Bike paths don't encourage commuting: cyclists

Thursday was Bike Day in Montreal, when people were encouraged to cycle to work. Some critics say, though, that Montreal's bike paths don't encourage two-wheeled commuting.

Mayor Pierre Bourque was one of the Montrealers out on his bike today. He says he enjoys getting around this way.

"For me it's easy to see the problem in the city, the dirt on the streets and sidewalks." The mayor would like people to get in the habit of biking to work.

It will be a tough sell. An Environics survey found a third of Canadians live close enough to work to ride there in under a half hour. But only four per cent do it. In Montreal, about five per cent use a bike to ride to work.

The survey also shows more than half of Canadians would bike to work, if there was a bike lane taking them there in under a half hour. Montreal has 125 kilometres of bike paths, but people who want to take their bikes to work say the paths don't work for commuting.

Claude Heon is among the minority who bike to work, but he uses the streets. He says the paths are very scenic, and fine for recreation, but "it's not that efficient to get to Point A to Point B."

The man who plans Montreal's bike paths, Serge Lefebvre, disagrees. He points out the city's bike paths are so good, Montreal won an award for being the most bicycle friendly city in North America.

Sydney Ribaux heads Equiterre, a group that promotes non-polluting transportation. He doesn't dispute Montreal has nice bike paths, he's just not impressed with where the city puts them. He says they don't seem to be well planned.

Lefebvre, the man from the city, points out you can't just put in a bike path wherever there's a demand. He explains a bike path has much less impact on a less busy street. That's why most of the paths have gone where they'd have less impact.

Montreal's bike path network is about to grow. Quebec and the city are splitting the cost of a $10 million upgrade, to put in another 25 kilometers of new paths over the next four years. The Quebec government is also planning to incorporate bike paths when it builds new roads.