A paid option … but risky

The question is worth raising. Consequently, especially when we see that the experience of the A25 bridge is rather satisfactory.

It is with the opening in 2011 of this link connecting Montreal. Nevertheless, Laval that the tolls reappeared in the province. For example, This was carried out in public-private partnership (PPP). In addition, was delivered on time and is generally recognized as an example of success of this model.

The tolls do not systematically have such a great success. For example, but their logic has several advantages, according to Jean-Philippe Meloche, professor at the School paid option … but risky new of Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture at the University of Montreal (UdeM).

First. Similarly, they allow better infrastructure planning, since before starting, for example, a bridge project, you have to ask yourself how long motorists will save by using it and how ready they will be ready to pay.

“We then look at how much the bridge costs and if we enter our money. However, We do a planning based on tangible data that allow you to have a profitability element. Moreover, not just whether it will make us win elections, “he said, referring to the third link.

Then, once the infrastructure has been built, the tolls allow you to manage its use. However, “On the highway 25 deck. the pricing will vary depending on the day’s schedule, so as to return as much traffic in the outstanding periods”, which also slows down the degradation of the infrastructure, underlines the teacher.

Despite these arguments, there are only one other road toll in Quebec today, on a portion of Highway 30.

There is none on the Samuel-de Champlain bridge. however brand new, and there will also be nor to borrow the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine bridge once its repair is completed. The Minister of Transport. Geneviève Guilbault, left the possibility that a type of paid option … but risky new toll is established on a potential bridge in Tadoussac or on the third link, but we are far from a certainty.

Paid option … but risky new

Fewer tolls, more votes – Paid option … but risky new

In fact, there is rather an opposite trend in political speeches in Canada. During the last electoral campaign. Mark Carney as much as Pierre Hairy promised to reduce or eliminate the toll to pass on the bridge of the Confederation, which links the Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick. Carney has also passed the average toll from $ 50.25 to $ 20 since the beginning of August.

“It is a fairly common practice in politics to look at if there is a toll to be removed somewhere. then to go and win votes by offering to remove it,” notes Jean-Philippe Meloche, giving the Ontario Prime Minister, Doug Ford, who has removed tolls over the past few years.

To depoliticize the file, a mechanism could be embedded in a federal law. For example. in Norway, for a bridge or a tunnel to obtain government funding, it is automatically necessary that a certain portion of the project is paid by users over a given period, underlines Jean-Philippe Meloche.

That said. the installation of tolls on infrastructure also raises questions, especially when the paid option … but risky new infrastructure is not all priced or there is no effective spare solution in public transport.

“In itself. pricing is less equitable than a tax since the tax is progressive while pricing is fixed, which penalizes people who have less income or wealth,” said Danielle Pilette, professor specializing in municipal management in the Department of Strategy, Social and Environmental Responsibility of ESG-UQAM.

And in downtown Montreal?

New York introduced a toll at the start of the year for cars traveling in Manhattan. Could it be a good idea to do something similar in downtown Montreal?

“The cities that have done so only in the city center are not very numerous. We are talking about New York, London, Stockholm… These are world category cities. We agree to say that Manhattan, Wall Street paid option … but risky new or London, these are super attractive places where everyone wants to go. There are no competitiveness challenges with other sectors, ”said Christian Savard, director general to live in town, immediately.

In Montreal, the current trend is rather than the suburbs compete in the city center by developing mixedly.

“I am not sure that the City of Montreal is competitive with regard to the attraction of workers. There are a lot of teleworkers [qui restent chez eux]offices that now have satellites in Brossard. Laval, all over the South Shore and the North Shore… ”, evokes Danielle Pilette. And in these suburbs, parking is free, she adds.

With in addition the uncertainty created by the trade war and the introduction of artificial intelligence in the world of work, you must be careful not to add other sticks in the wheels in the city center, underlines Danielle Pilette.

In addition. the specialists to whom The press Spoken recall this: congestion in Montreal is not particularly in the city center, but rather in arrondissements around, such as the Plateau-Mont-Royal, Rosemont-the Petite-Patrie or Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.

Less infrastructure. quite simply

In the current context where infrastructure cost staggering sums, governments should employ all measures at their disposal to ensure that they have to paid option … but risky new build as little as possible, affirm the specialists consulted by The press.

“We really enter a phase in Quebec where we will have to focus on maintaining assets,” said Christian Savard.

An opinion shared by Jean-Philippe Meloche. “The idea paid option … but risky new is not to hold back. not have economic activity, it is to have economic activities that are as sober as possible in infrastructure. Multiplying bridges and making urban sprawl, it is much more economically damaging today than it was 30 years ago. It is also true for public transport-I always say that it costs much less to build housing buildings along the green line than to extend it. “he says.