The Legault government’s happy retreat on the third link is not going smoothly within the caquiste caucus and local elites of the South Shore in the Quebec region, but it is a reasoned decision rich in lessons. governance and accountability.
This may be the moment of truth for Quebec and its greater region, a hostile and inhospitable territory for public transit projects, as evidenced by the almost mystical fervor of part of the population with regard to this unjustifiable highway tunnel that would have connected Lévis to downtown Quebec, or the indignation aroused by the tramway. To do this, voices like that of the mayor of Quebec, Bruno Marchand, will have to be heard and supported more by the electorate of the agglomeration.
Frankly, in the angry reactions of suburban mayors claiming to be cheated, betrayed, deceived and so on, we detect the expression of an old vested right that exists in the Quebec region and other urban areas where concrete mixer passed on the principles of land use planning. It is the “right of the tank” to go from point A to point B without hindrance, without pedestrians or cyclists, and to find parking (not too expensive, or even free preferably) at both ends of the journey. This world has gone on long enough.
The sharp words of elected officials such as the mayor of Lévis, Gilles Lehouillier, or the prefect of the MRC de Bellechasse, Yvon Dumont, show the extent of the cultural gap. There is in their reaction a rejection of public transit intertwined with a I-don’t-care-at-all attitude to the fight against climate change which suggests that we need to push a little further the renewal of the class municipal policy initiated during the last election. We need more Bruno Marchand, mayor of Quebec and supporter of public transport. More from Stéphane Boyer, mayor of Laval and author of a surprising book (Car-free neighborhoodsAll in all), a test that would have been unthinkable from a chosen one coming from the paradise of the car and the bungalow just a few years ago.
It must be said that the elected officials of the South Shore have been encouraged in their whims by the elected officials of the CAQ over the years. As recently as last year, the Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette, affirmed in the most serious manner in the world that the third link would act as a brake on urban sprawl. The CAQ tenors have done everything to promote the project, even if it means sweeping under the rug impact studies contrary to their interests. In an assertion that would not have passed the test of journalistic standards and practices at Radio-Canada, former journalist Bernard Drainville peremptorily concluded, during the last election campaign, that congestion had become in-fer-nal in Quebec. He confused temporary work on the Pierre-Laporte bridge with a permanent situation.
Release me with the GHGs, he said. Leave us with the studies, the rigor, the sense of ministerial responsibilities. Unleash us with intergenerational equity… And let us pamper the electorate in a nice $6.5 billion populist fable. If the elected caquistes must apologize, it is not so much for having abandoned their commitments as for having succumbed to demagoguery since the beginning of the adventure of the third link.
The greater Quebec City region needs structuring investments in public transit, especially not new highway capacity. How to achieve it? It’s quite a challenge in the unique context of Quebec. In our Ideas section, the general manager of Vivre en ville, Christian Savard, launches original proposals to maximize the potential of a third link reserved for public transit.
Before getting to that point, the Legault government must have the courage to tell citizens that the requirements of the fight against climate change militate for a densification of the territory and an expansion of public transit projects. Enough, highways! It is a radical change of mentality, which requires the CAQ to renounce the cheap clientelism to which it has engaged so far in this badly put together file.