Where parties stand on infrastructure question
Leading up to municipal elections on Nov. 5, we look at influential factors in the Montreal race. Today: infrastructure
For decades, the sorry state of Montreal’s infrastructure was much like the old joke about the weather: Everybody complained about it, but nobody did anything about it.
Today, there’s no question the city is finally moving on repairing its rotting water pipes and crumbling roads. But the complaining hasn’t stopped.
After suffering through another summer and fall trapped in traffic amid a labyrinth of orange cones and detours, Montrealers’ frustrations have shifted from the government’s inaction to how the repairs are being handled.
“We don’t question there’s an infrastructure deficit we must attack,” said Sylvain Ouellet, infrastructure critic for opposition party Projet Montréal. “But we have a lot of criticism of the way in which it was done.
“There’s a problem with the quality of the work and the fact there are almost no inspectors on site,” not to mention the traffic and public security issues caused by construction sites, he said.
With Montreal’s ubiquitous traffic congestion replacing weather as the city’s top conversation starter, it’s no surprise one of Projet Montréal’s earliest and most popular election planks was the promise of better planning to end “monster traffic jams.”
“The management of the construction work in Montreal just makes no sense,” Ouellet said.
In 2013, Montreal’s auditor general issued grave warnings about the conditions of Montreal’s 6,000 kilometres of roads and 9,000 kilometres of water mains and sewage pipes.
Years of neglect that caused minor problems to swell into major ones have left the city “near the point of no return.”
Recurring sinkholes, one of which swallowed a backhoe on Ste-Catherine St. in 2013, helped reinforce the message. In the 1990s, the city spent $8 million a year repairing and updating its water systems as opposed to the $200 million needed, the auditor general said.
The administration of incumbent mayor Denis Coderre responded with an aggressive 10year, $6.9-billion plan.
This year, the city is spending a record $600 million to repair its waterworks.
Result: The percentage of water lost through leakage has dropped from 40 per cent in 2003 to about 27 per cent today, says Lionel Perez, the city’s executive committee member responsible for infrastructure.
The city has invested in detailed analyses to determine the state of its roads and pipes to ensure costefficient repairs and is obtaining data to monitor what work is being done and track the costs.
Crackdowns on the widespread collusion in the construction industry and monitoring of contracts by the city’s new inspector general department means the city is getting more bidders and lower prices, Perez said.
Entrepreneurs who receive poor quality reviews are being barred from bidding. The city has gone from an average of 70 kilometres a year in road repairs to nearly 300 kilometres this year, Perez said.
“After a couple years of all these investments people are noticing the results and starting to see the tide is turning,” Perez said.
Frustration with traffic issues is understandable, he said, but with 400 to 500 work sites annually in the city — many of them organized by provincial or federal authorities — the boroughs or the private sector, some disruption is inevitable, he said.
Richard Shearmur, a professor with McGill University’s school of urban planning, says Montreal is hamstrung by poor communications and a lack of collaboration with higher levels of government.
“There are three different bodies investing in infrastructure at the same time and they are not always co-ordinated and I think that’s where there are some very real problems with infrastructure work happening right now,” he said.
A continued lack of oversight by independent inspectors, noted by the auditor general and raised during the Charbonneau Commission, is also a serious concern.
“It’s great we’re investing all this money, but are we actually getting value for the money in terms of quality of engineering and materials used?” Shearmur asked. “The whole problem of the Champlain Bridge was due to the quality of the initial construction.”
The city’s contention it has been working closely with business owners and street associations to offset construction-related business disruptions is countered by multitudes of merchants who say they were never consulted, Ouellet said.
Coderre recently told the Montreal Gazette the city will aid affected merchants with some form of subsidies in its next mandate. The traffic pain should ease considerably by 2020, he said. That’s when work on the Turcot Interchange is to be completed, while the new Champlain Bridge is to be finished in 2018.
“It’s the right thing to do and the responsible thing to do, if not necessarily the popular thing to do, but in the end it will benefit Montrealers,” Perez said.
He rejects accusations of engaging in “electoral paving,” saying the kilometres of surface patching the city has been doing is designed to tide over badly corroded roads slated for major repairs in five to 10 years.
There’s little doubt the level of activity has put pressure on contractor demand and in turn raised prices, said Dany Fougères, a professor of history at the Université du Quebec à Montréal who researched Montreal’s traffic infrastructure.
If it’s any consolation, he said, infrastructure woes and pledges are nothing new.
“Since the foundation of this marvellous country, it has been built on the promise of infrastructure, be it canals or train tracks or gas lighting,” he said.
“When they promise to solve a problem, when they promise a new future, it is always done on the back of infrastructure.”
WHERE THE PARTIES STAND
Équipe Denis Coderre:
Much of the party’s infrastructure platform refers to changes made during its tenure over the last four years, like demolishing the Bonaventure Expressway and replacing it with Robert-Bourassa Blvd. It also cites legacy projects conducted under the banner of Montreal’s 375th anniversary, including covering the Ville Marie Expressway near city hall (still ongoing) and rebuilding Viger Square (still ongoing). Future plans include:
Continued investment to upgrade 5,100 kilometres of roads and water pipelines over the next 10 years, while improving practices to limit inconveniences and business disruptions;
Implementing party’s downtown strategy, which includes increasing transit offerings to the downtown core by 100,000 trips a day; creating four new elementary schools and a high school; adding 1,000 residential units of three or more bedrooms, many of them affordable housing;
Rebuild and redevelop Ste-Catherine St. W. downtown. Projet Montréal:
Promises to reduce construction on streets by ensuring projects that are co-ordinated among all public services;
Establish standards for construction site management to minimize impacts on the local environment and ensure the safety of citizens;
Modify tenders to ensure work sites are not left without workers for several days;
Take into account respect for deadlines, quality of work and reduction of work site nuisances in evaluating the performance of managers;
Accelerate repair of water-related infrastructure;
Aim to eliminate sewer overflows into the St. Lawrence River.