Montreal to put bikes first in 2015 with vélorues

The City of Montreal has announced that they will designate a number of vélorues starting next summer. On such roads, bikes will be given extra priority, free to cycle in the middle of the lane, while cars will have to cede priority and follow along.

The idea is already in place in Portland, Ore., and Vancouver, where its called “neighbourhood greenways” and “bicycle boulevards” respectively.

Vélorues will be designated on quiet neighbourhood roads where traffic calming designs will be put in place to reduce speeds. This will help give bikes and pedestrians a safer experience while also discouraging through traffic. Those living in the area will still be able to drive to their homes, but drivers hopping to pass through will need to pick different routes.

“When you transform a street into a vélorue, it becomes a quieter street,” said Aref Salem, a member of the city’s transportation executive city, in an interview in Montreal’s The Gazette. “These are residential streets anyway, not arterial or commercial streets, so it gives people some peace. It will however mean a change of habits for people who live there.”

Although residents in cities who have seen similar developments may be concerned initially over changes to their neighbourhoods, the experience in Portland has been positive. Property values have gone up, streets became safer, quality of life improved. As a result, people living in Portland now lobby to have neighbourhood greenways installed on their own streets.

The design changes also tend to improve cycling traffic.

“Montreal has an interesting problem: its bike network is well over capacity,” says Jean-François Rheault, who works for Eco-Counter, a company that measures cycling and pedestrian traffic.

“There are intersections where 300 to 400 bikes are passing within a 15-minute period, so sometimes they need more than one traffic signal to get through an intersection.”

No final plans have been announced, but Mentana and St André Streets have been tapped as potentially becoming the first for vélorue treatment in the Plateau Mont-Royal borough of the city.