The current government is light years away from the “thunder teams” of Lesage and Lévesque. In the fields of health and the environment-planning-urban planning, this is self-evident. However, the Quebec “third link” pushes the absurdity to the limit. Here’s what an “Urbanism 101” course would teach our elected populists.
To the Minister of Transport François Bonnardel, who exclaims: “Who am I to say to a young family: ‘Since fashion is becoming denser, are you going to live in a 12-storey tower?’ », this course would demonstrate that densification is not a fad, but a necessity.
It is so because it reduces greenhouse gases, the number of kilometers traveled and traffic jams. As a result, it increases the flow of traffic. It makes the city more competitive from an economic point of view, reduces the time spent in cars, makes public transit accessible to a greater number of people, reduces the cost of building and maintaining road, sewer, aqueduct and others, maximizes time spent with family and promotes walking and cycling.
This course would also teach him “who he is”, namely the Minister of Transport of Quebec, that a competent Minister of Transport must be aware of the urban, economic and environmental impacts of his decisions, that decisions in the sector of ” mobility” have a direct impact on the “immobility” sector, i.e. real estate, and that the highest residential density in Montreal is found in the Plateau-Mont-Royal, this coveted neighborhood where 12-storey towers are rare.
The fight against urban sprawl is also a health necessity since a dense city is a city where the main mode of transport is walking (in our new suburbs designed for SUV enthusiasts, there are no longer even sidewalks, which says it all).
Minister Bonnardel points out, to justify the third link, that the metropolitan region of Quebec has only 2.44 bridges per million inhabitants, while that of Ottawa-Gatineau has 3.85 and that of Montreal, 8 ,7. He seems to forget that the richest and most populous metropolis in Canada, Toronto, has 0! Maybe Quebec has too many two bridges…
Ministers Geneviève Guilbault and François Bonnardel argue that the third link will “rebalance” development on the south bank of the river. Curiously, Toronto has never dreamed of rebalancing development south of its center, Lake Ontario preventing it, which Toronto has never regretted. The Toronto case has parallels around the world.
To tell the truth, the worst thing that can happen to the greater Quebec region is that it is as populated south of the river as it is to the north, because then there is no third link that she will need, but a fourth and a fifth.
Those who dream of developing outlying territories through urban sprawl forget that the latter kills peri-urban agriculture, often causes “donut hole” effects characterized by the decline of the city center and leads to the ruin of businesses located above. beyond the extension radius of the spread.
We often forget that the Dix30 neighborhoods of this world, located on the margins of metropolitan areas in the process of spreading out, condemn to death the businesses of the small towns located a little more on the outskirts.
The mayors of the south shore of Quebec, who see urban sprawl as an opportunity offered to them, will one day become disillusioned and regret one day having replied, to those who denounced urban sprawl as a calamity, that “The greenhouse gases that melt the glaciers are a laughing stock,” says Yvon Dumont, prefect of the MRC de Bellechasse and, as such, responsible for the development of his territory.
Town planning exists because the higher good requires that the management of the territory is not chaotic and left to the fantasies of each other. That’s why we have governments and that’s why it’s in our interest to have ministers, MRC prefects and mayors who don’t say or do anything.
Fortunately, the new mayor of Quebec, Bruno Marchand, understands this. Let’s put all our trust in him and invite our sorcerer’s apprentice ministers to register urgently for an urban planning 101 course.