The government is opening a double door to review its approach to major projects: more collaboration, more competition, etc.
If the government agrees to prioritize the project, this will facilitate the completion of Route 138 at lower costs at both ends of the Côte-Nord region.
Two new laws would promote the rapid and cost-effective completion of the two projects above:
Mobilité Infra Québec (MIQ) Law adopted on December 4, 2024
And
Quebec Public Infrastructure Strategy (SQIP) Law was adopted on October 8, 2024.
These new laws are the result of a collaboration between Ms. Geneviève Guilbault, Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility; Mr. Jonathan Julien, Minister of Infrastructure; Ms. Sonia Lebel, President of the Treasury Board; and Mr. Benoit Charrette, Ministry of the Environment.
The key word in this reorientation of the government is: Collaboration or collaborative mode, which is precisely what the ministers above have done.
Their courage and vision must be commended.
For example, we know that elsewhere in the world bridges are built for less and in shorter time frames, and what’s more, these bridges use the latest technologies to ensure their quality and longevity. The new laws will speed up both the construction of the Tadoussac bridge and the completion of Route 138 on the Basse Côte with its many bridges.
Six points of these laws attract attention and delight the assiduous observer of the issues at the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility:
1) Lighten and make more flexible the regulatory framework and make the bureaucracy more agile to carry out complex infrastructure projects.
The president of the Association of Engineers of the Government of Quebec, Mr. Marc-André Martin, engineer, defines the current issues well: according to an article in the Journal Le Soleil of March 18, 2024, he emphasized that: bureaucracy generates “endless delays”.
“In the past, it took between 2 and 5 years between the decision to build a bridge and the first shovel of earth. Today it takes between 7 and 14 years. It is not normal that, for some works, we are still at the preliminary plans five years after the project’s announcement.“
For the Tadoussac bridge, we are currently talking about a complex project that has been 14 years in the making. Despite more than 50 years of studies, government consent has not yet been given.
We can, therefore, understand that the adoption of the two new laws above seems more than desirable to us and should enable us to move our files forward quickly while significantly reducing the costs and timeframes proposed in the current framework.
The new process proposed through MIQ and SQIP will allow the government to reach out to those who have built similar bridges and speed up the design and construction timeline. In addition, the creation of the Mobilité Infra Québec agency allows projects to be placed on the fast track and avoid internal conflicts within the MTMD. Conflicts that have in the past paralyzed the progress of projects, in the Basse Côte as well as in Tadoussac. This collaborative approach already removes many obstacles to the progress of projects desired by the government.
2) Increase healthy competition when awarding contracts by offering the client the flexibility to approach other provinces or internationally to carry out a quality project under the best conditions, at the best cost and in the shortest possible time. Recent examples of cost overruns and extended deadlines will be much rarer if we directly approach people with the experience and knowledge to minimize execution risks. Currently, the many barriers to competition contribute to the abnormal increase in costs. By avoiding the intermediaries that the current law imposes, international or national experts will have the flexibility to act and the client will benefit from the savings on additional costs currently charged by intermediaries. Opening complex projects to broader competition will make it possible to build better infrastructure at a lower cost and in the shortest possible time.
3) Reduce the time to plan and carry out complex infrastructure projects like the Tadoussac Bridge. We know that elsewhere, it takes 2 years for design and preparation and 4 years for construction rather than 18 to 20 years here today (14 years plus 4 to 6 years). The sum of the elements proposed by these government actions accelerates, simplifies and improves the mechanisms for carrying out these infrastructures. Time is money.
4) Use new methods of project delivery. In particular, the collaborative method (Design/Build/Progressive Contracts) in which all stakeholders participate in all project stages and adjust planning and risk sharing according to their respective skills from start to finish. The government has already awarded such a contract for the roof renovation of the Olympic Stadium. It has also already proposed this method for the 3rd link in Quebec in the call for tenders for a feasibility study published recently. We can even read in the project requirements that “The new alternative, so-called collaborative, production methods offered on the international market must be recommended.”
Among the implementation methods to choose from, we must add the foreseeable benefits of establishing the Mobilité Infra Québec entity.
5) Promote prefabrication. This is another key element to facilitate the completion of quality projects at a reasonable cost and within a reasonable time frame. The MTMD has already completed a few short bridges in this mode, among others, to reconstruct the deck of the Godbout River bridge on Route 138.
Pre-machining suspension bridges with a clear span of over one kilometre with two road lanes and a multi-purpose lane, as required in Tadoussac, allow the most important components to be manufactured in a controlled environment in the factory. Among other things, this optimizes the construction of the deck segments and the preparation of the cables in order to avoid risks on the construction site (winds and storms in the middle of the Saguenay, for example). The prefabricated elements are then delivered to the site by boat and installed in a few weeks rather than several months. The same logic applies to the many bridges planned to complete Route 138 in the Lower Shore. The faster the installation, the more safely the elements are manufactured, the lower the costs, the better the safety for workers on the site, the more the risks are limited, and therefore the better the chances of success.
The example of the construction of the Hardanger or Halogaland bridges in Norway are interesting. The main metal components arrived on site by boat and were installed in a few weeks. First, two large containers are delivered with all the strands that make up each of the two main cables.
These are quickly installed in place. Subsequently, after having completed their anchoring on both sides and installed the hanging cables, the main cables are sheathed to keep them at controlled humidity and thus avoid corrosion. Finally, a few months later, the bridge deck is delivered on-site in 40-meter segments, which are fixed to the hanging cables in 4 or 5 weeks. Prefabrication increases safety for workers on the site by reducing their exposure time to weather and other hazards and providing better product quality.
6) Reduce the costs of major projects: The joint effect of using new delivery methods, a new Strategy (SQIP) and the Société Mobilité Infra Québec makes it easier to:
- to solicit interprovincial and international competition while promoting purchasing in Quebec wherever it is advantageous,
- to ease the bureaucratic exercise, among others, via Mobilité Infra Québec,
- to reduce delays throughout the production process,
- to promote collaboration between all parties involved.
- to use prefabrication wherever possible.
So the Tadoussac bridge project, like that of the completion of the road in Basse-Côte, if they are integrated by the government into the Agence Mobilité Infra Québec, will be on the right track for rapid completion at a better cost in the best conditions.
Of course, there are still challenges since the project that will be presented in the study has high costs, according to Prime Minister Legault. These costs were assessed in the current context; the new laws are a “game changer.”
We can also wonder whether we have considered the counterpart of the savings following the end of the Tadoussac crossing ($65M in 2024, including $22M to pay capital and interest over 30 years for the 2 ferries). If the bridge is financed over 30 years, as are the ferries, in 30 years, we will have saved nearly $2 billion by relocating the multipurpose ferries to another crossing. The new collaborative mode will surely make it possible to optimize the concepts for the access roads and the tunnel via more flexibility and better consultation between designers and builders that will consider the level of traffic on Route 138 in the sector.
If we turn to people who have built bridges and/or tunnels similar to the one required, using the prefabrication method and in a collaborative mode when possible, we will obtain much lower costs, as the Ministry of Infrastructure has found during the construction of buildings in this mode. Reductions of 15% in costs and 25% in completion times have been noted.
Moreover, in a competitive environment, it has been observed that the cost of a bridge can vary almost from one to three times the cost from the results of the last two studies. 1999: $253 million and 2003, $712 million. The benefits of international competition are obvious.
Finally, the arrival of international expertise will enable us to train our young engineers and make them more efficient at national and international levels.
It is becoming crucial to integrate the Tadoussac bridge project under the responsibility of Mobilité Infra Québec in a collaborative manner since it is a complex infrastructure project of an interregional nature, an essential project for the immediate future of the Côte Nord region and eastern Canada.
The government has taken a significant step towards the creation of an essential infrastructure for Quebec: opening up both ends of Route 138 in the region.
This collaborative effort must be applauded!
And move on to the next step before the North Shore workforce is mobilized for decades to build dams and other resource extraction infrastructure. We must remember that the government will allow infrastructure projects if and only if the workforce is available in the region, which can be a real challenge if, for example, Hydro-Québec starts building or improving its dams in the region.