“Collective” is what is at the heart of the thorny issue of public transportation. It is a tool that society uses to promote the transportation of citizens in a way that is both ecological and economical. It is an investment in our future as a sustainable society. It is a choice that we must make collectively, it is therefore a choice that the different levels of government must make for the community. Minister Geneviève Guilbault and the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) cannot stupidly apply a “vision of the 1970s”.
Public transportation is not a simple expense that must be managed while trying to minimize the deficit. We collectively have an obligation to achieve results, because it is a fundamental tool for achieving our national objectives for reducing greenhouse gases (GHG).
At the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine bridge-tunnel, the metropolis’ networks worked together to minimize the impacts of this major closure. Users were practically unanimous: public transportation, when it is well structured and meets their needs, becomes the most attractive option. The rest is simply mathematics: the fact that there are more people on public transport leads to a direct reduction in automobile traffic, the main source of GHGs. Public transportation is therefore a direct tool to help us achieve our national GHG reduction objectives.
As for the economic aspect, the expenditure to maintain and improve transport is almost never questioned for roads, ports or airports. This is a good thing for the transport of goods and people, so it is a “necessary” expense for the economy. Why then, when the time comes to approach public transport, which often aims to transport the greatest number of people to areas of great economic activity, do we seek at all costs a form of profitability or do we refuse? to assume the expense as being a collective reality, a necessity?
The journalist specializing in economics Gérald Fillion recently announced the decision of certain countries to lower the cost of using public transport or even to make it free. Germany, for example, has implemented a rate of $72 per month to travel anywhere in the country by bus, metro or train. It used to be almost $300! The German federal government paid two billion dollars to make this possible. This is a decisive move to stop postponing the reduction in GHG emissions.
The governments of Quebec and Canada should therefore contribute more financially to support public transportation, in order not only to avoid service cuts caused by current deficits, but also to allow the medium and long term development of these structures.
Without forgetting that public transportation is an important source of quality jobs, jobs that the CAQ prides itself on creating. We certainly think of the operators and drivers, but also of all the personnel who maintain, repair and clean the structures and equipment, the personnel who maintain the transport routes, or even the Quebec industries which develop the expertise and tools on which the deployment of our collective transport is based. This is a very important part of our economy that we would benefit from developing. All of this is not an expense for our governments, it is an investment.
Finally, it is absolutely necessary to prevent the different governments from continuing to pass the buck to each other in an attempt to avoid being the one “who will announce the bad news”. They must change their perspective and work together so that public transportation is seen as a long-term solution to many current problems.
Let’s make our collective transport a collective project.