Motorists want Quebec roads repaired before new ones are built

Road crews work on Guillaume-Couture Boulevard in Lévis, Que. (Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press)

Quebec motorists believe that Quebec should put all new road infrastructure construction on hold and devote the budgets earmarked for it to repairing existing roads.

This is at least the opinion of eight out of 10 CAA members (79 per cent), who said they were “in favour of temporarily suspending all road development projects (adding roads and structures) until all existing infrastructure is in good condition.”

The survey was conducted online at the end of March among 1,609 CAA members.

“Road conditions are a very popular topic of conversation in Quebec,” explains CAA spokesman Simon Bourassa, in an interview with The Canadian Press on the occasion of Thursday’s publication of the annual list of Quebec’s worst roads.

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Repair before building

“Motorists and road users pay fairly substantial amounts in fees and taxes to maintain and develop the road network, but we’re wondering whether we shouldn’t put the development of new roads on hold. Money doesn’t grow on trees and financial resources are limited. Shouldn’t we put a moratorium or at least a pause on development to maintain what we already have?” said Bourassa.

“Maintenance may not have the same political appeal as the announcement of a new road, but it is nonetheless a necessity based on an inescapable financial logic.

“It costs a lot of money to rebuild roads. It’s also expensive to maintain roads, but it’s even more expensive when they have to be rebuilt because they’ve been poorly maintained,” said Bourassa.

He said it’s an inescapable fact, but one that has been overlooked, since the list of the worst roads in Quebec prepared by the CAA is now in its tenth year,

“Frankly, there has been no marked improvement. If you take it over 10 years, I think it’s worse,” laments Bourassa, who points the finger at the asset maintenance deficit: “There is currently a shortfall of $22.5 billion to maintain the base of what we have.”

The prize goes to a tiny road

As for the worst road in Quebec, it was a tiny road in La Tuque, in the Haute Mauricie region, the Chemin du Contour-du-Lac-à-Beauce, that took the prize this year.

The next four positions are occupied by Klock Road, Notch Road, Cook Road and Pink Road, all in the Outaouais region, and positions 6 to 10 inclusive are also small roads in rural areas across the province.

This observation comes as no surprise to Bourassa: “Just because a road is located further away from major centres doesn’t mean that the people who use it have to contend with a road that is poorly maintained, difficult to drive on or even unsafe. And what we often notice is that in more rural areas, people are a little more vocal when it’s time to come forward to complain about a road.”

In the case of this year’s “winner,” the Contour-du-Lac-à-Beauce road, Bourassa points out that “it’s on the territory of the town of La Tuque, but obviously, La Tuque doesn’t have the money to rebuild it. Towns do what they can with the money they have, and resources are also limited at municipal level. We can be fairly certain that the municipalities and towns are expecting more in terms of financial support from the provincial government to help them maintain their road network. I doubt very much that they can do it alone.”

Main roads no better off

That’s not to say that the major roads are in any better condition, looking at the list in greater depth, by region.

The list includes routes 117 and 113 in Abitibi, route 132 in Bas-Saint-Laurent, Highway 40 in Québec, route 116 and Highway 20 in Chaudière-Appalaches, route 138 on the Côte-Nord, route 202 in Estrie, highways 40 and 640 in Lanaudière, highways 640 and 117 in the Laurentians, Concorde Boulevard in Laval, Route 116 and Highway 30 in Montérégie, and the Metropolitan Expressway in Montreal, to name but a few.

“Roads under the aegis of the Ministry of Transport (MTQ) are also often the subject of much criticism, depending on the region. These are undoubtedly the government’s priorities, and that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean that the people, the taxpayers, the citizens of towns and cities who drive on less important arteries don’t have the right to have roads that are well maintained,” said Bourassa.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on May 15, 2025.