents with alternatives while the path on de Maisonneuve Boulevard W. is waiting for repairs.

That’s good news for McQueen, who defines NDG as “a neighbourhood that is naturally suited to bikes.” He is firmly in support of new bike paths, predicting that NDG will soon mirror the tip-top conditions of the downtown core.

“The number of cyclists will shoot up,” McQueen said. “If you build the bike path, they will come.”