Students from Cégep Édouard-Montpetit in Longueuil who have to cross the river towards the South Shore to attend their classes or follow their internship are worried about the repercussions of the work on the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine tunnel which will be set in motion Monday.
With only one lane available in the south direction, and two in the north direction, traffic congestion will be at the rendezvous.
“I go to CEGEP every day and I work part-time during the week. I wonder if I’m going to have to let go of my job, ”says Audrey-Anne Petit, who lives in Repentigny and studies dental hygiene techniques. weekday mornings at Cégep Édouard-Montpetit and generally leaves home around 6:30 a.m. read in a message sent by her clinical coordinator giving her a taste of what to expect.
The student wonders if she will have to find a temporary roof on the South Shore, an option that is far from ideal, and is apprehensive about Monday. She also deplores a lack of communication on the part of the Longueuil CEGEP. Like other students in her situation, she is asking for accommodations: the relocation of internships to different times or the possibility of taking distance learning courses, for example.
I go to CEGEP every day and I work part-time during the week. I wonder if I’ll have to quit my job.
“I called Cégep de Terrebonne in anticipation of the work to find out if I could change to their program,” she says. But they told me no, they don’t take new students mid-program. »
Another student, who lives in Charlemagne and also uses the bridge-tunnel, underlined for her part at the To have to that she was considering missing some early morning classes for the next few weeks while she considered her options.
The CEGEP says it is on the lookout
The director general of cégep Édouard-Montpetit, Sylvain Lambert, points out that the majority of students at the establishment are residents of the South Shore.
The first few weeks could nevertheless prove difficult for some, he concedes, although the situation is then likely to stabilize. “That’s what we want. […] We’re going into standby mode from next week to see how it goes. We will adapt,” he said.
“If that doesn’t happen and we realize that there are different measures to take, we’ll try to see what we can do to help our students,” he adds, emphasizing that the CEGEP staff is also affected and that discontent will therefore quickly be felt if the situation is problematic.
Many buses connect the Longueuil metro station and the Cégep Édouard-Montpetit, he recalls. “We are working closely with the Réseau de transport de Longueuil and we will inform them [si] it generates additional mass,” he points out.
On the other hand, the question of accommodation risks being difficult. “After the pandemic, we are very happy to have brought people home,” says Mr. Lambert about the distance learning option. And the hybrid model, mixing students in the classroom and students at a distance, is not ideal, he believes.
But he promises that his establishment will assess the situation on a case-by-case basis. “We are more in a logic of individual support to see how far we can go,” he said. Each situation will be unique.