How can a Montreal MP suggest that our roads are in any way 'adequate'?
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, even by his own insufferable standards, had quite a week. It was as rough as the road network that he knows all too well as a Montreal MP.
Addressing a group of transit advocates on Monday, Guilbeault felt himself amongst fellow radicals and announced that the Trudeau government “has made the decision to stop investing at the federal level in new road infrastructure” because “the analysis we have done is that the network is perfectly adequate to respond to the needs we have.”
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That earned a rebuke from the premiers of Alberta and Ontario — the latter professing himself “gobsmacked,” which is a good sign that an excellent British word may be returning to common usage. Also dismayed was that proportion of the population that are not professional transit advocates, but drive cars and wish to get around on roads suitable for an affluent country.
Guilbeault quickly walked — or bicycled, as he is an ostentatious cyclist — that back, saying that while new mega-projects were out, “we still have funds, obviously, to maintain and enhance our road network across the country.”
While others took issue with Guilbeault’s moralizing climate extremism, too little attention was paid to the sheer delusion of his comments. Who in his right mind — let alone a Montrealer! — considers our roads to be “perfectly adequate” and thinks it “obvious” that there are funds “to maintain and enhance” the network?
We are so accustomed to distressingly inadequate roads, we assume it is normal that there is no highway connecting our two largest cities. Driving from Toronto to Montreal takes you along the 401, which, even when built in the 1960s, was a comparatively modest conduit by international standards.
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The typical state — not interstate — highway south of the border has greater capacity. In much of eastern Ontario, the 401 is only a serviceable secondary route by American or European standards. In more densely populated western Ontario, it still is often only two lanes in each direction, instead of four, as you might have elsewhere.
Upon entering Quebec from the 401, Autoroute 20 is not a highway. It has traffic lights. It passes right through the city of Dorion. That’s convenient should you wish to pick up a few things at the Carrefour or Dollarama, but it’s not a highway.
Any modestly sized American city — Syracuse, N.Y., Knoxville, Tenn. — that lies on an interstate has multiple ring roads so that it’s not necessary, Toronto-style, to drive through the heart of city if you only desire to pass by. Calgary only got its ring road recently.
Toronto’s equivalent, the private toll highway 407, costs approximately the same as it does to travel the entire New York State Thruway, which extends more than 900 kilometres from Buffalo to New York City. The 407 is 108 kilometres long.
The contrast is striking driving northward into Canada, for example, from I-81 into Ontario or I-87 into Quebec. Instead of “Welcome to Canada,” the sign should read, “We Are Not a Poor Country, As Our Roads Indicate.” Especially in Montreal, the roads are in such poor shape that a generation of Guilbeault’s funds to “maintain and enhance” would get us roads far inferior to what are found in other cold-weather cities, like Denver.
For Canadians going in the opposite direction, driving the north-south interstates is a marvel. I-81 in New York is a beautiful road, a genuine pleasure to drive — and much safer, too, as the division between opposing lanes is so vast that often it is not possible even to see the oncoming traffic.
Canada is a country of splendid natural beauty, and our roads should reflect that. My own favourite is Highway 22 along the foothills on the Alberta side of the Rockies, going south toward Crow’s Nest Pass.
We have nothing though like the Pacific Coast Highway, which Californians have enjoyed for generations, opening in the 1930s and stretching for more than 1,000 kilometres. Our Pacific marvel, the Sea to Sky Highway from Vancouver to Whistler, B.C., only got much-needed expansion and safety improvements for the 2010 Olympics.
Next door in Alberta, Highway 63 to Fort McMurray was so dangerous that its nickname for decades was the “Highway of Death.” Only in 2016 was its twinning complete, connecting Edmonton to one of the most important economic centres in the province.
That Guilbeault made his remarks before a transit audience is also noteworthy. Canadians need their roads because their transit is poor, even in the great conurbations. Both New York City and London have recently built new underground subway lines — in densely populated areas near rivers — while Toronto’s Eglinton LRT, which is only partially underground, is moving into its second decade of construction with no actual passengers being transported.
Montreal may have the worst roads of any city of similar size and importance in North America or western Europe. International visitors are prepared for that by arriving at an airport that evokes memories of the old, cramped, dingy and decrepit LaGuardia Airport. New Yorkers, of course, now have a new LaGuardia. Montrealers don’t and never will.
A Montreal minister should know better than anyone how poor our transportation infrastructure is. Perhaps he is proud of it. After all, the most climate-friendly way to travel is to stay home, as it is too difficult to go anywhere.
National Post
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