Sherbrooke, Que., faces growing pains as it looks to expand its cycling network
Cyclists welcome commitment but say more needs to be done to make city bike friendly
On her daily rides through Sherbrooke, Que., Laurence Williams often finds herself cruising along a bike path — until it suddenly comes to an end.
A self-described "utilitarian cyclist," who uses her bicycle for all her transportation needs, Williams says it's possible to get around the city by bike. But it's not always easy.
"Sometimes you have a beginning of a bike path and then it just stops," Williams says, adding that this kind of interruption is common on the cycling network in the city, located 150 kilometres east of Montreal.
Aside from being inconvenient to someone who is looking for the fastest route to a given destination, Williams feels that the variability in what kinds of infrastructure exist for cyclists also makes her commutes more dangerous, because it is harder to know what is coming up around the next corner.
"When you use your bike on a day-to-day basis, you want your route to be quick, to be safe and predictable," she says.
Williams argues that in a city like Sherbrooke where there appears to be political will for bike and environmentally friendly initiatives, she expects it to be easier to make progress.
"In a context where ecological transition has been mentioned as a priority for the City of Sherbrooke and a context where more than 50 per cent of our citywide greenhouse gas emissions are directly related to transportation, we really need to go faster."
'A big challenge' for the city
In May, Sherbrooke highlighted 16 areas where expansions to the cycling network have been planned. Over the next three years, the hope is to bridge a number of significant gaps in the existing system.
According to Anne-Sophie Demers, a division chief for sustainable and integrated mobility with Sherbrooke's Strategic Territorial Development Service, the goal of these priority areas is to improve the connectivity between different parts of the network.
"It is a big challenge for our team because the context and situation is never the same," Demers says.
Demers and her team have been charged with trying to determine how best to implement safe and functional bike paths on existing roads without disrupting the needs of existing traffic.
It is an urban planning puzzle, she said, because some roads are simply not large enough to accommodate both drivers and cyclists on fully protected bike lanes.
Despite those difficulties, Demers says that the city has been in conversation with local cycling groups to try to find the best options available in the hopes that a more secure cycling network will open the door to more cyclists.
The city is also trying to improve access to bikes in other ways. Demers notes that there is currently work underway for the installation of Bixi bike-sharing stations similar to the system that has been in place in Montreal for more than a decade
"We think it has the potential to transform mobility in Sherbrooke."
The initial Bixi system in Sherbrooke is expected to have 250 bicycles at 25 stations, with 80 per cent of the fleet being e-bikes.
Although no official start date has yet been announced, Demers says the system should be operational by July.
A city with a lot of potential
"The arrival of e-bikes has literally changed the landscape of who's able to cycle," says Magali Bebronne, director of programs at Vélo Québec.
The cycling advocacy group is one of the parties Demers's team has turned to for support and data in its planning process. Vélo Québec conducts regular research into the state of bicycle adoption in several different Quebec cities, including Sherbrooke.
For a city as hilly as Sherbrooke, Bebronne says bikes equipped with an electric motor are a game changer for cycling accessibility. That, combined with the known benefits of public-access bicycle programs like Bixi, creates an interesting opportunity for increased adoption of cycling as a way of getting around in the city.
Vélo Québec also publishes a portrait of cycling in the province every five years and, although the 2020 report was carried out in unusual circumstances due to the COVID-19 pandemic, research showed that just over half of all Quebecers were using a bicycle and 2.1 million people were using one as a regular mode of transportation. Bebronne says the group is currently in the process of preparing the 2025 edition.
Bebronne also challenges the idea that using bikes in this way is uniquely a "big city" phenomenon.
"In smaller cities, people actually live closer to where they work," Bebronne explains, noting that Vélo Québec's last study of Sherbrooke showed that about 44 per cent of the population live within five kilometres of their work.
"There is a lot of potential to transfer a lot of the trips that are currently being made by motorized modes to cycling."
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