Mont-Tremblant Biking
Cycling in the Mont-Tremblant region of Quebec is one of life’s pleasant surprises. It’s fairly well known that Montreal has — for North America at least — excellent bike infrastructure. What is less well known is that much of the province of Quebec does as well. This I believe is owing in large part to the cycling tourism strategy the province has implemented. There is a whole network of routes throughout the province, of varying levels of quality, and in fact many of them look quite comfortable. My experience is mostly in the Mont-Tremblant region.
Transit to and around Mont-Tremblant is actually quite good as well. To get to the region, in addition to the option of biking, there is also a number of transit options including a very affordable regional bus from St. Jerome (a northern suburb of Montreal — itself easy to reach by Montreal’s regional transit authority). The region of Mont-Tremblant also has a surprisingly good (for a small rural region) municipal bus service. It has great bus stops, many with shelters, and appears to be fairly well used judging by the number of people we see at bus stops.
But this post isn’t about transit. For biking, it is possible to bike from Montreal, all the way up to Mont-Tremblant (and in fact well beyond, to the the Mont-Laurier region) by using the Petite-Train-du-Nord rail trail. This used to be a railway carrying passengers up to the rural regions north of Montreal, including Mont-Tremblant (in fact, it is the continuation of the regional commuter railway to St. Jerome). It has been converted into one of the most pleasant rail trails I’ve seen. The route is very easy riding; being a rail trail, there are few hills. While mostly gravel, it is well maintained and wide enough for the volumes of users (which is to say, very wide and very busy). The former railway stations have been converted into amenities along the way, including restaurants, bike shops, inns. On one of our trips, one of the stations was hosting a market. This also passes through or near the centres of many small towns on the way up, where you’ll find plenty of amenities and often more great bike infrastructure.
Within the Mont-Tremblant region, the Petite-Train-du-Nord is paved in a wide high quality asphalt, and connects the larger town of St. Jovite with the smaller hamlet of Mont-Tremblant Village. This connection makes it possible to cycle between the two major centres in about 25 minutes in absolute comfort. While the trail has “stop signs” at all at-grade crossings (the major highway has grade separation), they are marked with priority for pedestrians and well marked for drivers.
Beyond the main trail, there is a whole trail and protected bike lane network within the region. St. Jovite has good bike lanes or multi-use trails on several major roads outside of the urban area (see below), and so is very accessible on a bike, almost all-ages and abilities. There is also an extensive trail network extending from Mont-Tremblant Village to the Mont-Tremblant Resort, the Beach, and to the Casino. In all, visiting any of the major tourist destinations can be done by bike in comfort with entirely off road bike routes, literally the worst thing you can say about them is that some are narrow and close to the road, and some are hilly — this is afterall the Mont-Tremblant region.
On the actual roads, there is a lot to like there as well. For cyclists who would prefer not to ride on mixed use trails (perhaps they are training for the yearly Iron Man race), there are excellent wide bike lanes on the fastest of roads. Even I felt largely comfortable on these shoulders, which are often 2–3 meters wide. The only exceptions being a narrow bridge and near the roundabouts where people are already going slowly. Many of the lower speed roads also have acceptable shoulders for biking, and at the lower speed of traffic is reasonable. Several of the highways out of the region also have generous shoulders allowing for easy excursions to nearby towns (even the ones not accessible by the fantastic Petite-Train-du-Nord).
All of this would make the region exceptional in my experience, but that really isn’t the secret sauce. When it comes to biking and walking, nothing is better than Mont-Tremblant Village, the Beach and St. Jovite urban areas. In these locations every crossing is extremely well marked, and pedestrians (and by implied extension, usually cyclists) have the right of way, by explicitly threatened fines — and in my experience they usually get it.
More, these crossings are not infrequent, virtually every location a crossing could be needed, there is one marked. As a result of the mountainous terrain, there are a few places with sidewalks on only one side, in those cases, every bus stop, every business, every building has a crossing directly from their walkway to the sidewalk on the other side. This just makes sense, and yet, somehow, this is the only place I’ve seen this in North America.
And the final cherry on this cake is the speed limits. The highways have a 90 km/h limit. Very fast, and actually most people keep to around this limit, unlike Ontario (where it’s routine for people to do 30 km/h over the limit on highways), I rarely see people doing greater than 110 km/h on these roads, and often much less. This is perhaps due to the terrain, which is mountainous.
However, get off the highway, and you’ll immediately be down to 70 km/h. Get near a town and you’ll be doing 50 km/h. Even two lane rural highways, that happen to be near St. Jovite or Mont-Tremblant Village, are limited to 50 km/h. And again, these limits are usually respected. Shocking because even a highway through the middle of a small town in Ontario is likely to see most traffic doing more than 70 km/h.
Finally, when you enter the urban core of a town (for St. Jovite this is the main street and anything near it, for Mont-Tremblant Village, this is nearly the whole town, and the Beaches as well), you’ll find yourself in a 30 km/h limit, and in most areas, traffic does follow this as well. It leads to an incredibly pleasant (quiet) and safe feeling core. I’ve never experienced anything like this in Ontario (and I haven’t even mentioned the pedestrian scrambles). In the Dutch tradition, most of the cycling infrastructure disappears here as well, and cyclists are expected to mix with cars. And since traffic speeds are so low, this pretty much works as well.
So no more “we aren’t Utrecht” or “we aren’t Vancouver” excuses. If a pedestrian and cycling (and transit) paradise can be built in rural Quebec, it can be built anywhere.
