The main study on which the government relies to justify the Quebec-Lévis tunnel project is “past date”, according to its author, Professor Bruno Massicotte.
Questioned on Wednesday by the media about the absence of new studies produced on the project, Minister François Bonnardel cited three times the study carried out by engineer Bruno Massicotte in 2015 for the former Liberal government, going as far as the waving in front of the media motorcade at some point.
However, according to the principal concerned, this study is downright “outdated”. “My study dates back six years,” says the Polytechnique Montréal professor. “The CAQ has been in power for four years. I’m surprised they don’t come up with a bigger study than that. »
Mr. Massicotte made these remarks Thursday in the wake of the long-awaited update of the tunnel project by the CAQ government.
The study, produced in 2015 and made public in 2016, aimed, he said, to answer only two questions. The government wanted to know if a tunnel was feasible east of Quebec and how much it might cost.
But since then, “at least five routes have been evaluated”, notes the Polytechnique professor, and “many questions remain unanswered”.
Concerns about the soil of Saint-Roch
Mr. Massicotte has many questions in particular about the portion of the tunnel that crosses the Saint-Roch district, whose sand and clay soils are particularly unpredictable.
“Digging a tunnel in that part of the city is not easy. […] When we are going to build the tunnel, the buildings at the top of the tunnel must not collapse,” he says. “You also have to go far enough from the Saint-Charles River so that it doesn’t empty into the tunnel. »
He further points out that the planned tunnel is “very steep”. From the heights of Lévis, it will be necessary to design a significant slope to descend to tens of meters under the river and then go up towards Parliament Hill in Quebec.
Nevertheless, the civil engineering expert believes that the new version of the project of two tunnels is preferable to that of the large tunnel of 19.4 meters wide which had been presented before.
“It’s a better project than the one that was proposed last year, but it can still be improved by a lot. »