It is a beautiful day and I was craving Indian food so I decided to ride to Hidden Taste for their lunch menu, which is good even though I wished the lamb curry plate had some vegetables (they are not a sponsor so I can say whatever I want). The experience of getting there was not ideal.

I used the leisurely route to get to Orléans Boulevard, which is the logical crossing of the 174 to get there. Of course, riding on Orléans Boulevard is not ideal, since it is a four-lane high-speed road with no consideration for people outside of cars. However, changes are not going to happen since Doug Ford killed any plans for the area with Bill 60, which prohibits cities from replacing car lanes for bike lanes, no matter how little traffic the road actually sees (Orléans Boulevard does not need anywhere near four lanes). However, where it gets interesting is the access to the neighbourhood between Orléans, St-Joseph, Place D’Orléans, and the 174. To access the neighbourhood, your choices are: the trail along the 174, Lumberman, or through a cross street along St-Joseph.

Trail along the 174

If you opt for the trail along the 174, first you have to cross two lanes of fast-moving traffic. There aren’t that many cars, but they are going fast. Then you have to jump a curve that, while lowered, is clearly not meant to accommodate anyone. Then you have a paved trail going down that will drop you onto loose coarse gravel, which will definitely make you fall if you are not careful. The trail then goes on connecting to Stoneboard and Cholette before reaching Pierre Rocque Park. If you are considering this route to get to the medical centre on St-Jean, you have to get off at Cholette because St-Jean surprisingly doesn’t connect to the trail.

Once you get to Pierre Rocque Park, you get to admire a series of desire lines going from the park to the NoFrills parking lot, Place D’Orléans, and more importantly, the transit station. If, like me, you want to access a business on St-Joseph, you are greeted by a wonderful gate that you can contour by going through two big rocks. If you have a cargo bike, the city wishes you luck. Then you are on St-Pierre and can easily access the parking lot that leads to delicious Indian food.

Lumberman

The second option, and the one I mistakenly opted for, is Lumberman. To get there, you need to move into the left lane of traffic to make a left turn (ignore the inevitable honking that comes from drivers who don’t think cyclists should exist). You can also go right and make a two-stage crossing, hoping that drivers in the four lanes of traffic see you and stop, which is no guarantee.

The technically right route after this would be to avoid the Heritage Orléans Retirement Community by taking Stoneboat to access the trail by the 174 (which is not obvious since not all streets have connections such as St-Jean). Since I am not completely insane and realize that cyclists don’t endanger residents, I simply crossed the property at low speed despite the signs telling me not to. The sign is about as inviting as the two boulders shown above. Hopefully, the residents and owners will complain to the city to provide a better bike connection in that neighbourhood.

After that dubious shortcut, you are on Dussere. You have to turn left onto Joseph Drouin to reach Pierre Rocque Park, where you can access St-Pierre and lunch. It would be nice for the Paroisse St-Joseph to provide a quick connection from Cousineau to St-Pierre via the cemetery. It would involve 12 m of trail and a break in the fence. This would also allow residents of Heritage to access the church without having to endure the horrible sidewalk on St-Joseph.

St-Joseph

I was tempted to leave out this option because it is completely ridiculous. However, St-Joseph is included in the Crosstown Bike Network and is cited as such in the transportation impact assessment for major developments along St-Joseph, including the one for 530 Brisebois Cres. For more details on my impression on these developments, see my article about 265 Centrum.

Once you get to St-Joseph, the theoretical way to Hidden Taste would be to ride on St-Joseph and make a left turn at the destination from the left lane. I tried riding properly on St-Joseph once for funsies, and I definitely don’t recommend it. The best approach would be to hop onto the sidewalk to get Cousineau and do the detour via the trail on the 174. You could also just stay on the sidewalk on the north side and dodge traffic going in and out of the numerous side streets and driveways, or go to the south side, still dodge, and then cross four lanes of high-speed traffic to get to the destination.

Summary

The only reasonable route that doesn’t involve breaking the law by trespassing or riding on the sidewalk, or putting yourself in a very dangerous position, is turning left on the trail by the 174, which is only mildly dangerous. Then you still have to do illegal-looking things like using the desire trail between the two boulders.

Not all routes are easy to navigate and either require extensive research on how best to get where you are going or encyclopedic knowledge of Orléans geography, something that I seemingly have not developed despite being middle-aged and having spent the bulk of my life navigating Orléans by bike.

Why is matters

As much as I like to complain about the state of active transportation in Orléans, this matters because we are going to welcome people to our community through developments built on the assumption that people will drive less. If we don’t want these people to buy cars, park everywhere they can, and contribute to congestion, we need to provide them with good alternatives to driving. The area between Billberry and Place d’Orléans will be zoned N5, which means up to 8-10 stories with no restriction on the number of dwellings. That is a good thing, since it would allow our kids to remain in the community, our elderly neighbours to downsize, for new neighbours to share the tax burden, and everyone to choose the type of housing that fits their needs and budgets. However, we don’t want to set them up to fail.

The BIA has also asked the question, “Why not Orléans?”. For me, at least, the reason is that getting to local businesses on St-Joseph is much more of an adventure than I would like. Most of the time, I will look at the easiest option (looking at you Shami’s Bakery), instead of exploring the wonderful variety that our community has to offer…or I will just cobble something from whatever I have at home.