Montreal Part Deux: The stuff on the roads

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 very first post. Also see my first story about Montreal.

Cycletracks

I didn’t really translate the terms on the map correctly, and figured the “pistes cyclable” that dominated the network (in red, below) were bike lanes.

Once I figured out which street was which, though, I found out they were…

…CYCLETRACKS!! Surprise! At the time I’d not biked in Europe before (since then I’ve been to Denmark, Sweden and Finland, but that’s another story) so maybe this is old hat to all you bike dorks out there but this was my first cycletrack experience.

Now I understood why I’d seen so many bicyclists on streets that didn’t have bike facilities downtown. They were just doing their last few blocks on those streets; most of their trip was being made on cycletracks.

I started following people around, for miles, just to see where they went.

Here was a cycletrack on a major commercial street downtown, under construction while I was there (I realize now they had probably very recently removed the on-street parking to make room; I should have asked some merchants what they thought of it).

Here’s where a two-way cycletrack goes past – or, rather, through – a bus stop:

(I later saw more examples of cycletrack/bus stop combinations in Copenhagen.)
(Ten points for you if you noticed the inline-skate stencil on the asphalt; eight-wheelers are allowed in the cycletracks too.)

There was quite a high incidence of pedestrians stepping into the cycletrack to do something small and focused, like dialing their phone or lighting a cigarette, seemingly oblivious to the bikes whizzing by. It was worse at the bus stops.

I think it’s hard to tell what’s going on in this next picture, because it doesn’t look like much, but this is the waiting area on a corner where two streets, each with cycletracks on one side, intersect:

The waiting area allows the bicyclists to go from the side of one street to the side of the cross street, via the far corner. It’s coned off with the standard green plastic posts that mean “bike facility” in Montreal, but was otherwise unmarked. I figured out what it was for when it suddenly filled up with bicyclists, all pointing the same way, like seagulls into the wind. The light changed, and off they went!

(If you look at the bike map excerpt above, this is the intersection of Cherrier and Berri; it is on the Route Verte; coincidentally, a nearly identical photo appeared in this month’s Momentum Magazine.)

Next, I encountered a temporary detour cycletrack:

(This was a preview what I would see later in Copenhagen, where continuity of bike routes seems to be the top priority for construction zones in the city.)

Can you imagine Portland putting such effort into rebuilding a bike lane if nearby construction impacted it? When we get that kind of treatment, we’ll know we’ve made it!

Mystery Facility

Here’s a Montreal Mystery Facility – the person who can tell me definitively what this is, I will buy you a beverage of your choice. Travel costs not included. Seriously.

It headed off down a side street from a major street, and had these signs that clarified that one was NOT to park one’s car against the curb, but rather should leave this gap.

And wow, look at that compliance!!! I wonder how many parking tickets they give out in Montreal. This mystery facility, by the way, was not on the bike map, which adds to the mystery. Maybe it has nothing to do with bikes. Maybe it facilitates garbage collection or newspaper delivery or dog walking.

On-Street Bike Parking

In downtown I also saw some on-street parking spots, just like Portland’s except a little less ugly, though also less protected fom car traffic. Four green plastic posts and a bunch of racks. Pretty simple.

Sharrows

Saw quite a few sharrows on streets that didn’t have bike lanes or cycletracks, particularly around McGill University, and most of them made intuitive sense to me. Like this one, on a one-way street (for cars), paired with a contra-flow bike lane.

And these, smack in the middle of the road on a one-way street.

But some made no sense to me, at least not in the context of my Vehicular Cycling Lite training. In particular, I encountered this a couple of times:

There was a bike lane, and then it went away for a bus stop, and the sharrows directed you to move over and ride against the curb for the length of the bus stop. And then, at the other side of the intersection, the bike lane reappeared.

I didn’t like 1) changing lane placement suddenly, 2) riding against the curb rather than in front of or behind right turning cars or buses, and 3) changing lanes in the intersection to get back into the bike lane, possibly with a right-turning car between me and where I wanted to go.

I’m a little mystified. Maybe this is safe for reasons I haven’t contemplated, maybe it helps deal with the bus/bike weave at bus stops (and we could use some innovation around that problem here in the Portland area) or maybe this is just one of those “Doh!” projects for Montreal, that they thought was going to work but turned out not to. Certainly none of the other bicyclists I saw followed the sharrows back and forth across the lanes. If anyone out there from Montreal can enlighten me I’d be very grateful!

At the end of my urban bike touring day, I ate at an indian restaurant that made my lifetime top ten list – Bombay Palace Restaurant (super original name, I know). It was empty. I’m worried about it. Go there, and get the vegetarian thali and a couple of beers. And take your mom’s picture with their picture of the owner with Bill Clinton, as I did:

Next post: Montreal’s road culture, underground city and pedestrian friendliness.