On July 8, The duty And The sun published a text by Jean Baillargeon entitled: “Access to the river, a long battle far from over”. The author praised all the work carried out since 2008 to create Promenade Samuel-De Champlain, correctly pointing out that the work would not be finished until it was extended to the east, in front of Beauport Bay to at Montmorency Falls. Hats off to the designers of the project, landscape architects, planners and urban planners, in particular for the development of the swimming pool and its sandy beach. We are, for our part, convinced that in the short term, a host of architectural prizes will be awarded to them.
The author continues by recalling that access to the river is a battle that has been going on for years. Access to the river? Rather visual access to the river. Because yes, you can now walk for 6.8 kilometers, where not so long ago oil reservoirs, highways and railways were spread out. Cheer. But when it comes to accessing the river, we’ll go back. Over 6.8 kilometres, with an overall budget of almost 300 million dollars, the designers of the promenade have built a total of two ridiculous staircases, the only real access to the river and its beaches.
The first in 2008, near the Quai des Cageux. The second in 2023, 4 meters wide, near the Foulon swimming pool, the latter being provided, in the era of universal accessibility, with cyclopean steps 80 centimeters high! Four meters over 2.5 kilometers is 0.16%!
Elevation, gigantic riprap and planting obstacles, absence of ramps and stairs, everywhere the promenade seems to have been deliberately designed to prevent contact with the river, not to encourage it. The designers seem to have started from the premise that this was an irreparably polluted watercourse that had to be preserved at all costs. Bathing will therefore take place away from the river, up high, in the pool. Could the motto of the concept have been: “To the water of the St. Lawrence, you will not touch?” »
In 1968, at the time of mains drainage, when the Public Health Department, occasionally struggling with peaks of 26,000 faecal coliform units/100 ml at Foulon (the current standard allowing swimming is 200), closing the beach, we would have understood. But 55 years later? After billions of dollars have been successfully invested in water purification? While we have been swimming in the river a short distance since 2016 in Beauport Bay and since last year in Louise Basin? While the City of Quebec built at Foulon in 2020, near the river strike, a wastewater retention basin at a cost of 29 million?
Did someone forget to inform the designers of the improvement in water quality since 1968? Today, what exactly are we still afraid of?
Where can you directly and easily access the river and soak in it in front of Quebec? With surveillance: at the Baie de Beauport and Bassin Louise. Unsupervised: at Bassin Brown. All territories managed by the Port of Quebec. In practice, where the realm of the city and the National Capital Commission begins, access to the river ends. Move on to the next pool, good people! And if the swimming pools suit you less, go swimming abroad. In France, for example, where the standard for swimming in fresh water for faecal coliforms is 1800, that is to say nine times less severe than that applied in Quebec!
Really, access to the river in Quebec is a battle far from over. The designers will, it seems, have the chance to recover with phase 4 of the promenade, facing the bay of Beauport. Let’s just hope that they will be warned that people have been swimming there since 2016, so as to avoid a simple copy-paste of phase 3, which generates architectural prizes, but oh so disappointing for anyone wishing to access the Saint- Laurent and not just watching him from afar.