The project for a third highway link between Quebec and Lévis is dead: the CAQ government will present a new version of the river tunnel project dedicated exclusively to public transport on Thursday.
François Legault’s team has decided to abandon the highway project under the river after learning about the studies on the project, the office of the Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault, confirmed on Tuesday evening. “Studies clearly show us that there is no need for a road link, in particular because daily flows have decreased. There are fewer people crossing the bridges morning and evening, habits have changed. They spread out their trips throughout the day,” said the Minister’s press attaché, Maxime Roy.
However, the idea of a tunnel intended for public transport will still be present in the next version of the plan.
The news, first rumored by the Quebec newspaper Tuesday afternoon, left dumb Gilles Lehouillier, mayor of Lévis and big supporter of a third highway link between Chaudière-Appalaches and the national capital.
The Coalition avenir Québec has been fooling the people of Quebec for five years. Today, we see what the word of François Legault is really worth.
The mayor of Quebec, Bruno Marchand, said he refrained from commenting on the file before the official announcement on Thursday. Like his predecessor, Régis Labeaume, Mr. Marchand was never one of the supporters of the highway project, which was to emerge near the Saint-Roch district.
The Coalition avenir Québec had been defending the third link tooth and nail for almost a decade, although most experts in the field of transportation and urban planning maintained that it was a project that would not reduce nothing about traffic congestion in the capital region.
Ten years promoting the project
The idea of a tunnel dedicated to public transport linking the city centers of Quebec and Lévis is still in the plans, insists Mr. Roy, refraining however from specifying the “mode of transport” retained: trams, metrobus , SRB or other.
One thing is certain, the withdrawal of the highway portion of the project will lower the bill… and could even convince the federal government to foot part of the bill.
The CAQ government wants to promote “a modal transfer”, that is to convince more people to abandon their car in favor of the bus or a possible tramway. “Right now, we are far from Montreal in terms of public transit,” notes Mr. Roy, deploring the long routes that Lévis residents have to take to get to the Université de Laval campus, in the borough of Sainte-Foy, for example.
When The duty pointed out to him that a tunnel dedicated to public transit resembled what the Parti Québécois and Québec solidaire were advocating, he retorted that “common sense” dictated this change of direction. “We like to say that we are a pragmatic and not dogmatic party, and we will prove it on Thursday. »
Raised from time to time since the 1960s, the idea of a third link between Quebec and Lévis was relaunched by the Lévis Chamber of Commerce during the 2014 election campaign.
The CAQ quickly rallied to the idea. The deputy for La Peltrie, Éric Caire, had even promised to resign if the construction of the project was not launched during the first CAQ term (2018-2022). The third link had also become the fetish subject of several private radio hosts in the capital, notably on CHOI Radio X and FM93.
Long-awaited studies
Initially, however, supporters of the project wanted the project to be developed east of Quebec, near the borough of Beauport and the municipality of Beaumont, near Lévis. There had also been talk of having the highway pass through Île d’Orléans. Then, in 2020, the CAQ government corrected the situation and proposed that the river be dug between the two city centers instead.
During the election campaign last fall, François Legault’s party pledged to make public as soon as possible the traffic studies that Quebec had commissioned on the third link, but these were long overdue. Asked in Parliament at the end of March about the chances that the tunnel will see the light of day, Prime Minister François Legault had once again left room for doubt. “Listen, we’ll look at the traffic study, then we’ll get back to you with data,” he dropped.
Relaunched on the possibility that the third link is only used by public transport, as proposed by the PQ during the election campaign, Mr. Legault then said that he would wait for the publication of the studies.
During the election campaign, the Prime Minister nevertheless insisted: “For me, it’s very clear, we’re going to move forward [avec le troisième lien]. Like Mr. Lehouillier, the CAQ chief then counted on significant population growth in the coming decades to justify the project, even if the projections of the Institut de la statistique du Québec did not prove him right.
For his part, his candidate in Lévis, Bernard Drainville, had pushed back the questions on the environmental cost of a third highway link. “Electric vehicles are going to take it, more and more [le tunnel]. Just let go of me with the GHGs! he said at a press conference on the shores of the St. Lawrence River.
“Good news” in the eyes of many
Opposition parties in the National Assembly reacted strongly to the news on Tuesday. “The CAQ has been fooling the people of Quebec for five years. Today, we see what the word of François Legault is really worth, ”wrote on Twitter the interim leader of the Quebec Liberal Party, Marc Tanguay.
For his part, the solidarity deputy Étienne Grandmont was delighted with “excellent” news for the people of the region and of all of Quebec. “For the rest, we will judge the tree by its fruits. The capital region deserves a public transit project that meets needs and is supported by experts,” he added.
In interview with The duty, PQ MP Joël Arseneau stressed that the abandonment of the highway link is “good news”. This is similar to “what the PQ had proposed as a commitment for the Quebec region during the last election campaign”, he underlined.
As for the leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec, Éric Duhaime, he said on Facebook that the Legault government had just “betrayed the trust” of the people of Quebec. “Elected on lies, how many CAQ deputies from the Capitale-Nationale and Chaudière-Appalaches will now leave the caucus? he asked.
For their part, the mayors of Montreal and Sherbrooke, Valérie Plante and Évelyne Beaudin, welcomed the abandonment of the idea of a highway tunnel. “A third link entirely dedicated to public transport is a sign that times are changing. Now, across Quebec, we have to start thinking about our mobility differently,” wrote Ms.me Beaudin on Twitter Tuesday evening.
The No to the Third Link coalition, which brings together environmental organizations such as Équiterre, the David Suzuki Foundation, Trajectoire Québec and Vivre en Ville, highlighted “a great victory for the mobilization of the population”.
With Alexander Shields