Vélo Fantôme Québec marks its 10th anniversary with human chain in Montreal – Montreal | 24CA News
Vélo Fantôme Québec marked a sombre anniversary on Saturday. It’s been 10 years for the reason that first ghost bike was erected in Montreal and a decade of motion pushing for safer streets for cyclists.
“In these 10 years that we’ve existed, there have been countless promises and yet no solid infrastructure has been installed on Park Avenue,” mentioned Vélo Fantôme Québec spokesperson Séverine Le Page.
Around 100 individuals gathered on the nook of Park Avenue and Mont-Royal to create a protected hall for cyclists.
“We’re going to use our bodies as a barrier,” Le Page mentioned. “There is no permanent infrastructure today so we are the barrier to allow cyclists who want to travel to do so safely.”
A ghost bike is a memorial left to mark the place a bicycle owner was killed in transit.
The human chain spanned 1.1 km alongside Park between two ghost bikes. The configuration of Park is essentially similar to what has existed for the reason that Nineteen Fifties and protected biking organizations are demanding modifications.
“We need to have something more structural and permanent and so we’re really working on that,” mentioned Mile-End metropolis Coun. Mary Plourde, who provides that Projet Montreal is working arduous to make everlasting modifications to the busy thoroughfare.
“We’ve been asking Quebec for quite a while right now to have some photo radar,” Plourde mentioned.
For now, she mentioned cyclists haven’t had a constructive response from the provincial authorities however as local weather change turns into extra related, she is optimistic.
Some contributors on Saturday acknowledged individuals don’t like change however mentioned within the case of motorbike paths, it’s all the time a constructive change.
“Once you built it, people will come,” mentioned Antoine Fillion, an avid bicycle owner. “Of course, there are people who are afraid of change, but once it’s there, nobody would take it back.”
The metropolis of Montréal and its companions dedicated to a imaginative and prescient zero motion plan in 2019. The purpose is to scale back the variety of deaths and critical accidents on the roads to zero by 2040.
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