Montreal mayor Denis Coderre is worried that the federal government's insistence on having tolls on the replacement for the Champlain Bridge could see them spread to every bridge leading to Montreal.

His fear comes as the federal government reiterated this week that the price of having the federal government pay for the span is to have tolls for users.

"Now you want to to say, 'OK, let's have a toll booth.' We know and you know that if if we start with one, we will go around the whole island," said Coderre.

Meanwhile Quebec's government is pressuring the federal government not to go ahead with tolls on the replacement for the Champlain Bridge, but its pleas are so far falling on deaf ears.

Premier Pauline Marois met one-on-one with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Tuesday, when both were in Montreal to attend a memorial service for Paul Desmarais.

Harper has said several times that without tolls the bridge will not be replaced.

Quebec has also asked that construction and management of the bridge be handled by a joint office, and Ottawa said it will consider that idea.

Provincial transportation minister Sylvain Gaudreault said Tuesday that it should not be up to Ottawa to make a decision on the toll, at which point federal transportation minister Denis Lebel pointed out that the Champlain Bridge is owned operated by the federal government, so Ottawa has the final say on the matter.

Many politicians in Quebec are opposed to tolls, and the minister for Montreal, Jean-Francois Lisée, says Quebecers will continue to explain their point of view.

"Hope springs eternal. We're keeping at it. The mayor [of Montreal] is keeping at it, the mayors of the South Shore are keeping at it. The business associations and certainly the car drivers so, there have been times when we could get through to the federal government and we hope this one will be one of them," said Lisée.

In the past week the federal government announced it has fast-tracked the design and bidding process in order to get the replacement bridge constructed by 2018.

Meanwhile many business owners on the South Shore are worried about the effect tolls would have in deterring Montrealers from crossing the river to shop and dine.

The South Shore Chamber of Commerce says tolls would devastate local businesses.

They ask, rhetorically, if people who live on the island would be willing to pay to cross a bridge and shop on the south shore, and predict that would never happen.