City of Montreal intern mapping island's entire bike path network

A City of Montreal intern is riding all of the island's bike paths, gathering data to get a full portrait of the lanes reserved for cyclists.

The island's bike lane network extends over 1,000 kilometres and Ariane Garon is riding all of it this summer.

"I'm at 80 per cent of the bike path network," she said. "I do all the bike path network to collect data about the degree of the degradation of the roads."

She has a 360-degree camera that takes panoramic photos of the paths while AI software on a smartphone detects all of the potholes and cracks.

The city believes the data she gathers will help make important decisions.

"Do we need to do repairs? Do we have to develop other bike paths?" asked City of Montreal spokesperson Philippe Sabourin. "If we want to improve our bike paths, then it's necessary to get the appropriate information, the accurate data, to plan the investments in the coming years."

The city will also make the data public, which can, in turn, be used by boroughs and cities on the island.

"If you come to Beaconsfield on weekends, you'll see bikes all over Beaconsfield," said Beaconsfield Mayor Georges Bourelle. "I think we can work together and cooperate in making sure that we have a good network of bike paths."

With Montreal's east end and downtown mapped out, Garon is continuing her route to the far west of the island.

"I'm going all the way to Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue," she said, adding that she hopes to be done in two weeks.

If the project is successful, Montreal wants to launch a similar plan to fill the gaps and potholes on its streets.