The City of Montreal is gearing up for a mayoral election and bike lanes have become a key talking point. Right now, the city currently boasts an impressive 1,082 km of cycling infrastructure. That represents a whopping 35-per cent increase since Val\u00e9rie Plante took office in 2017. But just like we\u2019ve seen across the country as of late, not everyone is stoked about adding bike lanes. Whether it\u2019s Ontario, Alberta or British Columbia\u2013there are those who quite vocally oppose cycling infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Everyone says they like bikes but\u2026<\/p>\n
All candidates claim to support cycling in principle, but their approaches vary. Ensemble Montr\u00e9al leader Soraya Martinez Ferrada, who has suggested temporarily halting new bike lane construction, stressed during an interview that she is \u201cpro-bikes.\u201d<\/a> However, she has also pledged that if elected, she would order a 100-day audit of existing bike paths to determine \u201cwhich paths should be maintained or removed.\u201d<\/p>\n Projet Montr\u00e9al leader Luc Rabouin has focused on expansion. He said to the CBC<\/a> he would increase access to Montreal\u2019s Bixi bike-sharing network so that \u201call Montrealers would live within 15 minutes on foot from a Bixi station\u201d by the end of his first mandate, which would involve adding roughly 1,000 stations. For Transition Montr\u00e9al\u2019s Craig Sauv\u00e9, bike lanes are a public safety and health issue. He plans to introduce baby seats for Bixi bikes and expand electric-assist options to make cycling safer and more convenient for families. That includes a winter pilot project<\/a>, and bike shares with trailers (!)<\/p>\n Other candidates are prioritizing balance between cyclists and drivers. Futur Montr\u00e9al leader Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Kacou would freeze bike path construction on commercial arteries and limit new lanes to residential streets, green corridors, and parks. He argues this approach \u201cwould improve safety.\u201d Action Montr\u00e9al\u2019s Gilbert Thibodeau, running for a third term, said to the CBC<\/a> he would \u201cremove or adjust\u201d lanes that impede traffic or essential parking and increase on-street parking to accommodate drivers.\u201d<\/p>\n Montreal heads to the polls on Nov. 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The City of Montreal is gearing up for a mayoral election and bike lanes have become a key…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[33276,49,48,635,50311,2338,82],"class_list":["post-195131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-bike-lanes","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-cycling-infrastructure","tag-montreal","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}