September 25, 2009 (Laval, QC) – Quebec’s Route verte is the most extensive network of bike paths and bike lanes in North America and National Geographic Magazine has called it “the best bike path in the world”. But until recently the network was not completely finished. A 12km section linking Laval to Blainville (just north of Montreal) has proved somewhat of a challenge. After hearing announcements this June that the section was finally complete, longtime bike activist Robert Silverman decided to check it out.

Silverman has been a prominent bicycle activist ever since he co-founded le Monde a Bicyclette lobby group in 1975. He telephoned Velo Quebec, which oversees the Route verte, and asked the head cartographer exactly where the bike path goes from Laval to Blainville (here it doubles as part of the Trans Canada Trail) but couldn’t get a precise answer. Ditto when Silverman called the local (Laurentian) tourist authority.

To be fair, the road system and local topography here do not make it easy to create a major bike path as cooperation is needed from six municipalities: Blainville, Ste-Therese, Rosemere, Lorraine, Bois des Filion, and Laval, each with its own budget, priorities, and ideas of what a bike path should look like. The bike path also crosses a bridge administered by the Quebec Highways Ministry. On-line maps at the Velo Quebec website still list part of the Blainville-Laval section as “under construction,” while paper maps produced by the Therese-de Blainville Regional District and available at Velo Quebec’s boutique indicate the section as complete.

I met Silverman in St. Jerome in early August and we drove to Blainville to start our adventure. North from Blainville, the popular Route verte clearly runs through corn fields alongside the CP train tracks for 19km to St Jerome. And north of St. Jerome, the Route verte takes over the abandoned CP tracks for another 200km to Mt. Laurier – one of the best developed bike paths in Canada – forming part of the main bike route from Montreal to Ottawa. But south from Blainville remained a mystery…

We parked my car and began following signs for “Route verte 2.” As I took our bikes off my rack, Silverman joked asking which of the two very different bikes was his, demonstrating that he is not very “techy” – we laughed about that.

The bike path here encroached on residents’front yards and driveways and seemed that it may have been costly to create. The entire 4,394km network has a $110 million price tag to date or an average of $25,000 per kilometre. We surmised that expropriations in Blainville may have made that section one of the more expensive parts of the network.

As we set off, something seemed wrong: “The bridge we want is to the east, so why is the bike path taking us west?” asked Silverman. We soon traversed the busy Highway 117, getting farther from our destination, before crossing another bike path where signs directed us south (left). We turned east (left) again, re-crossing Highway 117 and doing a magical mystery tour around some fast food restaurants before finding ourselves on a residential cul-de-sac, but always with signage to follow.

The bike lanes along residential streets through Blainville and Ste Therese were clearly marked although some of the intersections were confusing. Then, crossing into affluent Rosemere, the bike path changed into a lonely gravel track running beside Highway 640 and far from houses. “Some women might not feel safe riding here alone,” noted Silverman.

For a bike path to really succeed, it has to be more than a recreational loop that residents pedal with friends on Sunday afternoons. A bike path also has to be functional for commuters and students pedaling to work or school by themselves – this secluded gravel section did not scored a passing grade on this test in our view.

We arrived at a T-junction where our bike path met chemin de bas Ste Therese and there was no indication as to whether we should turn left or right. After some hesitation, we turned right and went underneath the elevated Highway 640, following a bike path running beside a small river. We rode into new subdivisions. There was some signage to indicate the way here, but as other cyclists told us, “you have to be very attentive in order to find your way here!”

We found our way onto freshly paved Roland Durand Blvd where there were no painted lines to indicate if we were on a bike route. But at least the road was wide and quiet, wandering between large houses reminiscent of Scottish castles. With a bit of luck, we found our way down to Chemin de la Grande Cote. But there wasn’t anything you could really call a bike path or bike lane nor any signage indicating which way to turn.

After asking a few car drivers and consulting the map carefully, we decided to turn left (east) following the narrow and busy Grande Cote Rd. while vainly looking for signage. Silverman later said this was the only part of our trip where he felt unsafe. The map promised a detour through a municipal park, but there was no sign of the park.

Eventually we came to de Gaulle Ave. where we found the park. We were delighted that much of the bike path turned out to be a beautiful boardwalk through wooded wetlands and then rode out from the park only to find ourselves back on a familiar section of Grande Cote. We had gone in a big circle; apparently a “turn right” sign was missing on Grande Cote, where it should be directing cyclists eastbound onto Bellerive Street and then into the park.

We retraced our steps and found a bike lane on Adolphe Chapleau Blvd. (the continuation of Grande Cote) which took us to the corner of 41st Ave. By dead reckoning, we knew we had to cross Chapleau and head south, but couldn’t see either the bike path or any signage where we wanted to go. Finally we spied a Route verte sign attached to a lamp post, but hidden behind signage for cars. Who says that cyclists are second class citizens compared to car drivers?

The bike lane continued around and underneath the Athanase David Bridge, then through a gap in the fence onto a bike path on the east side of the bridge and finally across to Laval. “We made it!” Robert exclaimed with considerable emotion. Lewis and Clark were likely more subdued when they finally saw the Pacific…

On the way back, we stopped to picnic by the Riviere des Milles Iles in Bois des Filion and shared a table with other cyclists attempting the same trip as us. After that, we set off again and were able to steer a mother and her three kids onto Bellerive Street where the sign was missing. And even after we knew the way, we still managed to miss a right turn onto Cote St. Louis, continuing straight on Milles Iles Est for a few extra km. “Gee,” I said to Silverman. “I have two degrees in geography and still got lost here. What’s an average Joe supposed to do?”

After reaching my car, Silverman and I drove back to St. Jerome from where he could take his bus home but first we celebrated our successful adventure over Vietnamese food. “I must have been Vietnamese in a former life,” he explained while devouring his soup with gusto. Silverman has travelled to Vietnam and to Cuba, both of which have been described as “a cyclist’s paradise.”

Silverman later took me to around the bus terminal, pointing out how municipal buses there are now equipped with bike racks. “Marrying public transit and bicycles is the best way to go,” he noted. St. Jerome was one of the first municipalities in Quebec to have such bike racks on local buses.

Referring back to our bike trip that day, Silverman praised Velo Quebec and the municipalities that obviously had tried hard to make the bike path work. He related anecdotes of wealthy and influential people blocking the construction of bike paths near their properties in Quebec citing one instance around Brome Lake and another around Lake Massawippi. Referring to that gravel road section and signs needed along the way Silverman asked me, “Do you think that the same thing might be happening in Rosemere?”

While it’s exciting that the Route verte is finally completed some fine tuning in this final section (and likely others) is still needed to make it more accessible and rider-friendly for the masses. All in all the Route verte is a testimony that the bicycle rules.