Ensemble Montréal pledges to audit all bike paths in the city, if elected in November

Ensemble Montréal leader and mayoral candidate Soraya Martinez Ferrada made a commitment to launch an audit of the entire bike path network in the city and review the approach to managing its development, if elected in November.

She made the announcement at a press conference Monday in an industrial sector of the Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough.

Ensemble Montréal says in a press release that in the face of “cohabitation issues and the increasing number of accidents involving motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians, the mayoral candidate (…) announced a necessary change in approach to the development of the cycling network.”

Martinez Ferrada announced if she is elected mayor on Nov. 2, her party would launch an audit of all Montreal cycling paths within the first 100 days of the mandate, review and secure bike paths where necessary, and abandon dangerous ones where necessary, and allocate a portion of the current budget to making existing paths safer and up to standard.

“What we’re proposing is just make sure that we have an audit, making sure that all bicycle paths in Montreal are audited, making sure that they are in the right place, secure, and that we can work with citizens and merchants, making sure that for all Montrealers, they’re secure,” she said at the press conference.

Martinez Ferrada was alongside local merchants and cited the example of the bike path installed on Port-Royal Street O. in recent months by the city administration, Projet Montréal.

The party says the bike path crosses a roadway along several industrial warehouse garage entrances where 53-foot trucks make frequent trips — where they say several close calls involving cyclists have been reported.

“Right now in this bicycle path, merchants are scared when they have to have an employee to get out to make sure that nobody is coming through the bicycle path to make sure that the car gets out,” Martinez Ferrada added. “The cyclist doesn’t see the merchant and the merchant doesn’t see the cyclist. So we have to make sure that we are taking away the anxiety of somebody that works in a garage that cannot have the possibility that the car gets out and does an accident.”

Carlo Granito, president of Terra Café located on Port-Royal O., says “My business has been established in the neighbourhood for 45 years. What we want is to be listened to by our municipal administration, and that’s not currently the case.”

“We must stop blindly developing without consultation or consideration for everyone’s safety,” Martinez Ferrada said, in a press release. “It’s all well and good to add bike lanes here and there, but we must also ensure that they are safe, interconnected, and adapted to the environment.”