Underground, beauty isn't a luxury: it's what decides whether people go down or not. Here's how we turn a concrete tube into a forest — the technology, the protection, and what it costs.
Why invest in beauty
Let's be clear: beauty isn't decoration, it's the factor that decides whether the tunnel gets used. A cyclist who loves nature won't go down into a grey concrete corridor. A claustrophobic person simply never will. Making the tunnel beautiful and open isn't a comfort expense — it's what produces ridership, and ridership is the whole value of the project.
Against that risk, getting the experience right is the cheapest insurance you can take out on the project's biggest investment.
And the benefit pays for itself: an attractive tunnel gets more people riding → more active travel → real health gains → savings in care. Since the tunnel already costs a fraction of a road, beauty isn't an aesthetic whim: it's a public-health investment with a measurable return.
🌿 Nature lovers
- Cyclists choose their routes for the scenery, not just for the shortest path.
- A forest streaming past makes you want to ride; a grey corridor drives you away.
- They're the network's most natural clientele — win them over, don't discourage them.
🫁 Claustrophobic people
- Anxiety isn't only felt at the entrances: it lasts the whole trip.
- A luminous sky and living walls dissolve the feeling of confinement.
- Without it, a whole share of the population excludes itself from the start.
🌍 A source of global pride
- No city offers riding “outdoors”, in a forest, in the middle of January.
- World's first network of its kind: identity, tourism, international coverage.
- A symbol Québec would talk about — and that the world would talk about.
The technology, in six layers
Realism doesn't come from a single gadget, but from stacking several layers. The first four run the full 150 km — that's what makes the tunnel open and beautiful end to end. The last two concentrate the “wow” effect where it converts the most people: the stations.
LED-backlit ceiling in “tunable white”. Warm at dawn, blue at noon. It's the main antidote to claustrophobia — and it doubles as lighting.
A real photo of a forest printed on durable panels (laminate, enamelled steel, acoustic panels). Floor, trunks, canopy: a coherent scene from floor to sky.
“Gobo” projectors cast a moving dappled light over the forest, like sun through leaves. The still image starts to breathe.
Birdsong, breeze and a spatialised stream, synced with the ventilation air. Sound delivers half the immersion for next to nothing.
Foreground relief and real plants — moss, ferns — at the portals and stations, where daylight and air allow. It breaks the flat-mural effect.
Video mapping, LED screens and a high-end artificial sky, reserved for station entrances and the showcase segment, where you impress the most.
The key to realism isn't 4K resolution, but three things combined: a scene that's coherent from floor to sky, alive (moving light, birds, air), and open (the luminous sky and clear sightlines). Because the first four layers cover the whole network, that sense of being “outdoors” exists everywhere, not just at the entrances.
A possible compromise if the immersion causes problems
The full immersion described above remains the goal. But it rests on layers — moving light, spatialised sound, highly detailed scenery — that a study might find don't suit everyone. Two honest reservations: the acoustics of a soundscape broadcast continuously over kilometres, and the motion sickness that movement projected onto the walls could trigger in sensitive people.
If testing concludes that the full simulation tires the ear or makes some users nauseous, there's no need to drop it wholesale : you can dial it in. This tunnel illustrates the fallback — a luminous sky overhead to keep the sense of openness, bare acoustic walls rather than an animated scene, and sound that's discreet or absent. You keep the essentials (the light, the openness, the anti-claustrophobia effect) while setting aside whatever might unsettle. Immersive beauty stays the target ; this compromise is the safety net the study will validate, section by section.
Protecting the beauty over 50 years
“But the paint will get damaged.” Exactly — which is why there's no paint, and no fragile image in the contact zone. Everything is handled by height, hard materials, and protective films.
- Contact zone (0 to 1.2 m): hard, washable panels covered with a sacrificial anti-graffiti film. If it's marked or scratched, you replace the film cheaply — not the panel.
- Eye level (1.2 to 2.4 m): rigid printed panels, protected by an anti-abrasion hardcoat film.
- The dome (2.4 m up to the ceiling): out of reach, never touched. That's where most of the realism lives, with no risk of damage.
- All modular: a damaged panel is replaced on its own, without repainting tens of metres.
The king of materials: porcelain-enamelled steel has equipped subways for a century. Graffiti wipes off, it's 100% non-combustible, it lasts over 50 years maintenance-free — and today it prints in full-colour photo. We reserve it for stations and the busiest sections.
What it costs: $500M
At this level of investment, we can fund openness across the whole network (not just at stations), make the 150 stations genuinely beautiful, and build a showcase segment to the highest spec.
| Layer | Scope | Budget |
|---|---|---|
| Luminous sky (the openness) | 150 km, everywhere | $110M |
| Printed forest + films (the immersion) | 150 km, 3 heights | $140M |
| Movement (gobos) + soundscape | 150 km, everywhere | $80M |
| 150 stations all polished | each station | $100M |
| Demo segment + signature stations | the showcase | $50M |
| Reserve + enhancements (partly sponsorships) | — | $20M |
| Total | $500M |
For perspective: $500M on a roughly $11.2B project is about 4.5%. This isn't decoration an opponent could ridicule — it's the investment that guarantees the tunnel is used, and so protects the value of the remaining 95%. (Orders of magnitude to be refined with real bidders.)
What would blow up this figure is spreading dynamic video screens over the full 150 km: then we'd be talking over a billion, plus electricity and lifetime maintenance. The strategy avoids it — the expensive dynamic stuff stays at the stations, where the surface area is tiny, while the 150 km run on durable panels with almost no maintenance.
A world first
No city in the world offers riding “outdoors”, in a forest, sheltered from cold and wind, in the middle of January. The planet's first underground cycling–forest network would give Québec a unique identity: a magnet for tourism, talent and international media coverage, far beyond its simple transport function.
That's what we protect by investing in beauty: not a backdrop, but the very reason hundreds of thousands of people will want to use it.
Main sources. This page draws on our detailed analysis: download the analysis (costs of the nature simulation) (PDF).