Every year, during pothole season – so these days – CAA-Quebec makes a list of the worst roads in Quebec. The company should be ashamed of this exercise.
Firstly, because this list, from a methodological point of view, is crazy.
Second, because the message sent by CAA-Quebec is dangerous for road users and toxic for taxpayers.
Third, because with its track record, CAA-Quebec promotes a prehistoric vision of what the priority of all road users, including motorists, should be.
Crazy methodology
This is absolutely not a list of the worst roads in Quebec. This is the result of an online vote by angry people. We enter the name of a street in poor condition and indicate its email address. That’s all. No criteria, no verification, no analysis, nothing. I voted for my street, a street in Gatineau in perfect condition, it was in 28e position in the rankings.
Small note: I was able to vote 15 times, with the same email address. A small, mobilized group, and even just one excited person, can ensure that any path ends up in first place. This list is not information, it is spectacle.
Motorist safety
It is worrying that CAA-Quebec reduces the safety of a road to the degradation of its asphalt and its markings. The risk factors that make the repair of a street a priority are very numerous: traffic, presence of deep ruts, lack of space for active transportation, proximity to a school, transport of goods, etc.
There are also dangers that cannot be seen. When there is a drainage problem, a street may have a bearing capacity that degrades more quickly than another street, even if its asphalt surface is in better condition.
CAA-Quebec boasts “that a majority of the roads that appeared on the list in previous years have benefited from short or medium-term investments.” I imagine that CAA-Quebec has never asked itself if the immense public pressure that comes with a publication like its own, taken up by all the media, had not encouraged cities to sacrifice the repair of more dangerous streets to finance the renovation of a street that has become famous.
This would not be the first time that elected officials have made a bad decision because demagogues have mobilized people by proposing simplistic solutions that solve nothing.
Taxpayer security
For obvious economic reasons, municipal administrations want to avoid “digging twice”. They therefore attempt to combine the repair of the surface (asphalt) with that of the underground (aqueduct and sewer). For example, if a street is “finished” on the surface, but underground work is planned in five years, the City may choose to wait so as not to destroy an almost new layer of asphalt when the time comes to redo the underground. .
Another strategic choice. The asphalt on Street A is completely finished, you have to redo the street, it will cost you 1 million. The asphalt on streets B, C and D is in better condition, except that with the same million you can make an intervention that will gain ten years of life for each of the three streets, by far the best choice from the point of view of the taxpayer. What are you doing ? If we follow the logic of CAA-Quebec, the priority is to do Street A, therefore to sacrifice the taxpayer for the benefit of the activist who voted on the internet.
An outdated vision
If we want beautiful, well-paved streets, there are much more effective solutions than endlessly pumping money into the road network, without changing the way we do things.
There should first be fewer streets and narrower streets – this reduces speed – and therefore safer and less expensive.
We must develop the city on itself rather than spreading it out. We also urgently need to reduce the number of cars on the roads.
In this regard, I have never understood the war of some motorists against investments in cycle paths, spaces for pedestrians or, better yet, trams. Pedestrians, bicycles and trams do not damage the streets, they free up space for people who have no choice but to drive.
Instead of promoting spending on asphalt, CAA-Quebec should promote this type of investment: they constitute real solutions for all street users, for taxpayers and for the community.
What do you think ? Participate in the dialogue