Dominic Leblanc moved to Maizerets this year and is spending his first winter there. Traveling by bike in all seasons, the new kid on the block does not fail.
At each snowfall that Mother Nature brings, he makes sure to quickly remove the flakes on the ground to allow the passage of the bikes. First with a shovel and recently equipped with a snowblower, he clears the section between the Domaine de Maizerets and the White Birch Papers factory, under the slip roads of the Dufferin-Montmorency highway.
Met by Radio-Canada this weekend after a significant build-up, he was on his sixth citizen snow removal operation.
Dominic Leblanc did not wait for the City of Quebec to take the initiative to remove snow from a section between the Maizerets district and the Lower Town of Quebec.
Photo : Courtoisie/Dominic Leblanc
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Dangerous detour
I decided to clear away what is used
, he said of his initiative. I realized that the bike path was super busy, not cleared of snow. And when winter arrived, people had to go through the Canardière and the Capucins, two busy and dangerous boulevards.
I didn’t understand why the City wasn’t doing it already, so I decided to do it myself.
Each operation lasts between 30 to 90 minutes, according to Dominic Leblanc, who estimates the distance to be cleared at around 1.5 kilometers. The first times I did it with a shovel, now I do it with a snowblower
, says the motivated citizen. His initiative did not take long to resonate in the neighborhood.
For each outing, Dominic Leblanc can now count on volunteers to speed up the work.
The section cleared by Dominic Leblanc opens up the Maizerets district from the rest of the Lower Town, separated by the Dufferin-Montmorency highway.
Photo : Courtoisie/Dominic Leblanc
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Pressures on the City
Access to bicycle lanes during four seasons is not a new issue in Quebec. Last winter, the Table de concertation Vélo des Conseils de quartier de Québec mobilized to ask the City of Québec to do more to support utilitarian cycling.
Despite a pilot winter corridor project, it was felt that certain sections would also benefit from being cleared of snow to ensure the safety and mobility of cyclists during the cold season.
In addition to the targeted section in Maizerets, there was a demand for year-round maintenance of the Pente-Douce coast, in order to link the Upper Town and Lower Town of Quebec.
Four season cycling corridors
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Boulevard Pierre-Bertrand
Between boulevard Lebourgneuf and rue Desrochers
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Père-Marquette corridor
Between Parliament Hill and Laval University
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Bike paths on the Université Laval campus
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Church route
Between Chemin des Quatre-Bourgeois and Boulevard Hochelaga
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Pont Street
Between rue du Prince-Édouard and rue Saint-Vallier Est
Source: Quebec City
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