The 3rd link: a “scar” on the Quebec postcard | All about the 3rd Quebec-Lévis link

The committee of residents of Old Quebec is concerned about the visual heritage of Quebec if a third link were to emerge east of the city center, as announced by Prime Minister François Legault on Thursday.

According to the scenario favored by the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), this new highway bridge would be built somewhere between the Port of Quebec facilities and the southwest tip of Île d’Orléans.

It comes[drait] create a large scar in the heart of Old Quebecis surprised by Michel Masse, president of the residents’ committee of Old Quebec. Even if it is between Old Quebec and Île d’Orléans, it is the landscape, the visual perspective, which will completely disappear.

Quebec is a postcard. The postcard will be pretty messed up if we put a bridge that hides the whole perspective. […] The landscape is very important: it is part of the heritage.

Michel Masse emphasizes that the size of the infrastructure will be immense since it will be necessary to allow the passage of ships under the bridge. For example, the Queen Mary 2 cruise ship, which sometimes stops in Quebec, is 72 m high, including 62 m above water level.

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In its report published this week, the infrastructure subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement (CDPQ Infra) also underlines that the depth of the water at this location is one of the technical challenges of building a bridge at the east, where the river can be up to 3.5 km wide.

The tourists on the Dufferin Terrace, what are they doing? They come to see the view, they don’t come to see a bridgesays the president of the residents’ committee.

Public health avoids commenting

Philippe Robert, a doctor specializing in public health, however, did not want to comment on the construction of a possible third link, arguing that it is not possible to analyze it in depth at this stage. We will appreciate it when we have a project. It’s hard to comment on the idea at the moment.

However, he recalls that the report My environment, my healthpresented by public health a year ago, recommended not increase road traffic in neighborhoods where there is already more pollution. This study designated the Vieux-Limoilou sector as one of the urban areas in Quebec where there are the worst concentrations of fine particles in the air.

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Quebec is one of the large cities in Canada where there are the most inequalities in exposure to air pollution or noise, so we certainly don’t want to increase that: we wants to reduce it.

The national public health department has also reiterated its support for the structuring public transport network in Quebec, whose first phase of the tramway has obtained the green light from the government.