I've been wondering for a long time if there were any plans to fully separate the Berri bike lane REV-style between Cherrier and de la Commune. Have you seen any official plans go by?

Well, that's great then. This is a personal choice that you've decided to undertake. I understand your reasoning. But in the current world, it's unreasonable to ask other people to give their labor for free just because you decided to do so 🤷🏻‍♂️

I would just love to hear your pitch on how they can stay operational, and provide the same level of quality. I just happen to live in Montréal and really appreciate the app's work and elevated experience compared to anything else. Also, it's not as if they were blocking you from using alternatives

I have, and I don't find it relevant. You work as a GTFS producer, you take operational data from a government agency, transform it, and (most likely) charge a fee for your work. They do the same. I rather have a small company be paid for their work than them bombing me with ads and selling my data

And their bike routing algorithm, even while using OSM data, was developed, maintained and improved by them. To expect that a 70+ people team lives off water and good vibes is unrealistic and out of touch. Plus, they also have a social program where they give out Royale for free, no questions

I don't think there's much discussion to be had. Transit's team doesn't just get publicly available data, publish it, and charge a premium. They process it, curate it, give feedback to agencies and help them improve, while MAINTAINING and improving the app. They provide real added value to users

hey just a quick question: do you work for free as a GTFS producer?

So yeah, it's not perfect, but I wouldn't go as far as to say this is bad urban design. I agree it could be improved, but it's a great step in the right direction, it's helped the city develop and in-house expertise and it has greatly facilitated north-south bike mobility in this neighborhood :)

The bottom line for me is, perfect is the enemy of good. The same thing happened with avenue des Pins. The redesign incorporated some of the issues you mention, but fails at keeping the cycle lane and sidewalk raised in intersections. It's a shame, but it's an improvement over what was done before

So the city implemented some innovative changes (to what Montréal was used for) so that neighbors got to know different ways the street can be reconfigured. Maybe if they had taken a step further and removed further parking, this project would've never seen the light of day

Those are great ideas! I would love to see more on street parking removed. However, the thing is that with this street redesign the city took a more incremental approach to gain the trust of neighbors. This was a one-way, wide, one lane residential street, that runs parallel to a major artery.

Would you say that the plants in the summer video don't look alive? Right now in Montréal, everything looks like that after 5 months of snow. Also, what would you propose instead that achieves the same level of protection, grade-separation and greenery?