Following the obvious impasse surrounding the tramway project in Quebec, both on costs and on the risks of management without a consortium, I completely understand the government’s reservations, especially in the context of its low social acceptability , both from the point of view of cost, the choice of means of transport and its integration into land use planning. Given the obvious need to develop a structuring public transportation network in Quebec, it seems important to me to recall certain studies and major decisions in this matter.
For more than twenty years, the City of Quebec, in concert with the Ministry of Transport, has carried out significant work to choose the most appropriate mode of public transportation for Quebec. Already, in 2011, in its report on sustainable mobility, it was recommended to establish a tram network to connect the cities of Quebec and Lévis. To do this, it was recommended to carry out a feasibility study comparing the advantages and disadvantages of a tram compared to a rapid bus service (SRB).
In 2015, the report was produced and it was explicitly stated: “Although the feasibility study was initially focused on a tramway project, it appeared necessary during the process to look at other means of public transport considering the state of public finances. This is how four SRB options, which use the same route and operate under the same conditions as the tramway, were added to the study. »
To explain the opening of the study to the SRB option, it was mentioned, in the introduction, that “the purpose of the Sustainable Mobility Plan is mobility, and that the tram is one means among many others to achieve this, especially as public transport technologies evolve rapidly throughout the world” (To live and move differently, 2015). Remember that this study, made public in 2015, “summarized around forty analyzes carried out over the last three years by four private consortiums under the supervision of the Capital Transport Network (RTC). » Result: it would cost twice as much to build a tramway compared to an SRB; it was therefore recommended to favor the establishment of a rapid bus service network.
The SRB is, after all, a structuring public transport project which offers lanes reserved for buses on their own site (physical separation of lanes for other vehicles), waiting stations for travelers as well as automated priority traffic lights making it possible to increase the fluidity and speed of buses. This solution, compared to the tramway, avoids serious irritants since it does not require rails, concrete structures, suspended electrical wires, tunnels, and it considerably limits tree cutting. Not to mention greater ease in dealing with winter conditions. In short, an SRB can better integrate into an urban development like that of Quebec. In Montreal, the SRB Pie-IX was inaugurated in 2022.
It is therefore on the basis of the SRB as a mode of collective transport that the mayors of Quebec and Lévis announced in 2015 a project for the two banks of the greater Quebec region. At a press conference, the mayors presented this choice as “an informed and pragmatic choice which respects the governments’ ability to pay”. Also, it was said, implementation in phases is one of the major advantages of the SRB. Mayor Labeaume enthusiastically clarified the idea that the SRB “is flexible. We can adjust to the government’s financial possibilities. And that’s major.” Already concerns about the cost of the project were significant and it must be understood that the study at the time did not even concern a route which requires digging an expensive tunnel at the gateway to the historic district of Old Quebec, a heritage property. recognized by UNESCO.
It would be unproductive to return to the respective motivations of the mayor of Lévis, who in 2017 initially withdrew from the SRB project, followed by the mayor of Quebec. Let’s just say that in light of the facts known since, we lost a lot of time… Unfortunately, in 2017, nothing would have prevented the project from being updated based on the implementation of a real SRB project for Quebec. While today, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) has a new mandate to make recommendations in this matter, I hope that the SRB scenario will be taken into account in the new study. The SRB is, in my opinion, the gateway to a structuring transport network for the national capital.
A new version of the SRB project could notably take into account the route planned for the current tramway project, to which the planning of other phases should be added, so as to provide for the expansion of coverage and interconnections for all of the districts, so as to increase the attractiveness of using public transport. It would also be possible to recover and redirect in favor of the SRB as much as possible of the sums already committed for the project and the tramway route. Quebec would thus have a truly structuring, flexible public transportation network, accessible in all boroughs, while respecting environmental concerns.