The Réseau de transport de la Capitale unites its voice with the STM and in turn rings the alarm bell. “There will be choices to be made,” warns the director general of the RTC, if Quebec does not begin a “serious reflection” to ensure the financing of its public transport.
Unlike its Montreal counterpart, the RTC does not write its 2023 budget in red ink. “We are not in crisis, things are going well,” said Alain Mercier, presenting a balanced budget of $256.3 million on Wednesday. “The RTC has done its homework by restricting its budget to a 2.5% increase. »
However, the balance of this budget is due to emergency aid granted by the government to bail out transport companies weighed down by the pandemic. The program ends next year: the RTC intends to draw $12.6 million from the envelope to balance its accounts.
“The new reality sets in with the end of government aid, warns Mr. Mercier, and serious reflection must be initiated”. The challenges, according to the director general, are on the horizon as the funding of public transit prepares to take bumpy roads.
The bill to electrify the RTC fleet, a project that the government requires it to complete in 2025, will reach nearly half a billion in 2027, according to budget forecasts. “Who is going to help pay for this? The customer ? The municipality ? The government ? “According to Alain Mercier, it is the latter who must pay the bill so as not to compromise a service already damaged by the repercussions of the pandemic.
After smashing all records in 2019, RTC traffic is still affected by the jolts of telework and habits lost during the COVID period. Expectations are modest for 2023: attendance will reach 84% of the pre-pandemic level in 2023, only four percentage points higher than in 2022.
“We are in a situation of flux and the next few years will be difficult”, indicated the general manager from the outset. In the future, according to him, new sources of financing will have to ensure the development of public transport – especially at a time when the economy is decarbonizing and when revenues from the tax on oil must melt away as the car electricity is gaining ground.
Alain Mercier repeats that “choices” will be necessary if Quebec eludes this issue – without ever specifying what sacrifices he is referring to. The STM mentioned a reduction in hours of service to make up for its deficit of $78 million. The director general of the RTC, for his part, suggests that the lack of income could slow down the improvement of public transport, which he considers “the key to solving our environmental problem”.
However, the RTC is pressing the accelerator in 2023 to advance the deployment of its Flexibus, an on-demand transport service, by one year in the western outskirts of the city. As of next year, the populations of Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures and L’Ancienne-Lorette will have access to the blue and yellow vans which transported 88,000 users in 2022 – a result which, adds Alain Mercier, “exceeds [les] expectations”.
The director general is preparing to give way to former PQ deputy Nicolas Girard. After a stint as president of the Agence métropolitaine de transport and in charge of various services within the Société de transport de Laval, he will notably have to pilot the arrival of the tramway in Quebec, a project estimated, for the moment, to nearly $3.9 billion.