Published on
In this blog post, originally published in French in the Métro newspaper, Steven Guilbeault, cofounder and senior director of Equiterre, expresses his shock and dismay at a recent announcement by Quebec Transport Minister Sylvain Gaudreault regarding plans to extend Greater Montreal's Autoroute 19.
Last Friday was supposed to be an exciting day for me.
I was going to present Equiterre’s recommendations for the electrification of the transportation system at a hearing on Quebec’s future sustainable mobility policy.
I was looking forward to sharing a declaration signed by 30 some groups, including Montreal’s public health agency and the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal, urging Quebec to invest $1 billion more per year in public transit and active transportation.
But then I got an email about a press conference to be held the same day: Transport Minister Sylvain Gaudreault would be announcing the extension of Autoroute 19, a highway that currently runs 10 km from the Metropolitan Autoroute (A-40) on the island of Montreal to the northern lying suburb of Laval.
I was shocked.
This is the same minister who in December had said that the extension would be postponed until 2020, because the last government had failed to budget for it.
The same minister who, according to ministry documents, wants to:
- bring in a sustainable mobility policy
- increase the use of public transit
- decrease solo car use
- better coordinate land use and transportation
The same minister whose government wants to make Quebec a leader in sustainable mobility!
The decision to go ahead with the Autoroute 19 extension makes a lot of the government’s promises hard to keep. It casts doubt on:
- the goal to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 25% below 1990 levels by 2020 (Transportation is responsible for a whopping 44% of our GHG emissions, a percentage that has increased by 28% since 1990.)
- the election promise to balance spending on highways with investment in public transit
- the election promise to reduce Quebec’s dependence on oil by 30% by 2020 and by 60% by 2060
- Minister for Montreal Jean-François Lisée’s efforts to halt the flight to the suburbs
Sorry, but they must take us for fools.
