Leaving the railway line in Lac-Mégantic was to seal the healing of the inhabitants. Ten years later, the slow construction of the “bypass” drags on like a wound that is slow to close.
In 2013, Robert Bellefleur was determined to get trains out of his city. He multiplied the steps, going so far as to have his petition signed by Justin Trudeau himself. Today, the world is upside down. He now lists all the reasons explaining why the bypass is not a good solution for Lac-Mégantic.
“We did not know the implications,” he says in front of his open tablet on the plan of the three routes studied by Ottawa.
“You see the route here, the route they chose, it’s the shortest and the least expensive. Except that the objective of this project is “social reconstruction”, to use their words. It seems to me that with that as your objective, you are not basing yourself on technical data. They imposed it as if it were a normal project. »
Rather than crossing downtown Lac-Mégantic, the new route will cross its industrial park. “Our industrial park is at the mercy of the railway company,” laments Mr. Bellefleur, spokesperson for the Coalition of Citizens and Organizations Committed to Rail Safety in Lac-Mégantic.
His support for the bypass disappeared when he learned that Canadian Pacific (CP) was to become the owner of the new railway. This king of rail will gain in productivity to the detriment of the safety of residents, he says.
Indeed, on this brand new track, CP trains will be able to travel at 65 km/h rather than the current limit of 20 km/h. The length of convoys will also increase. From less than a hundred, the number of wagons a locomotive can pull at once will increase to several hundred. “We’re going to have ultratrains in Mégantic,” said Robert Bellefleur. Will this bypass be built for the CP or for the population? »
A “travel” path
The project is moving forward “because it is a request from us, from Quebecers, from Canadians,” replied the federal Minister of Transport, Omar Alghabra, in an interview with the Duty. “It’s not a request from the company. The company, as far as it is concerned, can continue to use the path that is already there. »
The increase in train length and speed is part of the “design” of the future track. “All risks are dealt with by rules. »
Safe or not, the route must above all avoid crossing the city, affirms the minister. “The idea of the bypass not going through Lac-Mégantic is mainly to help the community heal. Having the railway, the train going through Lac-Mégantic, is traumatic. »
Except that on closer inspection, we notice that the future route does not pass very far from the city. The new neighborhoods to come between downtown and the neighboring village of Frontenac will be located on either side of the planned railway line.
The installation of this route in the backyard of others prompts residents of Lac-Mégantic to say that this “bypass” will rather be a “travel route”.
“It’s like the REM on René-Lévesque in Montreal,” says Mr. Bellefleur. The population said no and they went back to their drawing board. Doesn’t that apply to Mégantic? »
Delays that wear out
Among the 42 expropriated from the project, some speak of this bypass as a “second tragedy”. But not all are of this opinion.
Arianne Tremblay is one of those “optimists” ready to compromise. She is co-owner of the only sugar shack in the region. The railway will swallow its parking lot. The trains will run just under the windows of its old building, placed on wooden foundations. “We will continue anyway,” she said, surveying the rural plot called to be amputated.
The great unsaid of this colossal project is the inconsistency of government officials. “They came to see the birds, the trees, but they didn’t come to see the humans,” she says.
Over the course of the negotiations, which have been dragging on for seven years, the proportion of his land ceded has increased from 27% to 49%. Of a “positive” nature, she accepted federal offers in quick succession, without even having seen the final value of the compensation.
Once the last plan was accepted, “they met with us two weeks after the offer”, modifying their requirements a posteriori. “Now they wanted to cut down all my maple trees on the front of my lot. A sugar shack without maples doesn’t really make sense. At one point, enough is enough! »
All this without giving details of what will happen to his well, to his source of drinking water. Ditto for the consequences of the vibrations caused by the hundreds of wagons rolling a stone’s throw from his dining tables. “We don’t even know how well the hut will hold,” says the businesswoman, worried.
His smile and his optimism hide, one suspects, an irritation in the face of a bumpy process. “Money doesn’t buy peace of mind,” she blurts out.
These rants, The duty heard them many times around Lac-Mégantic. Expropriated persons even turn to the courts to stop the expropriation process.
So much uncertainty does nothing to solve the trauma of the Méganticois. As Arianne Tremblay mentions: “We just can’t wait for it to be settled. »
With Boris Proulx