One of the studies to which the Minister of Transport Geneviève Guilbault refers to justify the abandonment of the third motorway link project clearly contradicts her on the impacts of telework.
“The ministry is of the opinion that it would be reasonable to conclude that teleworking has little impact on traffic on the road network and public transit”, can we read in the conclusion of the study “Perspectives de la “effect of telework on the need for intervention” of the Ministry of Transport of March 2023.
Its authors write in black on white that the effects of teleworking do not justify the abandonment of the project in its previous version. “The hypothesis retained is that the result of these last years will not have the effect of calling into question the need for intervention to create a new link between Quebec and Lévis”.
The authors add that it is necessary to rely on longer-term data to think about major infrastructure projects.
The study in question is part of the documents put online by the government Thursday morning to support its decisions in the file of the third Quebec-Lévis link.
Thursday morning, Minister Geneviève Guilbault repeated to journalists that the reason why her government had to reject the highway component of the $ 6.5 billion project was the growth of telework and changes in the habits of motorists.
“This project was necessary at one time, but the three-year pandemic has changed our lives so much that we have no choice, in a factual and empirical way, to trust the figures we have today. today,” she said.
The Minister also mentioned that she had put thousands of pages of new documents online and invited journalists to consult them to understand what had motivated her decision. “For those who read it, you will see that there is a bit of logic behind that”.
Asked about this, his office replied that the government had relied “on all of the studies, not individually. »
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