The City of Quebec will impose a contract of more than 5,000 pages on the two private partners chosen to build and operate its tramway. A way to guarantee “performance thresholds”, according to the project office, but which could also inflate the bill, according to an expert.
Larger than the integralIn Search of Lost Time of Marcel Proust, these contracts will include customary requirements on the execution of the work, but also on the duties that the private partners will have to fulfill during the operating phase.
“There will be requirements in terms of reliability, maintainability, availability and safety”, specified, on Tuesday, the director of the project office, Daniel Genest, during a meeting of the plenary committee devoted to the tramway. ” Yes [les partenaires privés] do not respect them, they will not be paid. It’s that simple. »
The plenary committee exercise made it possible to obtain an overview of the obligations that the private partners will have to respect. The two contracts — one for 2,000 pages for rolling stock and another for 3,000 for infrastructure — will range from daily cleaning of wagons to maintenance of the power system, including synchronized snow clearing of central rails and shared tracks. on René-Lévesque Boulevard.
“We define the framework and then we measure the performance during the 30-year operating period, indicated Mr. Genest, giving as an example the size of the 30,000 trees to replace the 1,500 felled to make way for the tramway. “We will not agree to have 15 cm trees replaced by one cm trees. »
According to the director of the project office, this way of doing things will help maintain control on the site. “In Montreal, you have the REM project, delivered by CDPQ Infra, which has different objectives from those that a city normally has,” said Daniel Genest. It is eminently simpler to work in Quebec than in Montreal: we have the advantage of having the City which imposes its vision on the private partners. »
Easy to say, hard to do
However, it is easier to threaten a partner to deprive him of payment than to take action, warns Danielle Pilette, professor and specialist in municipal management at the University of Quebec in Montreal. Even under a river contract. “We have seen it in public contracts like the CHUM, she notes. The performance was not without problems and the Department of Health caved in, even though there were major issues like water seepage. »
The professor also believes that too long a list of requirements could discourage bidders. “My fear, says Mr.me Pilette is that the more performance requirements we add, the fewer bidders we will have and the higher the costs will be. »
For the moment, four consortia have expressed their interest in designing and operating the tramway: Siemens and Alstom have raised their hands to build the trains, ModerniCité and Mobilité de la Capitale are in the running to design the infrastructure.
Estimated at 3.965 billion dollars, the Quebec tramway bill must be updated next November, when the business case is filed with the Société québécoise des infrastructures.
Trees to find
Until then, the City sees the possibility of making other changes to the project, in particular to save mature trees along René-Lévesque Boulevard. “There are possible optimizations,” said Alejandro Calderón, urban integration team leader in the project office. We’re back to the drawing board this spring. »
The Saint-Charles-Garnier station could thus be scrapped or moved, a solution that Mayor Bruno Marchand does not recommend, for the moment, because of its proximity to major centers such as the Garnier college, the Saint-Sacrement Hospital or the head office of Industrial Alliance.
Moreover, supply from nurseries could become problematic, at a time when the vision of the Quebec tree, combined with the promise to plant 20 trees for each of the 1,500 fellings planned in the wake of the tramway, will require 130,000 hardwoods and conferred by 2027.
“It’s a real problem,” said Etienne St-Pierre, responsible for urban forestry in the project office. “We are aware that there will be a great demand for trees and that nurseries could face challenges”, added the director, Daniel Genest, estimating that the Quebec tramway was “in the top 10” major public infrastructure projects for canopy protection.