The Société de transport de Montréal (STM) will undoubtedly have found the most cynical way to start the year, by abandoning its promise of a bus every ten minutes on its eight lines that still offered this service.
This is indeed a second setback, whereas when it was created in 2010, 31 bus lines were included in the “10 minutes max” network. The drastic drop in traffic due to the pandemic had motivated the first saber cut and, as the network’s traffic rate is still stagnating between 70% and 80% of its pre-pandemic level, it is claimed, we thought it best to chew the bone a little more.
Since Monday, therefore, users must be prepared to wait for their bus a little longer. Not much, we bothered to specify to the STM, maybe two minutes more – we will hardly notice the difference. Given the trend, this still prompts one to wonder whether it would be better to prepare now for new cuts.
The STM says it acted “with a view to sound management of public funds and in accordance with [sa] current financial situation”, by making cuts where it would hurt the least, given the new reality of traffic. Still, it is very difficult not to see in this a new sign of the generalized shrinkage of public transport services in the metropolis, which is completely out of step with the requirements of the time. This is the case to say: “We are moving backwards. »
As we know, the STM is taken by the throat. Last November, it presented a deficit budget of nearly $78 million for 2023. The shortfall is explained by the drop in ridership, combined with an inevitable increase in expenses (inflation, indexation of salaries, new expenses operating costs, maintenance costs for the new Azur trains, the base, what).
The STM’s funding problem, we understand, is structural. It is not new, and the pandemic has made it worse. Except that the decision to reduce services exacerbates the problem. It’s a vicious circle: the drop in ridership justifies the reduction of services which, in turn, favors the drop in ridership.
The principle that if you create services, people will use them holds true. There is a clear, documented link between the accessibility and user-friendliness of services and the modification of people’s transportation habits. An article published in the journal Transportation in October 2021 also looked at the case of the Montreal bus network. By examining the ridership of the city’s bus lines between 2012 and 2017, the researchers concluded that increasing the frequency of trips and the speed of trips is a key factor in increasing ridership.
Of course, these conclusions date from before the pandemic, and it is true that the waves of confinement and the expansion of telework have transformed the mobility habits of citizens. Still, there is something deeply alarming in the fact that it is the individual car that has benefited the most from these transformations. The data indeed indicates that, even if the habits of telecommuting remain, automobile transport has already returned to its pre-pandemic level.
In addition, another more recent article indicates that, while teleworking has encouraged active transportation, for reasons unrelated to work, among citizens residing in areas well served by shops and local services, the automobile for its part, took the lion’s share of these non-work related trips to less well-served areas. In short, instead of taking advantage of the expansion of telecommuting to rethink the city on a more human scale, while promoting active and sustainable transportation, we settled for the status quo and let the car consolidate its reign. .
On Wednesday, a coalition of civil society organizations challenged the Legault government to demand the implementation of a road safety strategy. Cities, it is lamented, are increasingly hostile to pedestrians and vulnerable road users. The increase in automobile violence is another symptom of the same lack of vision; the one who also pushes to let public transport services melt away.
During the presentation of the STM’s deficit budget in November, Minister Geneviève Guilbault, who had just been appointed to Transport and Sustainable Mobility, stated bluntly that these budgetary choices were the responsibility of the municipal administration and that she couldn’t do anything about it. However, obviously, the STM will not be able to pull itself out of the abyss on its own, and the City of Montreal will not be able to make up for the shortfall on its own, at least not indefinitely. The deployment of a real sustainable mobility infrastructure in the metropolis is a project of such magnitude and importance that calls for the support of all levels of government.
It’s obvious: people’s habits are malleable, for better or for worse. It also means that decision-makers and public institutions must have a vision, believe in it and defend it. For the time being, we are doing precisely the opposite by adopting a fatalistic attitude and invoking strictly accountable arguments to mask a lack of political will.