A committee of independent experts is “extremely concerned” by the decline in investments by the Quebec government in the maintenance of our roads, which, according to them, will be clearly insufficient to slow down their degradation.
“Such an investment scenario in maintaining assets for the road network in the coming years could only result in an acceleration of the degradation of the state of the road network”, can be read in a report recently filed on the website of the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility (MTMD).
This document is produced annually by a committee of independent experts responsible for giving its opinion on the programming of road works for the government. It was only made public on Monday, even if it is dated December 2, 2024.
One of its most striking conclusions is that the amounts that Quebec plans to invest by 2034 in the maintenance of the network are in “sharp decrease” compared to what has been invested since 2017, while taking into account inflation.
Less money than before
For example, with an inflation scenario of 3% after 2023, the MTMD intends to invest 2.2 billion on average from 2025 to 2028 while it was investing 2.4 billion on average between 2017 and 2022.
Since Quebec has more and more roads in poor condition (see other text), the committee says it is “extremely concerned” for the future.
“The CEI considers that the number of kilometers provided for work for the next two years will be insufficient to stop the degradation of the roads and that it will take more work to reach the targets set out at the strategic plan,” write the experts.
For Sébastien Trudeau, technical director at Bitume Québec, it is obvious that the documented degradation of the state of the roads proves that we do not put enough money in their interview.
“This is the main cause. It’s mathematics. It would take a few good years of more rigorous, more massive and more constant investments and we would take over quietly. ”
More fragile and more at risk
The maintenance deficit of major structures, such as tunnels and bridges, is so worrying that particularly disturbing measures could multiply to ensure the safety of their users, also warns the committee.
Some are indeed “at risk of requiring, in the more or less close future, load limitation measures, which could have significant negative impacts on the fluidity of traffic and economic activity”, can be read.
Finally, many other “major challenges” await the MTMD in the coming years, including recruitment difficulties and retention of qualified personnel to the ministry, the need to adapt infrastructure to climate change and demographic growth combined with urbanization.
