Quebec has reversed its decision to rebuild the Turcot interchange with private sector help, and said it will add to the provincial debt to pay for the remaining costs. Transport Minister Julie Boulet made the announcement Friday.
The transport department had said a public private partnership would have saved $100 million, but now says the economy has changed since the initial decision in October 2008 and the savings estimate is no longer realistic.
It was estimated to cost $1.5 billion. Now, that estimate is pegged at as much as $3 billion.
The Turcot interchange is a major traffic artery in Montreal which is used by nearly 300,000 cars daily. The high volume of traffic means the interchange cannot simply be torn down, but must be maintained while a new road way is built.
The reconstruction project was opposed by local residents as some 160 low-income housing units were to be demolished to make way for the new version of the roadway.
Environmentalists were disappointed with the lack of inclusion of public transit.
PPP era over?
CTV Montreal's Quebec City bureau chief John Grant said that the era of PPP's could be over for the Quebec Government.
"Monique Jerome Forget is no longer finance minister, and she was the person in government who was the biggest fan of public-private partnerships and had enormous influence in the government and especially on the premier," Grant said.
He also said the government is in deficit due to the global economic downturn, which has also affected the private partners. They could no longer raise the money to pay for their share and there was concern that they would have to ask for a loan. The government can borrow money more cheaply than private companies can.
Opposition and City of Montreal
Both the City of Montreal and opposition members in the Quebec government have added their voices to the debate.
Montreal's mayor Gerald Tremblay says, via a press release, that Montreal supports the return to "classic" methods of funding the infrastructure project.
"The public-private partnership model offers neither the latitude nor the flexibility necessary to complete a project that is so integral," to Montreal, said Tremblay.
Stephane Bergeron, the transport critic for the Parti Quebecois, slammed the government in a strongly-worded letter and called the PPP "backwards-looking."
"From the start, this idea was unrealistic and stirred up public discontent," he said in a press release. "The result is that we have lost a year when we could have been working with one voice, with local authorities to develop an intelligent, dignified project from the 21st century."
He was also unimpressed that the minister of Transports made the announcement via press release during the annual summer construction holiday. He demanded to know how much money was spent on the project during the past year.
