The reality is that as a motorist, I have no choice, I cannot drive on the bike path if there is too much congestion.

At the end of the day, that's because you chose to drive a multi-ton vehicle that requires a lot more space than a bike does. The congestion that you're talking about is also caused by cars (you aren't stuck in traffic, you ARE traffic). Anyways, too bad there's no set of limited-access roads built for motorized vehicles only that allow its users to bypass congestion and intersections. Oh wait!

On that note, how come motorists use streets that are directly parallel to highways? Hundreds of millions of our tax dollars are spent on highways and car-centric infrastructure each year. The least you can do as an upstanding citizen is utilize it to *(its) fullest. We should restrict roads like Rene-Levesque or Decarie Blvd to local traffic only, otherwise you can take the 720 or the 15!

I only drive like once a week right now, but when I do, I have no problem sharing the road with all users. After all, our roads belong to everyone, not just cars. If a cyclist feels safer taking a travel lane instead of a path off to the side, I will respect that, even though I may never get that minute or two (worst case) of my life back.