Terrebonne Bike Path 2.0: A Story Of Local Galvanization And Nothingburgers

Someonetimes you got to ask questions about why things matter

There is the wildest of claims floating around my neighbourhood that about 3000 people are willing to fight to end the terror fuelled reign of a bike path, before it begins.

I asked the zealot propagating said ideas for some level of proof. I was ridiculed, while being told to effectively have faith. This article is my thoughts on all this as an observer of local politics and culture.

Despite being asked directly to provide evidence of his claims for support, he has not provided any evidence. 

I guess his words are good enough for the world.

Naw I lied he’s full of shit and I wanted to make a response because I’m petty like that sometimes.

It takes 15’000 people to be taken seriously in NDG

Despite what the basic minded folk think, 3000 people is negligible. 

Sure, it sounds like a lot. If I had 3000 people giving me 5$ each, I’d have 15’000$. But when talking about things that affect a city we need to have real PRSPCTVS. 

Alex Montagano has the numbers and my understanding is our current population is about 76’000 people. 

This literally means that 3000 people is only 4% of the local population. While an impressive figure for such a boring topic, it’s not exactly “move the needle” territory, which is set closer to 20% (at 15’000 people). 

Nominal stats are lovely but with context we can see how few people “A few thousand” actually are. .

These people are going to have to be willing to protest or else other causes will win the media attention

There are literal students, in tents, protesting the genocide in Gaza. 

There is an uptick in violent crime in the city. Our lovely Quebec government is trying to abolish school boards and our mayor has more or less said “fuck drivers”, sell your cars you punk ass residents. 

Stop being the traffic.

So much is going on that when push comes to shove this bike path is pretty insignificant. 

It’s easy to get a bunch of people to use the scam-like site Change.org (they, allegedly exist to sell businesses a means to collect data for studies, they are quite corrupt), but to get real life, meaningful participation is hard. 

Most of these people rah raging over the bike path couldn’t even be bothered to vote (safe speculation based on voting participation numbers, I voted XD)

Without getting real attention, how will this ever move forward as a campaign?

The backlash against the 2020 bike path led to this 2024 bike path

History is quite linear in how things happen.

In 2020 a bad bike path was made. People made noise and the entire plan was revisited. Now, after much ado, we have the 2024 bike path.

Despite how some paint the attack on that bike path as successful, it appears that today and now there is a new bike path being made. If it was successful, wouldn’t the end result be a bike path that the people are happy with?  One can logically conclude that the end result of those actions is the present reality.

Had they won, there wouldn’t be a coalition against the V2. 

I don’t really need a timeline of events, the proof is in the construction signs.

There is no proof that even 3000 people care about the bike path

If we saw 3000 people out there fighting a bike path, the disruption would be so real it would make headline news. 

When push comes to shove I believe that the anti bike-path crew, with real focus, could get 500-1000 people on board to protest, like two or three times, for maybe 2 hours at a time. 

Still, I’ve seen no evidence of this support.

We all can see evidence of people protesting for Gaza. These are empirically measurable from the social media interactions to the photo evidence of crowds. Anyone making claims of such a sizable amount of support, that can provide 0 evidence it exists, should not be trusted. 

Since they are willing to exaggerate these claims, maybe their fear mongering is also based in hyperbole.

I love to see people participating in civic duty, I wish it wasn’t so corny

Despite my disdain towards the person who appears to be spreading false truths to manipulate people, I can live with that. I'm in entertainment and well, the real deal news exaggerates all the time.

My problem is that when this person is held to account, they act like they are superior and can choose what things to respond to. This is dangerous behaviour to enable. Anyone who feels they are above answering direct questions about their claims, out of a lack of respect for who is asking, is a terrible leader/advocate. 

This person has on numerous occasions made things up about me, constantly attacking my character (sometimes they have a point), but have never really acknowledged the validity of my question.

If there are thousands of supporters, where are they? Why do his social media posts only get traction if someone like me decides to fuck with him that day. I work in music. I know for a fact that if you have thousands of supporters, you will get at least a couple of hundred likes on a post.

This is just the reality of social media.

Don’t let bullies keep you from holding them accountable

Overall I feel like since there have been efforts to silence my voice I want to remind people that you cannot be silenced. 

The person I’ve written about likes to think they have a deeper understanding of life, while being very out of touch with what his community has evolved into. The tactics he is using in his political campaign are the same type of emotional manipulation we should watch out for come election season. Local politics clearly matters or this bike path would not be an issue.

As these folk start campaigning, think about the statements they make, and ask for proof.

Also watch for how they dismiss anyone who doesn’t fit their target demographic range, let’s leverage our community voices for something more interesting than delusions about bike path tragedy.

I’m aware this is another one for the petty category but I needed to get it out somewhere.

Live Long and Prosper Everyone

P.S.: The bike path is going to go forward