Local bike club takes matters into their own hands

Armed with wheelbarrows, brooms, and shovels, six BCC members headed to the bridge on the evening of Aug. 13 to get rid of the obstacles that kept filling their trips across the Galipeault with flat-tires. According to clean-up organizer Glen Choma, it took between 20 and 25 wheelbarrows of dirt to clean the section closest to the Montreal side of the bridge.

The BCC, which has about 400 members, starts their off-island rides at the RioCan shopping centre in Kirkland, and then makes their way over the Galipeault Bridge to get to Ile Perrot and other off-island municipalities, where there is less traffic. However, the bike path was closed for a large part of the summer for work on the Bell and Hydro lines.

When it re-opened in mid-July, the path did not seem to have been cleaned, said BCC member Ray Deslauriers. “It’s gone through everyone’s mind at some point while riding across this that we should just forget waiting and do it ourselves. So, we finally just did it,” Deslauriers said.

“(The path) is pretty essential. There aren’t many alternatives to get off-island...If you don’t have that, the other alternative is just to stay in town in the traffic.”

According to Ste. Anne de Bellevue mayor Bill Tierney, because the maintenance falls between two jurisdictions — Ste. Anne and Ile Perrot — it may have fallen between the cracks, especially with the issues the municipalities are currently dealing with before the MTQ’s $120 million Galipeault Bridge two-year reconstruction gets underway. Despite the clean-up, Deslauriers said he’s happy the club’s off-island trips can continue for now..

“Now, it’s quite a bit less nerve-wracking. You don’t always have that feeling of the bike sliding under you,” he said.