The Ministère des Transports du Québec could reroute Route 138 to Longue-Rive. This is at least one of the options Quebec is analyzing to prevent the sea from eroding or inundating the north coast’s only road link.
In 2017, the Ministry of Transport was so concerned that the sea would erode or submerge the only road link in the region in the Baie-des-Bacon sector and launched a tender to analyze solutions The problem is that the company WSP won the contract in 2018 received.
In September 2020, WSP submitted its final report to the Department of Transport. “History shows that the issue of coastal erosion and flooding for this study area in 2020 is not a worrying situation for the safety of Route 138 users, but is certainly a climate-related issue for the next few years.” can be read there.
The report identifies two solutions to address these problems. One such solution is to move Route 138 “further west in the terrestrial environment.”
WSP’s other proposal is to build “living breakwaters” on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. “It’s a green infrastructure set back from the coast, hills covered with vegetation to slow down the waves,” explained Angelica Alberti-Dufort, knowledge transfer and training specialist at Ouranos.
“We haven’t decided on a solution at this point,” said Department of Transport and Sustainable Mobility Communications Advisor Caroline Rondeau. “We commissioned a study, but for all road projects there are several steps that need to be carried out, and each of them takes several months, even several years,” she said.
We have asked a judge from the Commission d’accès à l’information to publish the cost estimates for each of the proposed solutions. This request was rejected by decision of May 23, which referred to the need to limit the risk of collusion in a possible tender.