After death of young cyclist, safety solutions proposed for Mount Royal

The death of an 18-year-old cyclisthas drivers, politicians and other bikers offering different solutions for safer cycling on Mount Royal.

On Wednesday,Clment Ouimet was coming down Camillien-HoudeWay, headed towardsCte-Ste-CatherineRoad. Just afterOuimetcycled past the belvedere lookout,anSUV driver made an illegal U-turn in front of himand, unable to avoid it,Ouimetstruck the vehicle.

The cyclist was later pronounced dead in hospital, while the SUV driver was unhurt.

Camillien-HoudeWay is a popular training route for serious cyclists.

Policymakers are now looking atdifferent proposals for increasing safety for cyclists on Camillien-Houdeamong them,cutting off access to the shortcut overthe mountain to most vehicular traffic.

• Memorial bike ride honours young cyclist killed on Mount Royal
• Cyclist, 18, dies after colliding with SUV making illegal U-turn on Mount Royal

Destination road or a transit road?

Incumbent Mayor Denis Coderre, who is campaigning for re-election, saidhe's putting together a working group to analyze the road's useand see if anything can be done to make Camillien-Houdesafer.

The working group is looking at whether it should be a destination road or a transit road.

Turning it into adestination road would mean allowing only vehicles headed to the belvedere lookout or to other places in Mount Royal Park,while leaving it as atransit road would allow everyone to continue to use Camillien-Houde as a throughway.

"It could be just letting buses through," Coderre said."There are options."

Projet Montral mayoral candidate Valrie Plante rebuffed her opponent's comments Friday, saying the city should be past the point of assembling working groups, sinceit already has a report on the issue.

"I think we need a committee for how to implement things now," said Plante. "Proposals, recommendations: they've already been made. Now we have to listen to them."

Plante said a low speed limit and separating the cyclist path from the vehicle lanesare some of the ideas for how to make Camillien-Houde safer.

'Used as a highway'

For the past 40 years Westmount resident Bruce Case has driven on Camillien-Houde Way and said its current design "is not working."

He said that with roadwork around Montreal, drivers are increasingly using the passage over the mountain to cross the city.

"It's being used as a highway," he told CBC Montreal's Daybreak.

"Yesterday, as I was going up, two people in front of me pulled a left turn,which is completely illegal, out of the belvedere, to go back up to Cte-des-Neiges," Case added.

"The design, the paint, is not working."

One of the founders of the cyclingadvocacy group #dansmapiste, Maxime Denoncourt, said that even before major changes are planned forCamillien-Houde Way, a physical barrier should be put up to block U-turns.

"Unless people are physically blocked from doing it, they will keep doing it," Denoncourt said.

A memorial bike ride for Ouimet was heldFriday on Camillien-Houde Way.

• Memorial bike ride honours young cyclist killed in Mount Royal collision