2023-11-03 23:52:31
In Quebec, even if the tramway remains at the idea stage, mechanical excavators have been working since 2020 to prepare for its arrival. Montreal no longer has a monopoly on orange cones: the capital has also seen them grow in its landscape. A look back at this preparatory work which has, to date, cost the public coffers more than $371 million.
These projects, planned in the bygone era when the tram bill still stood at $3.3 billion, have already changed Quebec — and given motorists a foretaste of the obstacles and diversions that should punctuate their travels from 2024, the year when “real” tram work must still begin — until proven otherwise.
The bill now stands at $8.4 billion. This amount includes the beautification of the urban network that the City promises to carry out throughout the 19.3 kilometers of the tramway. The “structuring network” does not only structure mobility: it must lay the foundations of a denser city, less dependent on the automobile and more resilient in the face of climatic hazards.
“When we do a structuring project, it’s not just to serve public transport users,” explained Benoît Carrier, director of the design and integration of the transport system division, to Le Devoir last spring. It also serves as an urban planning tool. »
The tramway was to serve as an opportunity to carry out work that the growth of Quebec would sooner or later make inevitable. “With or without a tramway, if the population continues to grow, we will have to build water and sewer pipes in the central districts,” emphasized Benoît Carrier, “because those of today respond to past needs, and not not to future needs. »
A city of construction sites
To do this, the City is working: in 2023 alone, 284 preparatory projects have been started, mainly to move and refurbish underground infrastructure, bury overhead wires and redesign the roads to give greater importance to cyclists. and pedestrians.
In total, the tramway must result in the refurbishment or burying of 31.5 kilometers of its “urban technical networks”, which include electrical wires, telecommunications cables and natural gas pipes. By the end of 2023, the City expects to have completed 60% of this work.
Quebec also wants to take advantage of this to upgrade and increase the capacity of the 84 kilometers of aqueducts and sewers. To date, it has completed less than 10% of this project.
At the west end of the route, the City has deforested an area of five hectares on the site of the immense tram garage. The decontamination of this former dump made it possible to excavate 41,000 tonnes of residual materials and more than 3,800 tonnes of contaminated soil.
Further east, major preparatory work has been underway since the spring around Laurier Boulevard. The project is expected to last five years and culminate in the construction of a tunnel and an overpass in the area. In 2023, the work will focus mainly on widening the boulevard, building a high-capacity rainwater retention pipe and providing a cross street with a cycle path, additional traffic lanes and a vegetated median.
In anticipation of the current project on Laurier Boulevard, the City completed the widening of Hochelaga Boulevard, parallel to Laurier, over nearly two kilometers in 2022, at a cost of $62 million. A cycle path and more than 10,600 plants, including 400 trees, line this section. Following the tramway, the City has planted more than 9,000 trees to date.
She also began, last summer, to modify the sports fields on the De Rochebelle secondary school campus, where the tram must run. Further east, in the Montcalm district, work has gutted several streets in order to move underground cables and pipes. The City also carried out geotechnical drilling in order to dig the 1.8 kilometer tunnel which will allow the tramway to go down to Lower Town.
The latter has also seen its share of changes over the past three years. As the tramway project provides for the complete pedestrianization of Rue de la Couronne, a construction site modified a parallel lane, Rue Dorchester, to allow traffic in both directions and make it the main axis of circulation between Basse and the Upper Town. A sweep of the site planned for the Saint-Roch exchange hub started in 2019 also made it possible to exhume notable archaeological artifacts.
Government projects
In addition to this field work, there is a vast, more bureaucratic project. The City’s planning requires it to acquire 415 property titles, 90% of which concern the purchase of strips of land or the obtaining of easements. “As of October 22, 2023, writes the City, 410 acquisitions were confirmed […] Of these, 211 were completed. »
The City is not alone in this project. The government itself has undertaken or completed work in preparation for the arrival of the tramway. At the head of the Quebec and Pierre-Laporte bridges, a vast redevelopment overseen by the Ministry of Transport (MTQ) began in the spring. The phase currently being carried out consists of establishing a corridor reserved for Lévis buses on two main roads, namely avenue des Hôtels and boulevard Laurier, to facilitate their arrival to the Sainte-Foy interchange hub provided for in the stride of the tram.
The MTQ also led the reconstruction of the overpass which allows Chemin des Quatre-Bourgeois to span the Henri-IV highway. The latter was reaching the end of its life, but the MTQ took advantage of this project, estimated at $87 million, to “include the development necessary for the structuring public transport network planned by the City of Quebec”.
The platform where the tram must run is also visible in the center of the track. It remains to be seen whether a train will one day use it.
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