The roadwork season is well underway, with its share of obstacles strewn everywhere. The cries of poor planning will sound like the well-known chorus of an already worn classic. No offense to those who daily mock the work of infrastructure maintenance planners, it is very difficult to maintain an acceptable level of fluidity with a construction site of such magnitude.
Besides, isn’t it ironic to note that those who complain about the lamentable state of our roads are the same ones who complain about the hindrances caused by the road network rehabilitation works?
All those who win an election for the first time tell themselves that they will do better than their predecessors. All affirm loud and clear that, under their guidance, the problems of coordination of work will be — finally! — a thing of the past. The same reality hits them all in the face, and they soon have no choice but to conclude, like their predecessors, that all is not as simple as that after all.
Municipalities do not work in a vacuum. They rub shoulders with those of the provincial government, the federal government, but also those of other organizations, such as Énergir, Hydro-Québec or the Commission des services électriques, as in Montreal. Not to mention the many private sites that have to encroach on the public domain to carry out their work. The sum of this information to be integrated into a well-ordered planning rarely translates into a long calm river.
When I was first elected mayor, one of my first questions to the director of public works was how much should be invested per year to restore the entire road network. A few weeks later, I had finally received his answer.
In Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie, there are 250 kilometers of road and 400 kilometers of sidewalk. Rehabilitating this network would require $14 million per year for more than 15 years. The problem is that we really only had $2.5 million a year to take care of the maintenance of roads and sidewalks.
Quebec has more than 61,468 kilometers of roads. This is 20,000 kilometers more than in Ontario, which has 14.7 million inhabitants compared to 8.4 million for Quebec. The difference is that the population density is concentrated more in southern Ontario. In Quebec, we like to occupy our territory.
Last week, I spoke to you about the responsibility of town planning in our dependence on the automobile. This is a convincing result of this poor territorial planning. The more we disperse, the more roads we have to build. The more roads we have, the more expensive it is and the less we have the collective capacity to maintain the network in good condition.
Of course, we must stop being afraid to talk about density. This is the first key to the solution. If we want to get out of this vicious circle, we must put an end to the construction of new roads or the widening of existing roads. We no longer have the means to do more. Especially if we want to help our fellow citizens make a modal shift towards public and active transportation. We must ensure that they are given the means to do so.
The various transport companies in Quebec are crumbling under budgetary pressures. Rightly so, the cost of public transit is borne 46.3% by users. Which is absolutely absurd when you consider that 100% of road maintenance and construction costs are assumed at 0% by users. Some will say that they already contribute to it through their taxes. Yes, absolutely, but those who do not use the road network also pay taxes.
Isn’t it extraordinarily contradictory to mainly finance public transport by an individual contribution, but to pay for the individual use of the roads using collective financing?
The problem is that we see public transit as an expense and the development of the road network as an investment. Result: in transportation infrastructure, the Quebec government invests just over 30% for public transportation and spends nearly 70% on the road network. In Ontario, where the roads are better, more than 76% of investments go to public transit and 24% to spending on roads.
We are stuck with too large a network of roads. If we want to get out of the budgetary hole that this imposes on us, we must review our vision of mobility. The more alternatives there are to the car, the more people’s mobility will be improved. The direct impact will be a reduction in the pressure on the network and the expenses related to its maintenance.
Thinking of public transit as an investment also means reducing the share that the user must pay to use it. One day we will have to call into question the free nature of an overly imposing road network, whose staggering maintenance costs exceed our collective ability to pay them. This untenable contradiction of transport funding is the second reason that maintains our dependence on the automobile, after the lack of density. In the meantime, we will once again have to resolve to deal with many obstacles, and this, during the months and even the years to come.
CEO of the Institute for Urban Resilience and Innovation, professor and associate researcher, François William Croteau was mayor of Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie.