2022, the year of “end of the crisis” for the STM

Despite the deficits, the threats of cuts, the building sites that are multiplying and the users who are slow to return, the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) is staying the course. As workers gradually begin to return to the office, the organization is preparing for its comeback, envisioning 2022 as “the year of recovery and the end of the crisis”.

Henri Ouellette-Vézina
Press

“Right now, we’re at about 58% of our usual ridership. Since September, we have taken almost 10%, which is very encouraging. We expect to fall back to 85-90% of the number of pre-pandemic users by the end of 2022 ”, explains to Press the general manager of the company, Luc Tremblay.

He says the return to the civil servants’ office, which began on Monday, will be “crucial”. “That’s why we absolutely want to have more help to get through. If we set out to go back and reduce services, we would put the brakes on and we would risk losing a lot of achievements that have taken years to seek, ”argues the CEO of the STM, who still deals with a deficit of 62 million.

In mid-October, Luc Tremblay sounded the alarm in the media, saying that without additional financial assistance by next year, the transport company could have to make service cuts “of up to 30% in the metro in 2022 ”. Without revealing its cards, Quebec has promised to come to the aid of the operators, saying that it wants to avoid touching the service at all costs. “Discussions are underway, it’s positive. In the economic update on November 25, things should be announced to help us, ”says Tremblay.

Open the electrification machine

Among the major projects for next year, there is the launch of the “second phase” of the electrification of the STM bus fleet. “We have 2100 buses, and our goal is to have practically finished [leur électrification] at the turn of 2030. Then, the cascade per year will depend on the speed at which we will be able to convert our transport centers, ”says the director.

His group has already ordered 30 New Flyer electric buses with long range and slow charging, better suited to the reality of Montreal. “We are testing them. But all this is good. It means that the technology is mature, that we are able to move forward. In 2022, we will open the machine, ”said Mr. Tremblay.

Starting in 2025, the STM intends to launch more massive purchases of electric buses. “For that, we have to transform our nine transport centers, so install chargers in unsuitable premises. It takes a lot of demolition and construction. The challenge is that we cannot convert all our centers at the same time, because they are also used to repair and store our buses. There is a whole sequence to plan, ”says the executive.

49 hybrid buses are still missing out of the 300 ordered by the Plante administration in the last mandate. The vehicles are expected to arrive by August 2022.

A blue line, reserved lanes

Even if Quebec expressed in April its impatience with an “unacceptable” increase in costs related to the extension of the blue line, the STM assures him: everything is going as planned. “We are doing the business case and we are already digging in certain places, in particular the pedestrian tunnel that will link the SRB Pie-IX. All of this will accelerate in 2022, ”promises Luc Tremblay.

On the road network, the transport company mainly intends to rely on reserved lanes; the declared objective is moreover to increase the proportion of bus trips in Montreal in reserved lanes from 24% to 70% by 2025. “There is a lot of appetite. These dedicated lanes are inexpensive, relatively easy to do, and are 100% government funded. They will proliferate, ”says Tremblay.

He also confided that the enthusiasm of the Plante administration had something to do with it, Projet Montréal having undertaken a campaign to set up a “metrobus” with reserved lanes on Boulevard Henri-Bourassa, on the same principle as the SRB Pie-IX.

“Not sexy, but necessary”

For the expert in transport planning at the University of Montreal Pierre Barrieau, the STM “has a lot of things to do that are not sexy, but which are necessary”. “The shift towards electrification, the modernization of garages, these are things whose impact we will not see tomorrow morning, so the challenge is to have the required financing anyway,” he observes.

“The most fundamental job is to make the smallest possible service cuts. There will certainly be optimizations, but the service must be preserved. It is all well and good that the Prime Minister is saying that there will be no cuts, but the money must follow, ”reasoned the specialist as well.

The latter also calls for “finding ways to retain users by implementing innovative measures”, including “adapted rates such as passes two or three days a week on a monthly basis”, a reflection that is currently leading the ‘Regional metropolitan transport authority (ARTM).

Gradual return to the metro: more riders, but also more expectations

The metro is gradually regaining its usual ridership in Montreal, without however returning to the level before the pandemic. It will take months, even years, before a real return to normal. Until then, daily users will benefit from this in-between, but fear the return of the “sardine class”.

“It seems that public transit adapts a little less well to the fact that people are coming back. Many people moved away to the territory during the pandemic, but today they do not have more options to come to Montreal more easily. It is not yet sufficient, it takes too long, ”says Alex Grenier, a musician who lives in Laval, when he leaves the Berri-UQAM station.

He regularly goes downtown for music lessons, and says he finds the car even more beneficial in many ways. “If I got out of my house by car, it wouldn’t take me more than half an hour, but there, with the bus and the metro, it takes me at least double, sometimes even triple. It is not yet super interesting, and honestly, I understand the people who still want to take their car ”, analyzes Mr. Grenier.

For students at Cégep du Vieux Montréal Kiana Whittaker and Baya Morissette, the metro is synonymous with everyday life to get to school.

“It’s always fun to hear new projects,” adds Kiana Whittaker, who lives on the South Shore, speaking of the Metropolitan Express Network (REM). For young people like us who often use public transit, it’s great, but we are also very anxious to see it for real, to see it happen. ”

Schedules to be respected

Gilles Rousseau has been an equipment maintenance attendant for 27 years at the Société de transport de Montréal (STM). “I work in the metro,” he laughs. I never stopped during this whole pandemic. And there, I can tell you that it has resumed, people are more numerous. But we don’t feel any more pressure. ”

But for the teacher Mohamed Benkhay, it is the technical problems that must above all be corrected. “I have my car, I have schedules to respect. And if there was parking here, I wouldn’t have come by metro, because of the delays. This very morning, I had 10 students who were late because of the metro. Usually things are going well, but these little glitches are still there, ”he says.

Last Thursday, a few days before the gradual return of officials to the office, the metro service was interrupted on three lines due to the release of smoke. “I know that sometimes it’s not the STM’s fault, but it affects us all the same. I do an hour and a half on the way there and an hour and a half on the way back every day in the metro, ”says the teacher, who lives in the Viauville area, in the east of Montreal.

Others have a more positive experience, such as Couri Catéa, who travels regularly to the city center from the Côte-Vertu station, where she leaves her car to “relax”. “We don’t worry about parking lots, about construction work. I park my car next to the metro from where I come from and it relaxes me, it relieves me. I lived in Dubai for two years and honestly, since I came back, I found that there was a lot of improvement in public transport, ”she says.

“I’m happy, because it’s not yet too congested, in any case, less than before. And that’s fine with me, because I’m still a little afraid of this virus, ”concludes M.^me Catea.