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For decades, every proposal to modernize passenger transportation in Canada has met with the same knee-jerk response: declaring from the outset that it would be too expensive, too complicated or unnecessary. The result? We are still where we were 30 years ago, with a rail network that struggles to compete with cars and air travel between our major cities.
While 64% of Quebecers support the Alto project, some already want to see the high-speed rail project derailed. Yet we still do not know its actual cost, final route, ridership forecasts, fares or funding model. In effect, we are being asked to reject a project whose fundamental parameters have yet to be defined.
As social, environmental and mobility organizations, we reject this logic. We are not asking for high-speed rail to be built at any cost. We are asking that the studies be allowed to run their course so that the public debate can be based on facts rather than speculation.
Important questions do remain. The project will need to integrate effectively with local and regional transportation networks. Its funding must not drain the resources needed to maintain and expand urban public transit systems that are already severely underfunded. The route must minimize its impact on natural areas and farmland. Consultation mechanisms must be established with communities to ensure that local concerns are considered throughout the process. People and communities affected by the project’s construction must be properly compensated.
These concerns are real, and we expect convincing answers from Alto and the government on these fundamental questions. But none of them justifies abandoning the work before we have even received those answers.
By continually postponing transformative projects, we perpetuate a form of collective resignation. We accept that travel between Québec City, Montréal, Ottawa and Toronto will remain slower and less efficient than in many comparable countries. We condemn ourselves to increasing our ecological debt by funding the expansion of airport and highway infrastructure whose costs far exceed the investment required for rail. We become accustomed to thinking small when our climate, economic and demographic challenges demand precisely the opposite.
It is time to break the deadlock.
The studies currently underway will detail the conditions required to build the high-speed rail system. According to Alto, they will “assess the project’s potential effects and, where necessary, identify measures to avoid, reduce or offset its impacts while maximizing benefits for communities.” They will also provide a framework for determining the best balance between sustainable mobility, environmental protection, regional service and the efficient use of public funds. Whatever their findings, these studies will move us forward. The only losing scenario is one in which we abandon the effort to develop the necessary knowledge and condemn the project based on intuition, without giving ourselves the means to build an informed consensus among stakeholders.
An ambitious society does not fear studies; it fears decisions made in ignorance.
Alto’s work therefore deserves to continue—not because high-speed rail is inevitable, but because citizens are entitled to a complete analysis before their governments make such an important final decision.
Continuing this planning process is not the real waste. The real waste would be to keep postponing, year after year, any serious consideration of the future of passenger transportation between our major cities.
Quebec and Canada have waited long enough. Let the facts speak before we choose our destination.
Signatories:
- Fabien-Kenzo Sato, Executive Director, Conseil régional de l’environnement de Montréal
- Maggie Harvey, Executive Director, Trajectoire Québec
- Marc-André Viau, Director of Government Relations, Équiterre
- Lauréanne Daneau, Executive Director, Conseil régional de l’environnement Mauricie
- Kassandra Martel, Executive Director, Conseil régional de l’environnement de Lanaudière
- Jean-François Rheault, President and CEO, Vélo Québec
- Sandrine Cabana-Degani, Executive Director, Piétons Québec
- Patrick Robert-Meunier, Réseau des centres d’expertise en mobilité (RCEM)
- Chaïma Ben, Executive Director, Centre d’écologie urbaine
- Marie-Eve Dontigny, Acting Executive Director, Conseil régional de l’environnement de Laval
