This image shows what one of the underground stations of the Quebec tramway system would look like.

Image from Ville de Québec

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

The latest poll on Quebec City’s tramway project shows a slight majority of respondents in the central districts the system will serve support the plan.

The Léger poll, conducted between Sept. 28 and Oct. 10, during the high-profile Jean-Talon byelection campaign, sampled some 1,000 residents in various sectors of the city.

The strongest support was in Sainte-Foy–Sillery–Cap-Rouge, at 55 per cent in favour of the project, followed by 51 per cent in La Cité-Limoilou. The least support was in the Haute-Saint-Charles and Les Rivières districts, where only 29 per cent were in favour.

Mayor Bruno Marchand unveiled the poll results at an Oct. 27 news conference at City Hall, with Léger vice-president for the Quebec City region Cyntia Darisse at his side. The mayor said, “Support for the tram continues despite the media whirlwinds, the byelection and the recent statements of opponents. There is a solid core of citizens who support the project, mainly in the neighbourhoods that the tram will pass through.”

Darisse said, “We are talking about 40 per cent support overall, but this rate varies a lot between the districts. This variation between the central districts and those on the outskirts has always been present to this extent in all the other [polls] we have carried out in the past.”

Darisse and the mayor used the 40 per cent figure, which, as several media reports noted, excludes the nine per cent of respondents who had no opinion. With those numbers included, overall support for the tramway drops to 36 per cent.

The poll did find a relatively high rate of familiarity with the tramway project among citizens, with 45 per cent saying they were “familiar enough” with it, and 19 per cent saying they were very familiar.

In a section of the poll asking citizens what topics they would want more information on, the top item was cost (57 per cent) followed by impact on traffic (46 per cent) and location of routes and stations (43 per cent).

The poll comes a few weeks in advance of the expected release of the city’s updated cost estimate for the tramway plan, which is expected to climb significantly due to inflation and delays. The project was originally budgeted at $3.3 billion when it was announced five years ago.

The mayor pointed out that while the level of support for the project may not be as strong as he would like citywide, the tramway does address citizens’ concerns.

“I notice that active and collective mobility is taking more and more [of a] place in the priorities of the citizens of Quebec,” Marchand said. “Our project is ready to move forward and will respond to these needs quickly. More than ever, we need a strong consensus that brings together the economic sector, the community world and the three levels of government. This project will be good for all spheres of our ecosystem in Quebec.”