This image depicts what the tramway line is expected to look like in the Saint-Roch sector of Lower Town.

Image from Ville de Québec

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Buoyed by a unanimous vote of support from the National Assembly and the signing of a contract for infrastructure work on a key stretch of the system, the mayor of Quebec City has issued a detailed update on the project’s progress to date.

In a Sept. 21 statement, Mayor Bruno Marchand said, “We have been talking about the tramway as a project for years, but we forget to say that it is already becoming a reality every day. This is a project that is already stimulating the region’s economy and will help accelerate our city’s preparation for climate change.”

The statement noted more than $341 million has been spent since 2020 on planning and preparatory work. “These amounts are part of activities authorized by the government for a total of $924.6 million,” the statement said.

The latest contract signing is for $12 million to Stantec, a Montreal-based engineering services company, to design and plan the shift of municipal infrastructure and utility networks – natural gas, electricity, cable and phone lines – along a four-kilometre stretch of Boul. René-Lévesque, from the eastern limit of the Université Laval campus to Ave. Turnbull.

Two of the three major partners in the project have already been chosen – Alstom for the rolling stock and maintenance, and CSiT for the centralized technical management of the various operating systems.

The third and largest contract is for the construction of much of the actual tramway instructure. The two bidders are expected to submit their proposal by the Nov. 2 deadline. The city has said if it does not like the proposals it will undertake much of the work itself with in-house expertise.

Once the amount of the infrastructure contract is known, city officials say they will be able to calculate the revised overall cost of the project, estimated at $3.3 billion when the initial version of the plan was first announced in 2018. Accounting for delays and inflation, the cost is expected to be well beyond $4 billion.

Part of the “reality” to which the mayor referred is the “major achievement” of the completion, by the end of the year, of an estimated 60 per cent of the transfer of technical networks on either side of the tramway platform. As the statement explained, moving the network will “make it more reliable and avoid service interruptions in the event of a breakdown.”

The soon-to-be-completed work is mostly in the Le Gendre sector, Chemin des Quatre-Bourgeois, Boul. Laurier and the Saint-Roch and Vieux-Limoilou districts.

The city notes, “In addition, these interventions make it possible to bury the overhead wires still present in the routes taken by the tramway while ensuring an upgrade of the infrastructure according to the future development of the city.”

The tramway project also gives the city the opportunity to replace and update some 84 km of water and sewer lines. “These new infrastructures will also meet current environmental standards and will be adapted to forecasts of climate change such as increased precipitation,” the city says. To date, a 10th of such work has been completed.

Reinforcing the “reality” of the tramway project in the face of rising costs and eroding support in polls, Québec Solidaire proposed a motion in the National Assembly Sept. 21 to endorse the scheme. The motion passed unanimously.

In another tramway development, the city announced it is speeding up the process of acquiring properties adjacent to the tramway line. In a Sept. 15 news release, the city said it will be moving to expropriate, where necessary, pieces of private property, 90 per cent of which are partial strips.

To date, the city has come to agreements with owners for some 205 of the 415 parcels it needs. In the release, the mayor said, “The time has now come to complete the acquisitions required for the construction of this essential project for our city. Expropriation is a common legal procedure in large infrastructure projects. It will ensure that we are well placed for carrying out the work.”