Once a year, members of the professional cycling elite travel to Montreal to battle one another on a notoriously tough circuit defined by multiple ascents up Mount Royal on Camillien-Houde Way. Soon the road will permanently be the domain of cyclists — and pedestrians — of all abilities, as part of an ambitious program by the city’s mayor, Valérie Plante, to get people out of cars.
Under Ms. Plante’s leadership, Montreal is building a reputation for successfully promoting cycling as transportation, not just sport or recreation. This week, she announced that Camillien-Houde Way would no longer be a busy and convenient shortcut for motorists in the city’s downtown.
It’s the most recent of Ms. Plante’s moves to defy motorists angry over measures favoring cyclists and pedestrians, a stance that sets her apart from some other big-city politicians in Canada.
Ms. Plante said in the announcement that the road, which currently resembles a highway lined with concrete and steel barriers, will be permanently closed to cars and trucks. In its place will be a gravel pedestrian path, like the others that snake through Mount Royal Park, and a paved cycling road large enough to accommodate the bike race as well as emergency vehicles. More trees, new landscaping and a new lookout will also be introduced.
“Olmsted, who created the park, was totally against having cars in it,” Ms. Plante told me, referring to Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect who also designed Central Park in New York and who died before automobiles came to dominance. “The city used to belong to cars only, and now we’re just kind of rebalancing the whole thing.”
The announcement came days after the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal, which was won on Sunday by Adam Yates, a British rider who is currently ranked eighth by the International Cycling Union. Yates made his winning move on the defining feature of the race circuit: the taxing climb up Camillien-Houde Way. Riders must make the ascent 18 times in the race, which has a total elevation gain of 4,842 meters.
The race and its sibling event in Quebec City are the only two North American events in cycling’s WorldTour, which includes the Tour de France. In 2026, Montreal will host cycling’s world championships on a variation of the Grand Prix circuit including the revised Camillien-Houde Way; the city previously hosted the 1974 championships and the 1976 Olympics.
Since becoming mayor in 2017, Ms. Plante has introduced a flurry of cycling measures, including a 184-kilometer network of bike paths on main arteries, with curbs and medians physically separating cyclists from motor traffic. Last fall, the city announced plans to add 200 kilometers to the so-called express bike network.
On top of that, Ms. Plante’s administration closes 10 streets to motor vehicles each summer.
When the bike network expansion was announced late last year, the city estimated that cycling had risen by about 20 percent in 2021. Even on…
2023-09-16 05:00:03
Article from www.nytimes.com