After last year’s forced pause in the tramway project, the City of Quebec is accelerating, in its 2025 budget, its investments in preparatory work.
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In its 2025-2034 ten-year capital expenditure program, the City will invest $262 million in 2025 and nearly $90 million in 2026 for this work. These amounts come from the overall envelope of $924.6 million which have already been granted by the Government of Quebec for several years.
In the old tramway project, which was estimated at nearly $4 billion, the City of Quebec’s investment share was 9%. Mayor Marchand has repeated, on several occasions, that there is no question of this share increasing in the financial package of the new version of the tramway which will be managed by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec Infra (CDPQ Infra).
Towards a final agreement
The investment amounts of the various partners of the megaproject will have to be updated once the final agreement between the government of Quebec and CDPQ Infra, on the tramway, has been signed. The deadline for this agreement is December 15.
Only then will we know if the formal start of tramway construction work will really take place in 2025, as Mayor Marchand ardently wishes. On Wednesday, the latter did not want to come forward to say whether this target is realistic. While waiting for the deadline of December 15, he only repeated, with a smile, that “everything is going well”.
Until now, the City of Quebec has only disbursed $10.8 million from its own budget for the tramway. Luc Monty, general manager of the Municipality, maintained that the City will not put more money in until there is a formal agreement with the government and CDPQ Infra on the future.
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