Allow me to respond to the support for the third Québec-Lévis link by public transit by the general manager of Vivre en ville. The latter takes this position as if any public transport project was a priori desirable as long as “technical issues” make it feasible at an acceptable cost. He concludes by saying that “it is very much on the side of these technical questions that reflection must concentrate before going any further. »
I dissent for the following reasons:
First, if it is true that public transport is preferable to automobile transport, it remains sub-optimal compared to active transport and, eminently, to walking, the best of all forms of transport, hence the need for densification.
Second, historically, urban sprawl began with the introduction of public transit. The advent of the (non-polluting) tramway launched urban sprawl in Montreal and in the “old” large North American cities, and even the metro encouraged it, although it also discouraged people from taking the car. In general, in “old” North American cities, the urban sprawl initiated by the development of public transit preceded and then favored the urban sprawl linked to the automobile.
Third, a simple comparison of the Ontario and Quebec cases shows that Quebec has been much more lax than Ontario in controlling urban sprawl. Urban sprawl is much more serious in Montreal than in Toronto, and that of Quebec is progressing much faster than that of Montreal. I proved it mathematically.
This leads me to say that it is on the side of the shortcomings of urban planning and transportation in Quebec (and not on the side of technical feasibility) that the reflection must concentrate before going further in the file of the third Québec-Lévis link.
First question: wouldn’t congestion on the Quebec bridges be considerably reduced if we made Highway 40 (located to the north) faster to get to Montreal than 20 (located to the south)? This can be done without building a bridge, by correcting the route of the 40 at Trois-Rivières in order to bypass it much more quickly, which is possible.
Second question: is it desirable to ensure that the Lévis region becomes as urbanized as that of Québec to the north? Ensuring that the South Shore is as developed as the North Shore is the worst case scenario: it exposes good land that is further south than north to urban sprawl and can only increase ever more , in the long term, the need to create new north-south links. It’s a disaster scenario, the absolute cul-de-sac.
Third question: is it not possible, during the repair-reconstruction of the aging Quebec and Pierre-Laporte bridges, to run a public transit link over one of these two bridges, as we have just do it in Montreal by passing the REM over the new Samuel-De Champlain bridge? It would cost infinitely less than the proposed tunnel.
The question of the third Québec-Lévis link must be re-examined, on a larger scale, with a view to urban planning and intelligent transportation.