A portion of the road work scheduled to be completed this fall on the four-lane section of Highway 148 in Luskville has been pushed until next spring due to budgetary restrictions at the provincial level.
Because the long-awaited highway repairs were already scheduled to last until Dec. 2025, Quebec’s Ministry of Transport (MTQ) decided to reschedule the remainder of this year’s work until the spring of 2025.
This means for now, the contractor hired to do the work will repave the east-bound section of the highway, and then pack up their crew until next year.
“The contracts are still in place, this is just a temporary suspension of the work,” Marie-Josée Audet, spokesperson for MTQ’s Outaouais office, told THE EQUITY in French.
She explained unforeseen developments in other projects in the region ate up more of the year’s total budget than they had been designated. This meant the MTQ had to cut some projects short to respect their budget allocation.
“They got authorization in late August to start, and by mid-September they were told, ‘Stop everything, put it back.’ It’s a complete and utter mess,” said Pontiac MNA André Fortin.
“They were told by Quebec City they needed to cut some money, and they basically cut everything they could behind the scenes, pushed back some projects that hadn’t been started yet, and still they hadn’t met their objectives in terms of what they needed to cut so they cut projects that had just recently started.”
“It was pretty surprising because we didn’t receive no letter or nothing from the MTQ to let us know it was going to happen,” said Municipality of Pontiac mayor Roger Larose.
He said the highway work has been requested for at least six years, since the new dépanneur was opened at the entrance to the four-lanes and it became clear the highway needed to be adjusted to ensure safe entrance and exit of the business’s parking lot.
“Everything takes time, we understand that. But this project was going on for years. There’s no reason the government didn’t plan the money on that one.”
Audet explained the section of the highway currently under construction will be repaved and restored to a safe condition so it can be reopened for use before the winter.
She said it was too early to tell how this delay would affect the project’s scheduled end-date.
Roadwork on Boulevard des Allumetières in Gatineau has also been delayed due to the same budget limitations, according to a report from Radio-Canada last week.
