Matthew McCully
View of Queen Street
By William Crooks
Local Journalism Initiative
A plan to extend a bike lane along Queen Street in Lennoxville has sparked concern among local business owners and some borough officials, who are urging residents to fill out a municipal survey and attend an upcoming public consultation.
According to the City of Sherbrooke, the proposed work is part of a larger effort to improve connectivity across the urban cycling network. The specific segment under review would close a gap between the existing bike paths on John-Wilson and William-Paige streets. This follows the 2023 installation of a bicycle lane between Côte de l’Acadie and John-Wilson.
However, Lennoxville Borough President Claude Charron says the initiative, while well-intentioned, raises serious questions. “It’s an electoral promise from the party,” he said. “The intention is good—they want to connect all the bike lanes. But it’s quite a big change for Lennoxville.”
Charron emphasized that this is a city-led project, not a borough decision. “Our services get directives from the mayor or the executive committee,” he said, adding that the plan is part of a broader city vision. “We’re in Sherbrooke, so that’s where it’s from.”
The project would run past several small businesses on Queen Street, including a salon run by Trulene Bachand and her family. Although she does not own the salon herself—her daughter does—Bachand works there full-time as an esthetician, alongside other self-employed stylists. She says they were not consulted.
“We never got a visit,” Bachand said. “We’re rarely open on Mondays, and it seems like that’s when they came. We just found out from… the tattoo parlour down the road.”
Parking is a long-standing issue in the Lennoxville core, she explained. “Our clients constantly say, ‘Sorry I’m late, couldn’t find parking.’ A lot of the businesses on Queen don’t have private lots—Faro, Pizzaville, the new bakery, Rustic Roots, us. Our clients aren’t comfortable parking in places like McDonald’s because cars get towed.”
She believes the bike lane won’t help businesses. “Nobody is going to say, ‘Let’s take our bike and go shopping in Lennoxville.’ Cyclists just pass through town. They don’t stop.”
Charron echoed those concerns. “If you take parking out on one side, you’re favouring the pharmacy on the other. Are we putting a business at risk? That’s a real question.”
He proposed a shared road with a reduced speed limit instead. “Downtown is already 30 kilometres an hour most of the time. Why not make that official and keep the space we have?”
Thanks to pressure from the borough council, a public consultation is scheduled for Monday, Aug. 25, at Amédée-Beaudoin Community Centre. “It was supposed to go ahead this year,” Charron said, “but we insisted on consultation and hearing from merchants. That delayed the project to 2026.”
With Sherbrooke municipal elections set for November, Charron noted that a change in administration could potentially halt the project. “The possibility is still there,” he said.
In the meantime, business owners like Bachand are encouraging their clients to participate in the online survey and attend the meeting. “We’re all trying to band together,” she said. “It’s going to negatively impact every single small business that doesn’t have its own parking.”
The City of Sherbrooke says feedback from the survey will help determine the final form of the project. The survey can be accessed through the city’s website, and the collected data will be used strictly for planning purposes, according to a privacy notice included with the form.