Montreal: Arrival and First Impressions

Montreal was the third city I visited in a two-week trans-Canadian bike and train trip. To find out why I took the long – and slow – way to New York read my first post.

I had high expectations of Montreal, because of what I’d heard about the “Route Verte” and the city’s 1999 “#1 Cycling City” award from Bicycling Magazine. I arrived on the train from Toronto, having read en route the Montreal and Toronto papers. Both covered the big business story of the day: that the manufacturer Dorel (based in Montreal; it owns Cannondale, SugoI, Mongoose and other marks) would shift investment towards bicycles in a major way to capitalize on an anticipated surge in demand.

It’s hard to imagine now, in July, when the major news media has been full of stories about gas prices and biking and transit ridership for months. But back in May, this was real news! I was pumped.

First Impressions

I stayed at the YWCA, or “Le Y de femmes” in French, a very comfortable and feminist hotel (it never occurred to me that a hotel could be “feminist” and I’m not really sure how to describe it, but it was really nice) with, like everywhere else I stayed in Canada, an easy place to store guests’ bikes.

After unpacking my bag and unfolding my bike, I looked around and was a little turned off. The hotel was on a “grand boulevard“, “grand” meaning really wide and fast with big tall buildings along it and a freeway parallel that everyone was zooming towards. I was reminded of those future-city visions from the early part of the last century, the ones with high speed freeways if not skyways full of zooming capsules transporting people to and from their homes in sleek high-rise monolithic towers. Like this:

The occasional bicyclist would pedal along, tres blase, coiffure blowing in the spring breeze, as luxury cars flew by, and a moderate number of pedestrians would use the 90 foot long crosswalk – no walk signal and certainly no count-down for pedestrians so potential for mid-road strandings seemed high – to get from one tall building to another.

“Ick,” I thought. “It’s the LA of the North.”

But no, false alarm!

I only had to walk a few blocks to leave futuristic Montreal behind (good riddance) and find the Montreal I’d expected – a mix of old and new buildings, very urban, hordes of pedestrians, many bicyclists, and fashion all around. I loved it. I think it was my favorite city on this trip. I was fairly affected also by the ballet classes I took – the first one entirely in French (I was so proud!) and the second one half in French, one quarter in Russian, and one quarter in Spanish. It’s a very multi-lingual place. That was the highlight of the whole trip. I couldn’t stop grinning all through class.

The first hint I got of the status of cycling in Montreal was this boutique window, lit up at night.

And then these parking-meter-cum-bike-racks, which are a neat idea, though I don’t understand how the parking meter is a better bike rack with the metal ring than without it. Maybe I’m missing something.

I went to the tourist office to inquire about a bike map, and was directed to a $7 piece of advertising crap that everyone insisted was the only and best bike map of the city. I’m still mad I bought it. No street names, and it was a slippery, glossy booklet instead of being just an ordinary map, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out which page connected to which page, which all led to some fruitless fumbling at intersections. I’ve since heard there was another, better bike map available for free, but I didn’t find it.

I had a map (of dubious quality), my bike was unfolded, the weather forecast was for beaucoup de soleil, I was ready to explore!

Next post: Cycletracks, the Mystery Facility, On-Street Bike Parking and Sharrows.