François Legault said that before a line was drawn under the road component of the third link last spring, the new numbers showed that “peak-hour ridership between Quebec and Lévis fell by half.” That is simply wrong.
I was stunned to hear the statement on Thursday, while the Prime Minister granted an interview to Paul Larocque on the sidelines of his historic $7 billion announcement for Northvolt.
He could have wandered involuntarily, intoxicated by the battery life.
But the next day in Quebec we asked him the question and he stood by his claim.
However, on page 5 of the document “Québec-Lévis Tunnel, a vision for tomorrow’s public transport”, published when the Legault government decided to bury the third link, the 2022 figures only showed a decrease of 16 % two bridges.
Real numbers
That’s nowhere near half of it.
It is written that in 2022 the average annual traffic performance on weekdays during the morning and afternoon peak periods will be 46,500 vehicles for the Pierre Laporte Bridge compared to 55,300 in 2019 and 16,500 vehicles for the Quebec Bridge compared to 19,600 in Year 2019 is .
It doesn’t hold water
Asked to explain, the Prime Minister’s Office claimed that Mr. Legault had relied on figures for the first three months of 2022 that showed average peak-hour ridership on the Quebec Bridge was 67%. compared to the same period in 2019, “i.e. the most recent data we shared when the third link was announced.”
It makes no sense.
Quebec already had the full data for 2022, according to documents released at the time.
And selecting partial data from the Quebec Bridge without taking into account the Pierre Laporte Bridge, where traffic is almost three times higher, is intellectual dishonesty at a high level.
Furthermore, daily throughput has almost returned to pre-pandemic levels since the beginning of 2023.
Not only has François Legault distanced himself from the idea of a third member and put it aside, he now appears to be tackling it to counteract the strong possibility that it will rise from its ashes and haunt him.
But the truth has its rights.
