Quebec is One Bicycle-Friendly Place
by Richard H. Bernstein, M.D.
June 17, 2010, page 13.....

On June 4, five Charlotters, David Watts, Lynne Bond, Nancy Wood, Carol Hanley and I, set out with 150 other bicyclists to ride from South Hero to Montreal. Organized by Burlington-based Local Motion, the “VerMontreal” has become an annual tradition that sends Vermonters to Canada to ride in the Montreal Tour de l’Ile.

From the Snow Farm Winery in South Hero the group crossed Lake Champlain on the Grand Isle ferry to ride north on the New York side. After a lunch stop in Rouses Point, we pedaled to the Canadian border.

The American side of the border is imposing with burly officials in dark glasses talking into their sleeves. We move up to the office on the Canadian side, a small house with a window. I show the official my passport. He waves me through cheerily. I infer that there are many more terrorists trying to get into the U.S. than into Canada. I wonder why. Perhaps it’s the roads.

North of the border, we ride on a bumpy road, but it is lightly traveled and courses through farmland. Drivers are extremely courteous, waiting until it’s safe to pass, going way over into the other lane to give us lots of room, displaying little of the impatience to which we bicyclists are accustomed.

We come to Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, a charming tourist destination on the Chambly Canal, 35 miles south of Montreal. Our stop for the night is the Auberge Harris, a motel that is one of the most bicycle-friendly places I have ever seen. We bring our bikes into a courtyard with a covered bicycle rack that will accommodate at least 100 bicycles. The proprietress, Mme. Boutin, is one of the founders of the Lake Champlain Bikeway and tells us that more than 40% of her business is from bicyclists. There is a heated salt-water swimming pool and a wine and cheese reception for us. Vans drive us into the buzzing little town to explore many of the interesting restaurants there.

The first day’s ride was 65 miles, but the next day is shorter. We follow the Chambly Canal along the Richelieu River, stopping to visit the 17th-century Fort Chambly. We wind our way along La Route Verte 1, a series of bike paths both off and along roadsides that will take us to Le Port de Plaisance in Longueuil, where we board a modern bicycle ferry for a 20-minute ride across the St. Lawrence River to Montreal. We have not ridden on a road with cars all day.

While riding a bicycle, one’s mind invariably wanders with the scenery and the terrain, and this thought occurs to me: Here is a country with a dedicated series of bike paths that allow safe bicycle travel over long distances. Business and government have realized the economic value of bicycle tourism, and the community at large has realized the social value of traveling by bicycle. Why is it in this country of immensely greater wealth can we not even come close to replicating La Route Verte? And what would it take, in this era of “not in my back yard” provincialism and tax whining, to work together as a greater community to establish and strengthen facilities and services that benefit so many? As a fellow rider observed to me, “It’s the ability to work together as a community that conferred survival advantages to humans in the first place.”

We reach the port in Old Montreal and pedal on marked bicycle lanes up to our hotel. The Grand Plaza is a classic hotel with revolving doors, a polished stone lobby, a sumptuous carpeted cocktail lounge off to the left, and a long, dark wooden reception desk. Imagine my surprise when the staff directs us to roll our bicycles inside, across the lobby and store them in the lounge for the night. By dinnertime the lounge is full of bicycles. Between the bicycle-friendly Auberge, the bike paths, the dedicated bike lanes, the courteous drivers, and the bikes piled in the hotel bar, I conclude these are people who take their bicycling and respect of bicyclists seriously!

This impression is confirmed the next day when we Vermonters line up with over 20,000 others behind a row of cops on bicycles in a very cold drizzle to ride in the Montreal Tour de l’Ile. The 32-mile route takes us through the city where wide roads are closed to cars for the day. We shiver past rest areas where musicians play. It’s a grand tour of the city in the company of parents with their children on bicycles, kids on their own bikes, more serious cyclists weaving through the heavy bike traffic and older folks, some of whom have been doing this ride for each of its 26 years.

Exhilarated by having met the challenge in the company of so many others, we return to the hotel for a welcome hot shower. At times we questioned our own good sense for staying out in the chilly rain, but concluded that possibly the only ones there with less sense than the dripping riders were the 2,500 volunteers and the many sturdy Quebecois along the way, standing under umbrellas (or not!) cheering us on as we pedaled by. Truly, Quebec is one seriously bicycle-friendly place.