Traduite en dupliqué
The City of Montreal wants to remove 250 parking spaces in Parc-Extension to create a safe bike path, and the debate rages as if the future of civilization depended on it. In this unnecessarily divisive debate, we often forget how little space bicycles take up on public roads and how much space cars take up. According to research from the Mobility Chair of Polytechnique Montréal published in 2021, 73.8% of public roads for transportation in Montreal are dedicated to traffic lanes for cars, compared to 18.8% of space for pedestrians, 1.3% for cycle paths and 1.0% for lanes reserved for public transport. In Plateau Mont-Royal and Rosemont, cycle paths occupy 2.5% of public space, a peak in Montreal. But bike lanes shouldn’t be limited to central, often wealthier neighborhoods, says Hugo Cordeau, a doctoral student in economics at the University of Toronto who documented the phenomenon by studying BIXI routes to subway stations. “A big problem is that we don’t have enough cycle paths in less advantaged areas. In these neighborhoods, adding a bike path helps people have access to the metro,” he notes. Like in Parc-Extension, where half of the residents do not have a car. We must give everyone, regardless of the size of their bank account, the opportunity to travel safely by bicycle – a much cheaper means of transportation than the car. Even if it shakes up habits a little and involves removing a few parking spaces.
