Biking in Montreal
The mayor of Montreal, Valerie Plante, announced that more bike lanes would be soon be built.
While I’m not against more bike lanes, I certainly think there are better solutions to making the city more walkable (and bikable). Another thought came to me: how does the geography of Montreal compare to a city known for bicycles, like Amsterdam. Let’s start with the numbers.
Montreal:
Population: 1.7 million
Area: 431 km²
Amsterdam:
Population: 900,000
Area: 219 km²
The first thing to note is that population density is actually quite similar between the towns. That should give the possibility of packed urban areas with services located within biking distance. However, the area of Montreal is double that of Amsterdam and no matter what the density is, if you double the area, you double the distance that someone may need to go on any particular trip. Now let’s see what this means on maps:
Amsterdam has a clearly defined central area right in the middle of the map. Moreover, it has a hub and spoke layout of short streets that make commuting by foot or bike much more agreeable. Montreal spreads out much more, especially in the East-West directions. We can see that biking/walking is probably OK in the more dense central area, but there is a lot of territory that is spread out and not easily conductive to biking.
To sum up, even if Montreal was covered by bike lanes, it’s not going to be as easy to voyage by bicycle or foot than a city like Amsterdam. Unfortunately, to truly improve the city would require an extreme long term view to improve our geography.
