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Allison Hanes: Let's kickstart a transportation revolution in Quebec

The incoming CAQ government has recognized the urgency of dealing with monster traffic jams, but adding highway lanes isn't the answer.

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News that the planet is hurtling toward climate catastrophe faster and sooner than expected arrives at an auspicious time for Quebec.

Here we are, with a brand new government, a booming economy and brimming public coffers. Here we are with vast reserves of hydro power and transportation as a significant source of our toxic emissions.

To be sure, Quebec faces tremendous challenges in doing its part to mitigate the impact of devastating global warming, which the International Panel on Climate Change last week warned will occur with a rise in temperature of 1.5 C and be felt as early as 2040 — or before. And yet we also have tremendous opportunities to act within the narrow window that remains open.

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First, the challenges. The incoming Coaltion Avenir Québec government didn’t exactly campaign on tackling climate change. In fact, of the four major parties, its environmental platform was the least robust. It was also propelled to office by suburban and rural voters who drive, enduring (and, let’s face it, causing) hellish traffic congestion.

Premier-designate François Legault doesn’t scream eco-warrior, either. But in his first face-to-face with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during a trip to the Francophonie summit, he nevertheless portrayed himself as an environmental ally who would try to woo his Ontario counterpart back to the cap-and-trade market the two provinces joined with California, but which Premier Doug Ford promptly quit after he was elected.

The fact that populist Legault isn’t likewise rushing to abandon cap-and-trade and is willing to act the part of green activist (perhaps to curry favour with an increasingly politically isolated Trudeau on some of the CAQ’s other promises) speaks to the dire prospects for the kind of radical, rapid and coordinated action required to change course on climate change. (And that’s just within Canada, never mind the United States or other parts of this imperilled planet).

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But the scarcity of hope for saving humanity underscores the need to seize any shred of it — wherever it may be found. So in that sense, Quebec’s opportunity is actually more of a plea: Instead of embarking on a divisive debate over values and identity that will pit a secular majority against religious minorities, let’s instead find common cause in kickstarting a transportation revolution that will help in the fight against climate change.

Transportation is a unifying issue that affects every Quebecer, whether they live in rural areas, the suburbs or the urban core. That transportation accounts for about half of Quebec’s greenhouse gas emissions — and a source that continues to rise as others drop — may ironically be a lucky bit of luck. If Quebec invests massively in a solid and viable plan to address the former, it can make inroads to reduce with the latter: call it a major green shift disguised as a solution to one of Quebecers’ biggest frustrations.

Quebec’s plentiful hyrdo power provides incentive to follow the trend of electrifying transportation, both public transit and personal vehicles. While true that hydro has its own environmental footprint, at least we don’t face the quandary of burning coal to fuel electric cars, which undermines their positive impact. And while turning to biofuels or hydrogen to make cars run might be better still, it doesn’t seem like we’re there yet. Waiting for the auto industry to develop yet another alternative to the combustion engine, we might miss our chance to veer away from danger while we still can. So hybrid and electric it is.

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But one limitation of electric vehicles is the distances they can travel. Charging stations may be relatively common in Montreal or Quebec City, but they are less prevalent if present at all in many regions. The new government should make it possible to drive from Gatineau to the Gaspé in an electric vehicle. It should also encourage drivers in regions where public transit is less efficient, and thus less popular, to shift to hybrid or electric vehicles.

The CAQ has recognized the urgency of dealing with the monster traffic the suburban voters around Montreal who put them in office face daily. But instead of adding highway lanes that will only fill up with more cars, Quebecers need better choices, like long-distance bike corridors or reserved lanes for express buses or carpooling.

The government should investigate ex-Parti Québécois leader Jean-François Lisée’s proposal to link up Quebecers who want to carpool and pay them to drive together. Lisée suggested such a program could remove 150,000 cars from the roads, 100,000 of them in Montreal. No one has a monopoly on good ideas now.

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The CAQ  must also invest massively in public transit: the tramway to the east end of Montreal, the extension of the now-under-construction Réseau express métropolitain to more suburban destinations and Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante’s new Pink Line of the métro. Making it easier to get around the greater Montreal area without a car would not only benefit the environment, but the economy and people’s daily lives.

This is only a start, of course. Transportation is only one piece of the larger climate puzzle, though a big one in Quebec. However, an accelerated effort is within our grasp to get people out of their cars as much as possible in cities, onto transit in suburbs and into less polluting vehicles in suburbs and regions. It is the kind of projet de société that would bring Quebecers together and transform our society — and maybe our planet — for the better.

ahanes@postmedia.com

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