Cycling / Cyclisme
November 30th, 2009
« I wept and on my knees I prayed that there be truth and there be light [and there be Bixi]. »
– Joel Gibb
The leaves fall,
the air crisps,
and the sun struggles desperately to keep us warm.
As the city prepares for its annual period of hibernation, so disappears the last remaining Bixis from our streets.
How will you and I survive without the one we’ve come to love?
To my father: Thank you for teaching me how to ride a bicycle.
To the city: You have really out done yourself this time; not only did you follow through with your engagement to encourage active means of transportation, you produced the sort of innovation that Montréal is known for but has, of late, sorely been lacking. And while I won’t think twice about denouncing the clichéd shenanigans at Hôtel de Ville, I must give credit when credit is due.
To Stationnement de Montréal: You have facilitated the so-called unholy union between bike and car. Like gay marriage before it, the skies did not crumble to the sea as a consequence.
To the development team: Congratulations – International fame and recognition! Bixi has flourished into a highly sought after export, made and manufactured in Québec; I have yet to see a better economic stimulus from the federal government
To the users who chose active transportation over the car: May you continue to live long, healthy lives in your skinny jeans.
To the motorists: Your patience was an indispensable virtue. I have witnessed the cyclists, too enamoured with their newfound mobility, riding the wrong way down the Main, during evening rushing hour, wearing headphones, listening to Peaches, whilst sending text messages. Motorists, you have proven that the car is not the untameable animal that many choose to make it out to be.
To the advantaged, residing near a Bixi station: We truly live in a great city.
To the disadvantaged: Hoping and praying that one day your Bixi may come, is futile. Only one way will guarantee results; you now have 5 months to make sure your newly elected leaders hear your message.
To my fellow man, the strangers on the street: Just because Bixi is gone, doesn’t mean that we can no longer strike up a conversation…or more. The city is but the interactions amongst its citizenry.
CBC Radio One (88.5 Montréal) Homerun : Bixi as a tool for socialising
CBC Radio One (88.5 Montréal) Homerun : Bixi as a tool for socialising
To the vandals and thieves: Whatever doesn’t kill Bixi only makes it stronger.
To Boston, London, and Ottawa: Welcome to the club!
To Paris: Our bike sharing system is better than your bike sharing system!
To the other municipalities of the World: Bikes are the new Black.
and finally,
To the MTQ: See! Alternative modes of transportation do actually work!
Is there anyone I’ve forgotten?
Until next year my Bixi compatriots.
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Permalink for Bye Bye Bixi
Posted by Émile Thomas
Categories Cycling / Cyclisme, Public Transit / Transport en commun
November 13th, 2009
Photo: Patrick Sanfaçon, La Presse
This morning, around 9am, a 22-year old woman was pulled under a delivery truck and tangled up in the twisted metal of her bike, reports La Presse.
She was taken to hospital, conscious, with several broken bones and is in critical condition.
Riding home up the Main every day, I am often stressed by the traffic gunning to get past, yet hesitant to ride too close to the fast turnover parking on the right. And there are swarms of cyclists in the same position. Will this city one day have bike paths where cyclists actually go (eg. St. Laurent), or only where someone wants them to be (eg. Clark)?
Wishing you a speedy recovery, mysterious 22-year old woman.
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Permalink for Cyclist evades death after being struck by delivery truck on St. Laurent
Posted by Jacob Larsen
Categories Cycling / Cyclisme, The Main, Traffic / Circulation
October 28th, 2009
The annual Course des Morts bike race is taking place once again this year on October 31st. As usual, it’s open to anyone who wants to race for a small entrance fee (I did it a couple years ago and I think it cost $20 which included a pretty nice t-shirt). It’s usually a pretty tough race but it’s a lot of fun and a great way to see parts of the city you might not otherwise get to. The race is a mix between a scavenger hunt and a normal working day for a courrier. You’re given a list of clues or specific locations for checkpoints, you make your own route and go from there. When I raced a couple years ago, my route took me from Old Montreal to the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetary to Parc LaFontaine as well as places I had never been such as Redpath Crecent and the Westmount lookout on the Mountain which was great for someone who had only lived in the city for a little over a year. Don’t worry if you don’t finish, most people don’t. Just be prepared to be exhausted at the end.
The meet-up is at 4h00 at 1297 chemin de la Forêt at the entrance to the cemetary. It’s reccommended that you take a bag of some sort and a lock. A pen will also come in very handy. For more information, visit the Belleville Cycle Co-op’s website at bellevillecycle.com.
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Permalink for La Course des Morts this week
Posted by Chris Erb
Categories Cycling / Cyclisme, Events/ Évenements
August 26th, 2009
Bicycles and buses in Montreal have a fairly intimate, and almost always antagonistic, relationship. This is not news to those who’ve used either a these types of transportation at least a few times in their lives (eg. almost everyone). But now the union representing STM bus drivers says the St. Urbain bike path is unsafe, as drivers must constantly cross the path of large numbers of cyclists. The union petitioned the CSST – the province’s health and safety board – to intervene, which refused. (Their mandate is to protect the drivers while at work, not cyclists on their way to it. This may explain why they forgot to mention the danger caused by the many car drivers parking and exiting their parking spaces.)
Rather than allow this little tiff to escalate, Mayor Tremblay has asked the STM to look into this with the union. Let’s hope STM President Michel “Vélo” Labrecque can live up to his name and work out a solution to this most obvious of problems.
This incident prompted me to reflect on my recent bike trip in Ireland and Denmark. Traveling on bike, experiencing how buses and bikes share road space was a fairly visceral part of my travels.
The Copenhagen-style bike lane: so simple, so obvious
Cycling conditions in Irish cities are, in a nutshell, similar to Canadian standards (except for being on the left side, of course, and the many roundabouts). A cycle track (’ron rothar’ in Irish) consists of either a narrow band taken out of the outer lane (occasionally a long band of auburn paint on the roadway), a painted line on the sidewalk where the path hops up to join the pedestrians for a bit, or is a “shared” lane with buses. Not surprisingly, it was the final configuration that caused the most grief. Why anyone thought putting a vehicle that makes frequent stops and one that avoids stopping as much as possible in the same lane is beyond me, but there we have it. (Regretfully I have no picture to share of the more atrocious ones, but I was generally gripping too tightly to my handle bars to get the camera out. If you’re curious, there’s a website out there that aims to dispel the hype of their city government and tell the world the truth about Dublin bike lanes.)
Cycling in Copenhagen was, by comparison, a much gentler experience, where bike lanes are generally separated from car traffic and pedestrians in a wide, single-directional lane. They also occupy their own space slightly below the sidewalk level and above the road level. In many but not all areas, bus stops are little islands between the sidewalk and the road where bus passengers can board and alight the bus. These aren’t any great secret – we have at a few spots around Montreal – but if they’re well-design and big enough, they make cyclists and pedestrians’ lives much simpler. I’ll probably post some other Copenhagen photos and videos, but I thought this issue was particularly salient at the moment.
Let’s hope the minds that meet to solve this very un-unique problem take the time to learn how other cities are dealing with this issue.
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Permalink for Bikes and buses in traffic: What can Montreal learn from other cities?
Posted by Jacob Larsen
Categories Cycling / Cyclisme, Other Cities / Ailleurs, Pedestrian / Piétonnier, Public Transit / Transport en commun, Traffic / Circulation
August 11th, 2009
« L’amour n’a point d’âge : il est toujours naissant »
- Blaise Pascal
Bixi has become the new church hall, the new town square, the new water cooler, the new Facebook.
Bixi has become the new social networking tool.
Each time I take a Bixi, ride a Bixi, return a Bixi, talk about Bixi, or even look at a Bixi, I find myself deep in conversation with strangers.
It always begins with the same question :
So how does this Bixi thing work?
Ou, en français :
Le Bixi, ça marche-tu bien ?
Et hop, je me transforme en porte-parole pour Stationnement Montréal et son projet star.
Je leur enseigne la façon dont j’accède à un vélo en utilisant ma Bixi-clé chouette ou un code fourni par la borne.
Je les informe que c’est gratuit pour les 30 premières minutes et que les tarifs s’accroissent exponentiellement après ces 30 minutes.
Je leur décris comment on peut s’abonner, soit annuellement, soit mensuellement, soit quotidiennement.
Je leur apprends où ils peuvent s’en enquérir davantage : www.bixi.com
Then a funny thing happens. As I prepare to be on my merry way, another question flies at me; from out of the blue; no two questions have ever been the same; n’ayant rien à voir avec le Bixi.
Parfois nous discutons les événements du quartier.
Durant une rencontre Bixi particulière, j’ai appris que la friperie près de chez moi aura bientôt des soldes de déménagement. Lors d’une autre liaison bien torride, mon interlocuteur m’a invité à une fête électro sous le viaduc Van Horne.
Sometimes the theme is the seedy elements of living in the city.
When vandalism of the Bixi stations first took off, around La St-Jean, many talked about how unfortunate it was to be in a city filled with ungrateful delinquents. We speculate whether the end is nigh; what with all the shootings happening on the Main.
Je ne regarde pas la télévision; Bixi est devenu ipso facto ma Radio-Canada. Earl Jones, des édifices croulants et dangereux, et le retour éventuel du Grand Prix à Montréal représentent quelques actualités, entre autres, apprises autour d’un Bixi.
I’ve actually spent a day with a Brazilian student I met while exchanging my Bixi for another. She was practicing her French. I was practising my Portuguese (or at least pretending to). Now I have free accommodations in Rio, should I ever travel to Rio.
Bixi should add another selling point to its long list of accolades: bringing the people of of our diverse community together.
En espérant que Bixi me conduira à l’amour de ma vie.
Image credits:
MONTRÉAL – Émile Thomas
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Permalink for Love + Bixi
Posted by Émile Thomas
Categories Cycling / Cyclisme, People / Les gens
