A troubled bridge over water

Here's a problem for which I don't yet have a solution. There's a wonderful canal in Montreal called the Lachine. About 20 years ago, Parks Canada took over its management, cleaned it up, built footbridges over it and built a park and bike path next to it. It has one particularly problematic footbridge. It's at the end of Atwater Ave., near Atwater Market. It's a very narrow bridge with little signs on each end telling cyclists to dismount before crossing. Of course, given its proximity to the market and several other attractions, it gets a lot of traffic. The traffic is mixed. There are pedestrians of all ages, cyclists and even tourists on the little electric scooters that can be rented at some of the shops along the canal.

What's the problem? The bridge is wide enough to accomodate two directions of pedestrian traffic. Even so, it gets cramped. The majority of cyclists, who are progressing at speed along the bike path, apparently want to get across the bridge and onto the next path as quickly as possible. All of this means that very few cyclists obey the sign and dismount. The cyclists speeding across the bridge pose a threat to pedestrians. Even worse, the renters of electric scooters don't dismount either. Their vehicles are heavier, faster and take up more space than those of the cyclists. So, because very few people obey the sign, the bridge becomes congested and dangerous.

I've thought up a few solutions to this, but none of them are sustainable. There's the citizen action approach. I could start personally mentioning to cyclists, whenever I happen to be crossing the bridge, that there is a sign telling them to dismount. But that doesn't work because I don't cross that bridge nearly enough to make a tangible difference. Then, there are institutional approaches. They could get bigger signs, although I really don't think that would work. They could install speed bumps, but that might not properly discourage all cyclists, might cause injury to some, and would inconvenience everyone.

Basically, I'm stumped. I can isolate the problem and even explain why it is actually a problem (and not just me being grumpy) but I can't figure out a good, sensible solution.