Priorité banlieue: un bon critère pour choisir un tracé de transport collectif?

Le choix d’un tracé de transport collectif est très complexe, le guide Bus Rapid Transit Planning Guide publié par the Institute for  Transportation & Development Policy expose quels critères prioriser et les erreurs à éviter. Bien que ce guide technique très exhaustif soit consacré au cas des bus à haut niveau de service, l’information qu’il contient s’applique également au choix d’un corridor de tramway, de SLR ou de tout autre mode de transport collectif lourd. À la lumière des déclarations des derniers jours, un peu de lecture permettrait de remettre les choses en perspective et d’éviter les pièges qui pourraient nuire au développement de la mobilité durable à Québec:

Perhaps the most serious type of implementation problem relates to political continuity. There are a handful of projects that began in a promising manner and then collapsed either due to a lack of complete political will or because there was a change in leadership. In many cases, cities expend significant resources in sending delegations on study tours and hiring consultants to develop scoping studies. In the end, many of these projects are actually quite feasible, but the drive to move to actual planning never happens for many reasons. [...]
In many cases, new Mayors or Ministers will reject previous projects simply because they do not wish to complete a project started by another politician. In a similar manner, project efforts have collapsed or have been seriously stalled in such cities as Dhaka (Bangladesh), Shanghai (China), Hyderabad (India), Puebla (Mexico), and Virginia Beach (USA). In many cases, political and technical officials spent great resources in study tours and research. However, for one reason or another, the projects simply could not move beyond the basic first steps.[...]
The analysis of the potential passenger demand for the planned BRT system is the technical foundation for most of the subsequent planning design work. Demand estimates are critical to designing the system, planning operations, and predicting the financial viability of the system. Knowing where and when customers require transport services will help to shape a system based first on customer needs.
Often, decision-makers will want to put a new BRT system on a wide road or a ring road where there is plenty of space, but where there is little or no demand. Other times, decision-makers will choose BRT corridors for political reasons, like putting one BRT corridor in each district, regardless of the relative importance of the corridor to riders, or locating the BRT system where its benefits would accrue to politically powerful people. While such factors will inevitably be a part of the decision-making process, BRT planners need to do their best to argue for a system that serves the most passengers in the best way possible. This requires proposing not only a single corridor but eventually a network of BRT routes. If the system does not form a network, ridership will be a fraction of its potential.
p. 122-124

Bus Rapid Transit Planning Guide, 2007