The Federal government has confirmed the new Champlain Bridge will not have any tolls.
Federal Infrastructure Minister Amarjeet Sohl made the promise on Tuesday in a private media interview, and it was later confirmed on Wednesday.
There was no word about the other promise made by Justin Trudeau that the federal government would pay for a light rail line on the bridge, but Quebec's government is hopeful.
Quebec's Infrastructure Minister, Robert Poeti, said there is an agreement to discuss adding a railway.
"I'm not surprised. That government already said for the last year 'we didn't want any kind of tolls on that bridge,' but that new government, they were clear on it during the campaign," said Poeti.
"It's perfect. On the other side they opened a door to work with us on the electric train on the Champlain Bridge so it's great news for all people from Montreal and for Quebec."
Sohl said the government will have to renegotiate the contract with the consortium that includes SNC-Lavalin, ACS Infrastructures, Dragados Canada, and Flatiron Construction, the companies that are going to build the bridge under a public-private partnership and maintain it until 2049.
Louis Antoine Pascal, a spokesperson for SNC-Lavalin, said the company had little to say about changes that could be made to the contract, aside from saying that if the federal government wanted to eliminate tolls it would have to renegotiate the maintenance portion of the contract with the consortium.
“Someone needs to pay for the construction, so if there are no tolls, it's likely that the bill would be picked up by the Government of Canada,” said Craig Townsend of Concordia University’s Department of Urban Planning.
Under the original contract agreed to by the previous federal government, Canada would spend $4.2 billion to have the bridge ready by December 2018, and tolls would have been between $2 and $4 per trip.
The estimate is that the consortium collecting tolls would earn roughly $100 million per year.
While Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre and the South Shore chamber of commerce think it's great news, Townsend, an urban planner, isn’t convinced.
Tolls, he said, might have cut down on car traffic in the city of Montreal.
“Tolls are known to discourage people from using a bridge and would have helped to make public transit more attractive from the South Shore, so this will encourage more people to use their car and probably more sprawl on the South Shore,” he said.
In the meantime, the Bridge Corporation continues to maintain the current Champlain Bridge, spending $100 million per year in both 2015 and 2016.
They say it will last until December 2018 – or later if the new bridge is late.
