Transport minister 'confident' he can secure funding for Quebec City tramway

Quebec's Transport Minister François Bonnardel says he's confident he can work out a deal with the City of Montreal to fund Quebec City's tramway project.

Bonnardel tabled a bill at the National Assembly on Thursday to green light the $3.3-billion project. The bill gives power to Quebec City to expropriate and purchase land for the project.

The federal and provincial governments are splitting most of the cost with the municipality, but they're still short $800 million.

Bonnardel is hoping Montreal can dip into some of its federal funding and chip in. The city is due to get most of the $5.2 billion long-term funding from the federal government for public transportation projects.

He said a chunk of that money could be used for Quebec City's tramway.

"I'm confident that we will find a way to get the $800 million missing for Quebec [City]," said Bonnardel.

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante has said she'd like to help out, but that her city could also use the money.

"I know what I would do with that $800 million. I have enough public transit projects to spend every penny," she said.

Still, Bonnardel is confident he can work something out with Montreal. That's even though the province has dismissed Mayor Plante's biggest project — a new pink line extension to the Métro system.

Montreal is getting the bulk of the federal funding because of its size and ridership numbers.

But some say those criteria are a bit off, and they hurt cities like Quebec City that are in dire need of public transit.

François Pepin, a public transit advocate with the group Trajectoire Québec, told CBC News that if there were more infrastructure in Quebec City, perhaps there would be more riders.

"If less people are using transit, then maybe it's a good criteria to say we need to build more transit systems," he said.

Quebec City is looking to have its tramway up and running in 2026.