Mount Royal Cemetery followed through on its promise to ban cyclists on Wednesday, but city officials are hoping to find a compromise that could keep the popular pathway open to bikes.
In an interview with Le Journal De Montreal, city councillor Alain Vaillancourt said he believe the cemetery’s new rules discriminate against cyclists and that most cyclists abided by cemetery management’s rules.
When the cemetery announced the ban last week, Executive Director David Scott said cyclists had been warned for years to respect the rules, but had been ignored.
Among those rules are a speed limit and restrictions on the size of groups of cyclists that could pass through at a time.
Vaillancourt declined to comment to CTV Montreal but told Le Journal that he hoped the city could reach some kind of agreement with the cemetery. However, Scott said the decision is final.
“We really have been in negotiation mode, not with the city, but with the cycling community over the last two years and we haven’t been able to get to a point where the vast majority of cyclists were able to comply with the guidelines we tried to put in place,” he said. “Our sole obligation is to our rights holders and I’ve been getting overwhelming support from them on this.”
