In Lévis, a city in the midst of a population boom, mobility issues are top priorities. Many see salvation in the third link, not agreeing on what form it should take.
A two-way fight is taking shape in the riding of Lévis, in a city painted in the colors of the CAQ, but where the population, already loyal to the federal Conservatives, discovers affinities with the Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ) of Éric Duhaime . In this city on the outskirts of Quebec where condo towers, symbols of the ongoing densification, are multiplying, congestion is at the top of the population’s concerns.
Approaching the Quebec and Pierre-Laporte bridges, where the Chaudière River forms a final bend before flowing into the St. Lawrence, Johanne Côté used to admire the urubus flying above from their pantry.
Where the greenery, not so long ago, had all its rights, a street grew, soon flanked by residential buildings totaling a few hundred apartments. Families flocked; the urubus have disappeared.
“For me, the next government will have to ensure that urban development is more sustainable,” believes Ms.me Side. A resident of the historic heart of the Saint-Romuald district for fifteen years, she congratulates the CAQ for its good management of the pandemic, while worrying about seeing the city nibble a little more on its wooded areas from year to year. year. Residential towers are appearing from one end of Lévis to the other, breaking the hegemony of single-family homes and giving height to a suburb that previously developed mainly by spreading out.
“There is no longer a street corner where there is not a growing tower”, laments Henri Lemieux, crossed in front of his residence on Fraser Street, comfortably encamped in his folding chair and in his retirement. At almost 79 years old, this Lévisien by birth contemplates his city which is changing and fears that the neighborhood life he cherishes, made up of aperitifs and conversations between neighbors, is threatened by this densification at high speed.
“It’s not cheap, these things, deplores Michelle Cassy, sitting on the porch next to Mr. Lemieux. What does it cost? Thirteen hundred, fifteen hundred piastres fit in there? I’m not sure they’ll be able to rent all that. »
What third link?
The statistics, however, smell like a good deal for promoters. The population of Lévis jumped by 10%, from 130,000 in 2011 to nearly 144,000 a decade later. In ten years, Lévis has never been unfaithful to the CAQ, opening the doors of the Salon Bleu to a certain Christian Dubé in 2012, who became Minister of Health during the pandemic, only to never again. close in the face of a CAQ candidate.
This year, it is Bernard Drainville, a former PQ minister converted to CAQ nationalism, who is running for the seat vacated by François Paradis. Its lead is within the margin of error, according to the Qc125 site, which credits its closest pursuer, the curator Karine Laflamme, with nearly a third of the voting intentions.
Congestion, in a city where 86% of daily trips were made by car five years ago, is growing at the same rate as its demographic curve. “Highway 20 has become a parking lot,” chanted Mayor Gilles Lehouillier a few years ago, already targeting automobile traffic as “public enemy number one.” For many Lévisians, the third link, in this context, is a necessity.
Candidates Drainville and Laflamme both militate in its favour, but its form differs according to the parties. The CAQ wants a twin tube under the river, the PCQ a bridge that stops at Île d’Orléans. The caquist believes, like his boss, that the double tunnel is the least bad solution. “There is no such thing as a perfect project,” underlines Mr. Drainville. Everyone is for the third link, but everyone wants a different third link. Ours is the one on the table. If we ever want to have it, we’re going to have to start building it at some point. »
Mr. Drainville recalls that the twin-tube is part of a larger project defended by the CAQ, called the Réseau express de la Capitale and made up of the Québec tramway, lanes reserved for public transport and bike paths.
“There is a population explosion in Lévis, notes Karine Laflamme, the Conservative candidate. To solve the congestion, we must focus on the work as a whole. She lists her party’s solutions: more active transportation, better public transit, a new overpass over Highway 20 to reach downtown and, above all, free buses for one year, a story of “take a step back and assess the needs”.
“People’s habits are hard to change, concedes the candidate. You have to have a thought for the environment, but people are so overwhelmed that on a daily basis, it sometimes goes by the wayside. »
The population of Lévis appears as divided as its two candidates as to the form to be given to the new crossing straddling the river.
“It’s surprising that there isn’t one already!” “Surprised Éric Turner, owner of L’Appart, a business founded in the heart of Old Lévis, in the midst of a pandemic, and which wants to snub capitalist values. In this anti-café, the sofas are soft, the clocks don’t work and the only thing that can be bought is time, as a way of remembering that it is precious, especially when you lose it.
Mr. Turner settled down in Lévis after years of travelling. He left his suit and tie, his short hair and his marketing career somewhere in the world, convinced that the path to happiness did not all pass through a well-stocked bank account.
“I’m more in favor of a third link, but an avant-garde, more forward-looking third link,” he says. He dreams of electric ferries or a bridge reserved for pedestrians, bicycles and trains that would span the river, offering Île d’Orléans on one side and Cap Diamant on the other.
Such a link, “inspired by what is done best in the world”, would perhaps, according to him, make it possible to revitalize Old Lévis where the boarded up windows are multiplying, to the point where the City proposes to reimburse one year of rent to anyone setting up their business there.
Environment and conservatism
Such assistance would no doubt give some impetus to the Le Chemineault snack bar, located in the shadow of the Hôtel-Dieu de Lévis. The pandemic and health measures have hit the company hard, jealously guarded in the bosom of the Fortin family for 37 years. “We work seven days a week just to keep the business alive”, indignant Malick, newly in his thirties. His uncle Louis is not getting angry either. “It’s been 16 years since I took a vacation. Result: we are on the line of credit and we owe Justin Trudeau $60,000. »
Inside the snack, resentment bubbles as much as frying oil. Banners pay tribute to Ottawa’s “freedom truckers” and to the Gaulish festival organized in Beauce last summer to thumb their nose at health measures. A poster in support of Conservative leader Éric Duhaime remains prominently displayed behind the cash register. “We were thrown tomatoes and we regularly receive insults because of our positions”, deplores Louis. “However, we should have the right to do what we want, as much with our bodies as with our business “, continues Malick.
For the first time in his life as an elector, he joined a party. “The PCQ are people of the people, for the people”, according to him. The only ones, too, to point out the contradictions of an elite which “imposes a carbon tax on one side, but which allows companies to pollute more and more on the other”, he laments.
“Building a third link would just be normal,” he says. Both bridges are falling apart. Next door, Louis meditates between puffs of a cigarette. “When a politician proposes such a big project, that means it’s a legacy. He just wants to put his name on it, he criticizes. It will cost 10 times the price, it will be a money pit”. He also advocates improved public transit, more bike paths and better-designed neighborhoods to reduce the congestion that is taking root in Lévis.
“Global warming, anyway, that’s the real problem,” he concludes.