Pro- and anti-bike path advocates on Montreal’s growing bike infrastructure.
Forty residents from across Montreal gathered outside City Hall last week to protest what they call “mismanagement of city funds” by the city and its borough governments.
The protest took place at 6 p.m. on Nov. 18. Protesters criticized Montreal’s decision to remove parking spaces on many residential streets to make way for bike paths.
Protesters held up signs with messages like “Not anti-bike, but for an equitable solution for all citizens” and “Montreal: a metropolis, not a village!”
Non-profit organization Coalition for Democracy Montreal organized the protest. According to their website, their mission is “to uphold democratic processes and ensure citizens’ rights.” Organizer Sia Spanoudakis addressed the crowd, citing the “one-way discussion” the group had with the city over the removal of parking.
“We tried to speak, we tried to have a dialogue, but as one reporter told me, it takes two parties to have a dialogue,” Spanoudakis said.
Marc Perez, the leader of Coalition for Democracy in Montreal, echoed the same sentiment, saying that the city “just doesn’t want to listen.” He explained that he created the organization in response to this issue, to “give a voice to Montrealers.”
Perez was dismayed at the recurring pattern he noticed at different borough council meetings regarding answers to questions such as issues with bike paths.
“The city has a copy-paste response,” he said. “And bottom line, we’ve realized that the city does not hold consultation forums. They hold information sessions.”
The Coalition for Democracy is planning to file a legal injunction against the City of Montreal regarding implementation of bike paths and have what they call “a proper consultation” on the subject.
Jason Savard, of the Association of Pedestrians and Cyclists of NDG (APC NDG), disagrees with the Coalition for Democracy’s idea to file a city-wide injunction stopping the current bike path development.
“That sounds far-fetched to put an injunction across the whole city, assuming they’re all doing bad, these bike paths,” Savard said. “So that one’s a bit too generalized.”
Lucas Freeman is a Concordia student who cycles to the Loyola campus every day. Overall, he says he has been satisfied with Montreal’s bike path system, calling it exceptional by North American standards.
“Montreal’s nothing to write home about compared to Amsterdam, but compared to Boston or even compared to Toronto, I think the city is actually doing a great job,” he said.
Irwin Rapoport, a spokesperson for the Association de voisinage de la rue de Terrebonne in NDG, addressed the crowd during the rally. The group has been fighting the CDN-NDG borough council since the council proposed the Terrebonne bike path in February 2023.
“They’re not listening to us,” Rapoport said. “They refuse to listen to us, and we’re going to defeat them [the borough mayor and councillors] in the ballot box in November 2025,” he said.
Not all residents share this view on the new infrastructure. Savard had a positive outlook on the Terrebonne bike path.
“We get a lot of people saying that the street is quieter now, safer [because] cars go slower. There’s less cars on the street, essentially,” said Savard.
Freeman was a bit more nuanced.
“I tried using the Terrebonne route once and I found that the connection to get you to the Decarie area was not amazing,” he said. “I have to say that could be improved.”
Savard explained that most members of the APC NDG drive cars, but are also environmentalists who believe that Montreal should do more to promote active mobility in the city, which includes cycling.
“We gotta put a shift in the way we transit or move around the city, and steering away from the cars or at least reallocating that public space from the parking to the street to the roads to better methods, get around in safer and healthier ways such as cycling or taking the bus,” he said.
