﻿Montreal’s bike counters recorded a total of 12 million cyclists last year, which works out
to be about 33,000 per day, although that comes with a lot of seasonal variation.
In this video we’re going to cover the top five bike corridors in Montreal
in 2020 from the 44 counters with data. Coming in at number five is the Jacques-Cartier
Bridge, which saw half-a-million total cyclists, with a highest single day of 5,900 on Sunday,
June 7th, just as the city was coming down from the first wave of COVID.
We took this bridge many times this summer to get to South Shore suburbs like Longueuil,
as well as Parc Jean-Drapeau and the Petite Voie du Fleuve.
This important cycling connection also comes with some of our favourite views of the city.
We also have to add an honourable mention here, the de Maisonneuve cycle track downtown near Peel.
It only recorded 100,000 cyclists, but it was offline for more than seven months, including
the whole summer, and when we do a data adjustment to account for all the bike counters with missing
data, this location shows up as the fifth busiest in the city. With all of the missing data it’s
obvious that the total of 12 million cyclists this year was an undercount, but fortunately
the other spots on our list come out on top by absolute counts and adjusted volumes.
The fourth ranked bike counter in the city this year is on the Rachel
cycle track by Hotel-de-Ville, which recorded 660,000 cyclists in total.
Rachel is an important corridor for cyclists not just to travel but also for amenities like
bike shops, including at this very intersection. Down the street you’ll also find the offices of
the advocacy group Vélo Québec and its affiliated café-boutique. This particular counter’s highest
day was 5,100 on Sunday, June 7th, the same as the highest day for the Jacques-Cartier Bridge.
In third place we have the bike counter on Laurier Avenue near the Metro station, which saw 800,000
cyclists in 2020, including a high of 6,200 on September 3rd. This is the only case of painted
bike lanes in the top five. While painted lanes can be an awful experience on larger roads with
more cars, they work well enough on Laurier, which for much of the street is one individual
lane of car traffic. The road feels safe enough that it’s not uncommon to see parents and kids on
bikes at the nearby school or at the park further down the street. If you’re wondering though,
this entrance to Laurier station is not the most convenient for taking your bike on the Metro,
especially if you have 20 or 30 pounds of stuff in your panniers.
For second place we’re back to Rachel Street, but this time down the road past Parc Lafontaine to
the intersection with Papineau, whose counter saw more than a million cyclists in 2020,
with a highest day of 7,100 on August 6th. We’ve taken this route lots of
times to get to the Olympic Stadium, the neighbourhood of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve,
or further into Montreal’s East End. Finally, the number one cycle counter in the
city by total 2020 volume is on Saint-Laurent, near Bellechasse. If you don’t know Montreal,
the monstrosity above it is the Van Horne-Rosemont overpass, which is planned for removal.
It’s an eye-sore from the ground but it’s a good vantage point for views if you climb up it.
The cycle track underneath it recorded more than one-point-one million cyclists in 2020,
with a peak daily volume of 7,800 on September 3rd, the same day as
the peak for the Laurier bike counter. It was a little surprising that this is the
top bike counter in the city, with almost one tenth of all the bikes recorded in Montreal,
because it’s not actually a straight route. St-Laurent doesn’t have bike lanes except
for this 300 metre-long stretch, although it makes a bit more sense when you consider
that it’s a connection point to go under the train tracks for a few different bike routes,
including Clark, Bellechasse, and the Piste des Carrieres. This was actually
the busiest bike counter in Montreal in 2019 too, although we’d guess that the new Reseau
Express Velo lanes on St-Denis would take away a decent amount of this traffic in 2021.
So those are the five top bike routes in Montreal in 2020. One detail that’s hard to miss is that
the rankings were kind of dominated by the Plateau. Statistics on bike commuting from the
census do show the Plateau to be one of the two top cycling neighbourhoods in Montreal, alongside
nearby La Petite Patrie, but we also have to take bike counter data with a grain of salt because
they don’t give the whole picture. Lots of cycling happens in Verdun or along the Lachine Canal,
for example but the city doesn’t currently have any bike counters at all in these places.