(Quebec) François Legault promised to share studies and analyzes with the new mayor of Quebec in order to convince him of the need for the third link.
The two chatted for almost an hour on Friday, during their first official meeting. Even if both spoke of a “beautiful meeting”, “exciting”, Bruno Marchand is still not ready to support the third link.
“We named our concerns. We talked about urban sprawl. The Prime Minister is very concerned about this issue and the environmental impacts, ”said the mayor of Quebec at the end of the face-to-face meeting.
“We need to have documentation, studies. The Prime Minister will share them and we will study them with interest. ”
The government has still not released a feasibility study for the third link. The opposition parties in the National Assembly accuse it of going ahead with this motorway tunnel without having demonstrated its usefulness and well studied its impacts.
“We agreed to share all the information we have,” assured François Legault.
“Obviously, do we want a link between Quebec and Lévis, if only for public transport? Do we want a bridge or a tunnel? What are the costs, the advantages, the disadvantages? What is the congestion situation on the two bridges to the west? We will share all this information and we hope that Bruno will come to the same conclusion as us, ”added the Prime Minister.
“In the coming months, we will be able to give certain information,” he said.
Open to more funding for the tram
The Prime Minister has also shown himself open to more funding for the Quebec City tramway. The project initially estimated at 3.3 billion dollars could increase to almost 4 billion.
In the last year, the government had repeated that Régis Labeaume should respect the financial framework, despite soaring construction costs and inflation. The message has changed since the election of Bruno Marchand.
“The Quebec government is open to doing a bigger part of the project. It will be part of the discussions, ”he said.
“There is surely additional funding capacity available from the federal government and the government of Quebec. ”