Experts have known for a long time that the addition of road and highway lanes contributes to increasing congestion problems, regardless of what some politicians in the region, such as the mayor and the member of Parliament for Lévis, say.
In their analysis of our file on road congestion, published Monday, Gilles Lehouillier and Bernard Drainville preferred, rather than facing reality, to indulge in an overbidding that this was another piece of evidence in favor of ‘a third link.
“It takes one (third link). It’s not complicated, it takes one,” said Minister Drainville, evoking the anything but scientific argument of economic security, now put forward by his government.
The figures revealed by The Journal yet demonstrate very clearly that a third link is not necessary. There has in fact been no increase in daily flows on the Pierre-Laporte bridge compared to 2017, despite numerous recent works on the Quebec bridge.
A syndrome of politicians
MM. Lehouillier and Drainville are affected, like many elected officials seeking votes in our region, of the politician’s syllogism syndrome. According to their argument which is not based on any scientific data: something must be done, the third link is this thing, and therefore the third link must be made.
The data of Journal yet go exactly in the same direction as the recent CDPQI report and the latest Origin-Destination studies.
Remember that CDPQI concluded that “the mobility gains that a new inter-river road link would provide would be limited due to the fact that they do not act in the desired direction of travel during the morning peak period, that is, from Lévis to Quebec”.
It also concludes that “the relative improvement in traffic and the effective time saving on the axis of the existing bridges would be limited, on average 5 minutes, and would ultimately result in a significant increase in congestion on the road network. in the territory of the city of Quebec, in particular the A40 and the A440.
Hide this truth
Yet it is clear and clear. If we want to reduce congestion, we must improve the offer other than roads and motorways. It is necessary to think about infrastructure for public transport, and a tunnel for a tram could respond effectively to the evolution of demand, ruled CDPQI.
In a recent column on the third link, colleague Michel David, from Dutycited Raymond Aron who, in The scholar and the politicianhad written that “the vocation of science is unconditionally truth. The job of politician does not always tolerate being said.”
This sums up why the third highway link always appears in the promises of certain politicians in the Quebec region, against all logic. It remains to be seen how far this deception will go.
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