The Legault government and the mayor of Quebec have welcomed the opening of Ottawa to add high speed to certain segments of a high-frequency train between Quebec and Toronto, but they recall that they still favor a corridor entirely dedicated to high speed.
• Read also: Ottawa opens the door to the TGV between Quebec and Toronto
On Friday morning, the federal Minister of Transport, Omar Alghabra, passing through Montreal, said that Ottawa now wants certain segments of its high-frequency train (TGF) project between Quebec and Toronto to be high-speed rail instead. speed (TGV).
The Quebec Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault, was quick to react, through her cabinet. “We, what we prefer, is a TGV. It’s a great project that the federal government could fund. We will wait for Ottawa to present a more detailed project before commenting further. We added: “We are happy that Ottawa took our preference into account.”
A few minutes earlier, the mayor of Quebec, Bruno Marchand, had also expressed himself in this sense on Twitter. “A great step forward! We’ve been talking about it for months with government ministers and Justin Trudeau. A better Quebec-Toronto corridor opens the door to so many benefits. Our city has everything to gain with a TGV. We want to be part of the solution,” he wrote.
Speed
His cabinet recalled that the mayor has always favored a TGV. By January, he had made little secret of his preference. On the sidelines of a press conference with provincial ministers, he said: My position is a TGV, obviously for reasons of the ability to transport people with a much shorter duration and which favors a modal shift people traveling in a Quebec-Kingston corridor”.
According to Mr. Marchand, several people in the federal government are interested in a TGV.
More details to come…