A recent study by McGill University has found that bike lanes take up around two per cent of Montreal’s street space, despite a measurable need for more in certain boroughs.

Researchers say that they conducted the study as city planners might already know how many kilometres of bike lanes exist, but what hasn’t been known is how much area is dedicated to micromobility relative to the full road network and compare that with how people actually travel.

Researchers were able to learn that while vehicles take up 98 per cent of road space, they only account for 95 per cent of travel. This has become more evident as micromobility has increased, as more people use bikes, e-bikes, and scooters.

Researchers also found that in some areas, like the Plateau-Mont-Royal and Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie boroughs, micromobility makes up around 22 per cent of all travel.

During the study, the research team looked at dedicated infrastructure like separated bike paths, cycle tracks, and BIXI docks.

“We found that micromobility infrastructure takes up a very small proportion of street space in Montreal,” said Daniel Romm, a PhD candidate in McGill’s Department of Geography and lead author of the study. “Even doubling all existing infrastructure, it still makes up just a miniscule proportion.”

Following this, they created a model of various scenarios and found that even if the infrastructure for micromobility was doubled in every borough, space for vehicles wouldn’t see a massive impact.

“Micromobility infrastructure is incredibly space-efficient,” said Romm. “There’s ample available space for such infrastructure without severely affecting the relative space allocated to automobiles.”

Researchers are hoping their study can help city planners assess the infrastructure for micromobility in Montreal and in other cities across Canada.

“This is best used as a diagnostic tool for where there’s too little space,” said Romm. “It’s very intuitive: square metres per traveler is a simple way to understand whether infrastructure is keeping up with demand.”

The study was published in ScienceDirect.