The Quebec City tramway looks more and more like a deflated balloon, arousing more mistrust than excitement. The Legault government, which is keen on its Quebec-Lévis tunnel, should twin the project offices and take the leadership so that the two come true, to redefine the transport axes of the Capitale-Nationale for the next 50 years.
The idea, proposed by the municipal councilor of Démocratie Quebec, Jean Rousseau, is not rejected to the government, on the contrary. A source believes that “in an ideal world, that would even be the goal.”
It should be, because in the meantime, it becomes boring to observe the game of poker tram / third link between the mayor Régis Labeaume and the Caquist government.
Labeaume shot himself in the foot by presenting, just before the BAPE consultations, a tramway project in which he had to pass the chainsaw, to respect the budget envelope of $ 3.3 billion.
Not only is the project less interesting with the abandonment of the trambus and a more limited service to the suburbs, the mayor has also refused to update his ridership projection, which will necessarily suffer from these changes.
As a result, the Legault government, which does not want to blindly approve a project of such magnitude, commissioned its own study. We will have to wait both for the results of this investigation, but also for the conclusion of the BAPE before Quebec gives the go.
The structuring transport project is thus slowed down, and since the future Québec-Lévis tunnel must be anchored there, it is also being delayed.
Whenever we questioned the Minister responsible for the Capitale-Nationale, Geneviève Guilbault, on the progress of the structuring transport project, she simply answered that it is the city’s project.
No longer able to sell it
But Régis Labeaume escaped him. According to a recent survey, carried out during COVID of course, only 40% of the people of Quebec want its realization. Support had already crumbled before the pandemic.
“We tell him, go talk to Quebec radio, but he doesn’t want to know anything. We begin to wonder if we are not going to have to sell it for him, the project ”, confides a government source.
There you are, that is exactly it. The tramway project is funded at 1.8 billion by the government of Quebec. He can’t let it go.
Why not ?
If the Legault government is serious in its ambitions for the Capitale-Nationale, let it unite the two project offices so that they work together and more quickly.
It is said that Régis Labeaume refuses this possibility, because “his” project is more advanced. He also thinks that citizens, even in Quebec, will be disillusioned when they know the costs of the third link. He fears that, if he does not have the green light, and that the contract is not awarded, “his” project will become the subject of a referendum election next year.
Note that in 2017, the citizens of Quebec did not vote for the tram either! The tunnel and the tram must be well secured, to avoid duplication in the underground part, and so that they meet the needs of the people of Quebec.
The CAQ and the City have a duty to make it a success and must find a way to get along. Come on, you are capable!
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