One of the studies that Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault refers to to justify abandoning the third motorway link project clearly contradicts her on the impact of telework.
“The Ministry believes that it would be reasonable to conclude that telework has little impact on road traffic and local public transport,” concludes the Perspectives of the Impact of Telework on Demand study. for intervention” of the Ministry of Transport from March 2023.
Its authors write in black and white that the impact of teleworking does not justify abandoning the project in its previous version. “The hypothesis maintained is that the outcome of these last few years will not lead to questioning the need for an intervention to create a new link between Quebec and Lévis.”
The ministry’s analysis suggests that traffic flows on the Pierre Laporte bridge “do not allow the conclusion” that travel habits are “materially different from what we were able to observe before the pandemic”.
long-term problem
Finally, the authors point out that it is necessary to rely on longer-term data to reflect large infrastructure projects.
The study in question is part of the documents the government posted online Thursday morning to support its decisions in the third Quebec-Lévis link file.
On Thursday morning, Minister Geneviève Guilbault reiterated to journalists that the reason her government had to reject the highway component of the $6.5 billion project was the increase in teleworking and changing driving habits.
“This project was once necessary, but the three-year pandemic has changed our lives so much that in a factual and empirical way we have no choice but to trust the numbers we have today,” she said.
The minister also mentioned that she put thousands of pages of new documents online and invited journalists to consult them to understand what motivated her decision. “Those who read it will see that there is a bit of logic behind it.”
When asked about the issue, Ms Guilbault’s office replied that the government had relied “on all the studies, not individually” and denied that there was a contradiction as the study suggested the idea of a link reserved for public transport , do not question .
However, the study in question does not address such a possibility and is based on the original project with a road tube.