The CAQ has just presented a new version of its famous project of third link between Québec and Lévis, which would include a tunnel reserved for public transport and another for cars (except heavy vehicles). A good or a bad idea? We talked about it with experts.
“The intentions are becoming clearer. We are trying to facilitate the mobility of people,” says Équiterre’s director of government relations, Marc-André Viau. He refers here to the ban on the transport of heavy goods in the tunnel.
“I would say that this is the least bad proposal they have made so far”, maintains for his part the professor at the Graduate School of Territorial Planning and Regional Development of Laval University, Jean Dubé .
However, the two experts are not completely convinced by this new version of the project.
“The same problem remains, that is to say that we still want to build highways to solve the problem of congestion. And if there is one thing that the literature tells us with almost certainty, it is that the addition of motorway lanes does not solve the problem of congestion”, specifies Jean Dubé.
Basically, as long as you build a tunnel for cars, you encourage the use of cars, he says.
“Because when we make it easier to use the car, people will locate themselves further […] and they make the decision to travel by car because there is no alternative transport.”
According to him, the best project would be a third link solely focused on public transit.
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Any way to seek funding from Ottawa?
A tunnel devoted solely to public transit would make it easier for the government of François Legault to obtain money from the federal government, which has so far refused to fund the project.
The intentions of Quebec with this new proposal must however be good, insists Marc-André Viau.
“We have to turn to public transit because it’s the thing to do in terms of planning, the thing to do for climate change, it’s the thing to do to ensure greater mobility” , he says.
According to him, this new version of the third link should not be a roundabout way for the Quebec government to get money to be able to carry out even more road projects.
We are still waiting for the studies
The two speakers indicate all the same that it is difficult to decide until we have seen the famous studies that the CAQ intended to present at the beginning of the year.
Last week, the Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault, indicated that she would make the presentation “before the summer, certainly”.
“The idea of public transit only is still, it seems to me, the least bad of the options that have been proposed so far. But that said, we have no idea yet whether in terms of cost-benefit ratio, it is, despite everything, really worth it, ”says Jean Dubé.
“It’s kind of symptomatic of this project so far. We offer alternatives, but we have no idea what is going on a priori, because there is no study and we do not know what we are relying on, ” he adds.