The decision to build a single tunnel for public transport is the right one for several reasons. The first is that it is time for the Québec region to be served by modern, high-performance public transit equipment. Montreal has the metro, which crosses the river to serve Longueuil and which crosses the Rivière des Prairies to serve Laval. Who disputes today the usefulness of these two tunnels intended for public transport? Quebec is now a big city and must have public transport systems accordingly. The third inter-river link and the tramway will form the backbone of these systems. Savings on the cost of the third link will make it possible to finance the other components of these systems, namely more buses, park-and-ride lots and lanes reserved for public transit. The third link will be supplied by all the urban and interurban bus networks that will take users there to cross the river. Traffic will increase as people discover its benefits.
The second reason is that with obtaining funding from the federal government, the financial risks are greatly reduced. As an engineer, I was involved a few times in tunnel projects and, in all cases, there were technical difficulties which led to cost overruns, in particular the tunnel which crossed the river in Quebec for the gas main. The current tunnel project will make it possible to know the technical constraints and the construction costs, which will make it possible to better design a third motorway link project by a tunnel or by a bridge if ever this is necessary in the future. The Prime Minister, being an accountant by training and a businessman by profession, he certainly weighed all these reasons to arrive at this good decision.
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