The publication, last week, of a report on the Eastern REM has generated a lot of comments, above all for the pharaonic cost projections: between 21 and 43 billion dollars, for an underground metro ranging from 22 to 47 km. Unsurprisingly, a majority of voices were raised to decry an overpriced project and demand that it be shelved immediately. How to move forward with such a project with such a low potential number of users?
Almost no one, however, seems to have wondered how, at such a price, cities elsewhere in the world, often much smaller than Montreal, can continue to afford new metros. The answer is simple: relying on competent and experienced teams, they build faster and for much less!
Thus, Toulouse, which inaugurated its first metro line 30 years ago, is currently building its third. This underground line of 27 km and 21 stations, started in 2021 and whose inauguration is planned for 2028, should cost 3.5 billion euros, or around 5.1 billion. Much cheaper, per kilometer, than the current REM, and almost six times cheaper than the evaluation of the Eastern REM! Especially since the costs of the Toulouse metro are quite within the standards of what is observed elsewhere in Europe.
If France is capable of deploying public infrastructures at reasonable costs and respecting its deadlines, why can’t Quebec and Canada do so?
The reasons for this failure are multiple. But it is clear that our public institutions have lost the ability to carry out major projects efficiently and at reasonable costs. And the list of failures continues to grow: seniors’ homes at more than 1 million a room; the Bellechasse garage of the STM at more than 1 billion; composting plants that Montreal fails to complete; and a bypass project in Lac-Mégantic which has not yet started, more than 10 years after the disaster.
Result: in the face of our collective negligence, governments are getting bogged down and shoveling ever more forward investments in infrastructure, which are nevertheless essential. Talk to Laval, which had to abandon its project for a biomethanization center in the face of the explosion of costs.
Act now
However, the achievement of climate objectives coupled with the significant increase in the population expected over the next two decades means that it will be necessary both to significantly increase electricity production, and to strengthen and multiply the networks of transmission and distribution of electricity while densifying cities around heavy public transport infrastructure.
We will therefore have to change our ways of doing things in order to learn – or relearn – to act quickly with high productivity, and thus significantly reduce lead times and costs.
These gains cannot be expected to happen on their own. On the contrary, with each failure, the machine bogs down a little more, adding barriers, standards and constraints that slow down projects and further drive up already exorbitant costs. Instead, we must adopt a voluntary approach, based on best practices abroad, the objective of which is to bring Quebec and Canada back into the ranks of the most effective countries in the design and infrastructure deployment.
Hurry up. Governments already spend billions of dollars each year in the fight against climate change with, unfortunately, results that are far below expectations and promises. Unless there is a strong strategy to reverse the trend, we will continue to lag behind the rest of the world. There is no doubt: we cannot afford to continue down the path of mediocrity, we must act now.