Promised “at the start of the year” during the election campaign, the studies on the third link should land on the Prime Minister’s office at the end of March.
The tunnel that must connect Quebec and Lévis still holds on a presentation of ten pages made public last April by the CAQ government. Many had mocked a new unit of measurement created with the twin tube, the number of bridges per million inhabitants, which was to fill the argument of the CAQ in favor of the third link.
Since then, no new study has confirmed the suitability or feasibility of the tunnel. Hounded this fall on this subject, Prime Minister François Legault had repeated the impossibility of presenting any sooner, since the analyzes that the government had at its disposal did not take into account the telework factor. The comprehensive and updated studies would arrive in early 2023.
The wait is coming to an end, the head of government said on Thursday: he will have the studies in hand before April.
“What happened is that over the past few weeks, the people responsible for the analysis, we asked them if they had taken into account the impact of telework, said François Legault Thursday on the sidelines. of his ceremonial appointment as honorary mayor of Quebec. The answer wasn’t clear, so we asked them to dig into that. They told us that they will give it back to us. »
The Prime Minister says he is aware that the advent of telework, accelerated by the pandemic, has changed the travel habits of the population, in Quebec as elsewhere. “We know, confirmed the Prime Minister, that there is a drop in traffic. »
Many are waiting for these studies with a firm footing. Many fear that the tunnel will increase urban sprawl in Lévis and pollution in Québec. Some deplore a third link, which is mainly devoted to the automobile at a time when climate change is imposing a reduction in its use.
The estimated bill for the construction site also puts off a large number of them: seven billion dollars, and this, before the inflationary outbreak observed for 12 months. A substantial sum invested to improve mobility in a metropolitan area where congestion problems do not appear obvious to many.
The mayor of Quebec, Bruno Marchand, never gave his support to the third link, repeating to wait for the data from the government before taking a position. Thursday, at the end of an hour-long meeting with the Prime Minister, Mr. Marchand stressed that he had “very little discussed” the twin tube with the head of the CAQ.
Good understanding and tram
The current seemed restored between the two men after a particularly stormy episode, which occurred last year, which had seemed to short-circuit the good understanding between the government of Quebec and its capital. Several tenors of the Legault government had orchestrated an outing in good standing against Bruno Marchand and a shared 500-meter track envisaged in the wake of the tram.
The mayor of Quebec had publicly gone off the rails, accusing the CAQ of playing “short-sighted politics” by courting motorists to attract the vote of the suburbs.
Eleven months after this period of turbulence, harmony reigns again. “There was a standoff, it was settled. For 12 months, we have been elsewhere, indicated Bruno Marchand in a press scrum. It couldn’t be better”.
In the meantime, responsibility for the Capitale-Nationale region has changed hands with the government. Geneviève Guilbault passed the torch to Jonathan Julien, a declared ally of the tramway, which contrasts with the ambivalence maintained by the former Minister of Public Security in this file.
The mayor of Quebec even showed a certain lyricism in the face of such close harmony between the interests of his city and the ambitions of the prime minister. “I felt it every minute of [notre] meeting: the Prime Minister has the will to build Quebec. It’s not the first time I feel it, but I felt it again. It was renewed. »
The tram site should normally get under way this summer, a schedule that seems uncertain today, however. The City has not yet signed any contract related to the manufacture of the trains and the design of the infrastructures. The final cost of the project, estimated at almost four billion dollars at the last update, looks set to jump, inflated by inflation over the past year.
According to the current agreement, the Quebec government will pay 50% of the bill.
“It remains reasonable given the size of the population,” said François Legault Thursday, before saying five words that may be enough to reap the good graces of the mayor: “We are always in favor of the project. »