Quebec cuts funding to maintain Route Verte
Some of the safest and most beautiful sections of the province’s signature cycling network, the Route Verte, are at risk of closure due to the province’s decision to drastically reduce its funding for maintenance, according to a report released by Vélo-Québec last week.
The Route Verte is a 5,300-kilometre web of bike paths and routes that traverse 400 municipalities and link up with cycling routes in Ontario, New Brunswick and New England.
The 20-year-old, ever-expanding network has made Quebec one of the top cyclo-tourism destinations in the world, and the economic spinoffs and taxes it generates more than cover its maintenance costs, Vélo-Québec argues. But cycling advocates fear that status will erode if quality and safety start to slide due to a lack of maintenance of some of the most scenic portions of the route.
In November, Premier Philippe Couillard’s Liberal government negotiated a temporary fiscal pact with the province’s municipalities. That deal included the abolition of a $2.8-million annual maintenance program for the Route Verte. Costs for maintaining the network have been shared 50-50 between municipalities and the province since 2001.
In April, Vélo Québec organized a forum, inviting representatives of the provincial government, the tourism industry and municipal governments to share their plans and concerns about the future of the cycling network. The group released recommendations arising from the forum last week.
The forum heard that the funding cut will not change much on the 2,400 kilometres of the route that is on provincial roads, or the 950 kilometres on municipal roads.
But it will be the route’s 1,950 kilometres of off-road bike paths, particularly the long segments that go through small towns, forests, along abandoned railway tracks and other picturesque and rural areas, where the “degradation of infrastructure and the lack of preventive maintenance will threaten safety and increase risks of accidents and lawsuits,” the report notes.
Lucie Lanteigne, general manager of the Vélo Québec Association, noted that bad weather and wildlife can damage these trails, and regular upkeep is key.
“In the first year, if you invest less in maintenance, maybe it won’t be so visible,” Lanteigne said in an interview. “But if we do less for two or three years, you will start to see a real degradation of the route. This is a huge tourist attraction for Quebec, and it has a brand image. It is important that that image be upheld.”
Some of the maintenance is about esthetics, such as keeping the weeds down, maintaining signs, and landscaping. But most is structural. There are about 450 culverts under and along the route that need to be maintained to ensure good drainage, for example. Beavers tend to block these culverts fairly regularly, she said, and if they are not kept free of debris, portions of the route will flood or collapse.
As a short-term solution, Vélo Québec proposes the government divert $2 million per year from a $50-million envelope earmarked in the fiscal pact for improvement of municipal roads to maintain the Route Verte for 2015 and 2016.
In the meantime, the group suggests the province should give the Route Verte special protected status, and create an endowment fund to cover maintenance costs in perpetuity. A council should be created to manage the fund, with representatives from business, municipalities, public health, tourism, the provincial government and cycling organizations. The council would solicit donations from the private sector, advocate for the Route Verte and decide how the fund would be spent.
A spokesperson for Minister of Transport Robert Poëti said he is studying Vélo Québec’s proposals, but it is unlikely the province will dip into the municipal roads improvement fund to maintain the Route Verte, even temporarily.
“We cannot go back on a decision that came out of a formal, negotiated and signed agreement between the government of Quebec, the UMQ, the FQM, Quebec City and Montreal,” Valérie Rodrigue responded for the minister by email.
The province will continue to maintain the portions of the Route Verte that are on provincial roads, which is 44 per cent of the network, she said.
“It is not the end of the Route Verte. The Route Verte will stay open and accessible to users. However, in the long term, cities will have to review their financial priorities and make choices.”
But Jean-Pierre Boivin, who is president of an association that manages la Véloroute des Bleuets in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region, told the forum his organization will have to scramble to do its maintenance work this year without the $200,000 the province usually provides.
Temporary solutions were found for this summer, he said, but when asked if the organization would be able to keep up the same quality and safety standards with half the funding, Boivin said “For this year, maybe, but not in the medium or long term.”
The province and municipalities in the region together have invested $13 million in that segment of the Route Verte, he noted, and it generates economic spinoffs estimated at $9.5 million per year.
The mayor of Waterloo, Pascal Russell, said his region’s 97 kilometres of Route Verte constitute the most important tourist attraction in the region, after the Granby Zoo. With 355,000 trips a year, this part of the Route Verte not only generates significant economic spinoffs, it also provides many local chari- table groups with a venue for fundraising events.
The report notes that a lot of small-town mayors are now hesitating over whether their town should continue to finance their part of the Route Verte. Maintenance costs are estimated at about $3,000 per kilometre for off-road bike paths, and some small towns simply don’t have the property tax revenues required. For example, the Petit Témis segment, which connects Rivière-du-Loup with Edmundston, N.B., is 131 kilometres long. It goes through 19 small towns that have between 120 and 4,000 inhabitants.
Vélo Québec argues the Route Verte is a “national project” that requires stable support from the province to ensure it remains a province-wide network of consistent quality for its users.
Estimates using automatic counters put use of the whole network at more than five million trips per year.
The P’tit Train du Nord segment alone, which runs between St-Jérôme and Mont-Laurier, generates about $16 million a year in economic spinoffs, with $2 million of that going into provincial coffers through sales taxes.