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When Mayor Valérie Plante announced the first details of the planned Express Cycling Network this week, lost in the hoopla over that 184-kilometre network, to be completed at some unspecified future date, was the regular program of bike path development for 2019-2020.

For the second year in a row, the Projet Montréal administration plans to develop fewer kilometres of bikeways than previous administrations. The city intends to put in 26 km of new bikeways in 2019-2020. Last year’s program, which covered 2018-2019, promised 33 km. So far, 24 km of that have been completed and the rest are expected to be completed by the end of 2019. Between 2008 and 2017, the city of Montreal developed an average of 46 kilometres of bikeways per year.

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The budget of $15 million for bikeway development is the same as last year’s figure, and cycling advocates say that is nowhere near what the city should be investing to respond to the climate crisis and meet its own goals to get significant numbers of Montrealers out of their cars and onto bicycles.