PSC leader calls aerial tram a ‘gimmick’

‘Disney Laval’
A few days after officials with the city and the STL had gathered at city hall to announce to the media that Laval was exploring the possibility of building at least one aerial tramway line, an irreverent amateur editorial artist sent out a mass e-mail with an attached graphic lampooning “Disney Laval,” depicting several members of the Vaillancourt administration aboard a roller coaster ride.

“Totally ridiculous,” was the initial reaction to the aerial tramway by Parti au Service du Citoyen leader Robert Bordeleau, who leads one of Laval’s two municipal opposition parties. “They compare their gimmick to Singapore which has about 10 million population,” he said, referring to one of the major world cities which have opted to have aerial trams as part of their scheme for public transit.
“New York is about the same thing, Portland is a bit less, even Rio de Janeiro,” he added. “These are all big cities and megacities that need something like that to attract tourism. It’s more a tourism gimmick and tool, and it won’t help transportation at all in Laval.”

Neighbourhoods ignored
While the STL’s and the city’s goal would be to create a link from the Montmorency Metro station to Carrefour Laval with the proposed aerial tramway, Bordeleau said the initiative would only encourage residents in more distant neighbourhoods like St-François, Ste-Rose and Ste-Dorothée to ignore all the efforts being made to have them use public transit, in such a way that they would do the opposite and start using their cars more often.
Despite the STL’s position that major improvements these last few years in the electrification of buses have made electric tramways much less feasible, Bordeleau continues to promote the creation of a network of electric trams as the best solution for Laval’s long-term public transit needs.