At a time when cities and their transport companies are loudly demanding a reform of their financing methods, the government is pointing out its empty coffers and encouraging private sector contributions to collective mobility.
Several municipalities and prefectures joined forces on Wednesday to denounce “a current model that leads nowhere” in the northern suburbs of Montreal and which represents a “waking nightmare” in Quebec.
“Money is the sinews of war,” the mayor of the metropolis, Valérie Plante, insisted on reminding the parliamentary committee on the creation of the Mobilité Infra Québec agency. “The best governance structure imaginable will never succeed in achieving its objectives without a profound transformation of the financing method.”
Although elected officials are making themselves heard, their wishes seem far from being answered. “We don’t have any money,” said Transport and Sustainable Mobility Minister Geneviève Guilbault on Wednesday morning, referring to the $11 billion deficit in the last budget. “Public transit is on municipal territory and [elles] have a role to play in [leur] financing. You can’t put money in forever without reforming it and sharing the expenses.”
The minister called for “diversifying” the sources of revenue for Quebec’s public transit companies. One promising solution, she said, is private sector involvement in network development – like Airbus, which has set up a shuttle service for its employees between Laval and its Mirabel facilities.
“For me, the private sector’s contribution is an example of new means that are modern, that are innovative, that are a new source of income,” the minister said. “I think it’s good for everyone.”
The northern crown denounces the CAQ’s inaction
The situation rather illustrates the lamentable portrait of mobility in the northern crown of Montreal, according to seven elected officials from the region who traveled to Quebec City on Wednesday to bring their grievances to the Parliament. “When a large company like Airbus has to set up its own shuttle because of the inadequacy of public transportation, decided the mayor of Deux-Montagnes, Denis Martin, there is a problem.”
“Public transport [est] “absolutely ineffective and practically absent on the northern shore,” lamented Robert Morin, the president of the Terrebonne city council, with the result that “every morning, thousands of families lose precious hours in traffic” without the possibility of turning to alternatives other than the car. “The citizens of the northern shore,” Denis Martin again pleaded, “deserve better.”
The elected officials asked Minister Guilbault for “immediate action” and issued a warning to the CAQ, currently dominant in the northern outskirts of Montreal. “Public transportation,” guaranteed Robert Morin, “will be at the heart of the issues in the next by-election in Terrebonne.”
Priority to public transport, demands Montreal
While a concert of elected officials was calling for a review of the current funding model, the study of Bill 61, which would create Mobilité Infra Québec, continued in the National Assembly.
The City of Montreal welcomes the government’s desire to accelerate and reduce the cost of transportation projects. Mayor Valérie Plante is concerned about seeing collective mobility relegated to the back burner of the new structure.
“As currently formulated, the mission of the future agency risks drowning public transport projects in a vast sea of road projects,” the mayor lamented. “It is not consistent to put future public transport projects on an equal footing with road projects.”
Montreal recommended that the precedence of public transport be written “in black and white in Bill 61.”
The mayor also wants Mobilité Infra Québec to take into account the studies and planning work already carried out to avoid “a complete restart of the process.”
“Please,” asked Ms. Plante, “let’s not tell people in the East that they will have to wait another three years to find out what mode of transportation will be implemented in the East of Montreal and when it will happen.”
Finally, Montreal joined the chorus of the municipal world on Wednesday to demand “recurring and stable funding” for collective mobility, recalling in passing that Ontario, the benchmark by which Premier François Legault likes to evaluate Quebec, deploys 75% of its investments in public transit and 25% for its roads.
“Here, it’s the opposite,” criticized the mayor. “We have to reverse the trend.”
With François Carabin