After years of waiting, the rapid bus service (SRB) on Boulevard Pie-IX will largely come into service on Monday, with the exception of two stations, which will only be accessible next year. The Société de transport de Montréal (STM) hopes that this initiative, which will make it possible to connect Montréal more quickly and more frequently from north to south, will attract tens of thousands of additional users to its network.
These are 15 stations of the bus project which will come into service on Monday along an 11-kilometer route linking boulevard Saint-Martin, in the northeast of Laval, to avenue Pierre-De Coubertin, in the Borough of Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.
However, two stations will come into service several months late, in the fall of 2023. These are the Bélanger and Jean-Talon stations. These are notably delayed by preparatory work related to the extension of the blue line of the metro, which provides for the development of a pedestrian tunnel that will connect one of the future metro stations to the SRB Pie-IX.
The SRB Pie-IX, which will pass through four boroughs of Montreal, will offer trips in a reserved lane with priority lights in the center of boulevard Pie-IX. In addition, almost all left turns have been prohibited in this road artery to facilitate the movement of buses, which will board through all doors.
Thus, the travel time between the last station in Montréal-Nord and the one on avenue Pierre-De Coubertin will be 30% faster compared to the current bus service, which currently allows this route to be made. The frequency will also be improved on this axis. Buses will thus run every 4 minutes during peak hours and every 10 minutes during off-peak periods, which will increase the number of bus trips by 40% on weekdays and 50% on weekends. The SRB will also be in operation 24 hours a day on weekdays and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends.
Traffic
Initial estimates called for the SRB Pie-IX to serve 70,000 passengers. However, these have been revised downwards due to the pandemic, which has caused the number of daily passengers on STM buses on this road to drop from 30,000 to 20,000. The transport company still expects to attract tens of thousands of new public transport users on this route, along which half a million people reside.
“You know, on a daily basis, we often talk about projects for which there are obstacles, pitfalls in terms of infrastructure. But today, we have good news: we have a project that is coming to fruition and which will make it possible to serve our citizens from Monday, ”rejoiced Thursday the Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault, in a press conference held nearby. from Boulevard Pie-IX. She also hopes that this new public transit travel option will help alleviate traffic congestion in Montreal, which is particularly affected by the work on the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine bridge-tunnel.
However, diesel-powered articulated buses will run on Pie-IX Boulevard during the first years of commissioning, where STM line 439 buses will run. When these vehicles have reached their end of life, they will be replaced by electric buses, assured the STM in a technical briefing held Thursday in its project office, in Montreal-North.
“Obviously, it’s better for it to be electric, but it’s better for a diesel bus than no bus at all,” commented the solidarity deputy for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Alexandre Leduc.
“A shadow on the board”
The official budget for the project is $523 million, 75% of which is paid for by the Quebec government. However, this invoice excludes a possible extension of the SRB in rue Notre-Dame to the city center. This extension has not been ruled out, but remains under study due to significant cost overruns observed in the analysis of this extension.
“There is unfortunately a shadow on the board,” lamented Thursday Alexandre Leduc, about the putting on hold of the development of an SRB rue Notre-Dame, awaited by the residents of his riding.
“Why doesn’t it go as far as Notre-Dame? It makes no sense, ”added the deputy for Rosemont, Vincent Marissal, on the sidelines of this press conference. The two deputies call on Quebec to make a clear commitment to the realization of this extension, which promises to be costly.
First announced in 2009, the SRB Pie-IX project was initially scheduled to come into service in 2013. However, the project has experienced many delays over the years, during which different electrification scenarios have been analyzed, including the use of to trolleybuses. The start of work on the final version of the project finally took place in 2019, after numerous infrastructure developments carried out by the City to ensure, in particular, the repair of the road and aqueduct network on part of the route. The portion of the project’s budget related to work carried out by Montreal reaches $130 million.
On Thursday, Mayor Valérie Plante also said she wanted lessons to be learned from the SRB Pie-IX saga. She also stressed “the need to develop parallel public transport projects”. “If the extension of the blue line had been done twenty years ago, if we had transport [en commun] rue Notre-Dame, as many plans mentioned, we would already have solutions to support the people of the east “of Montreal, mentioned the elected official.
She called on Quebec and Ottawa — “who have the financial capacity to support us” — to “get out of the paradigm” of carrying out piecemeal public transit projects in the region in order to encourage more motorists to change their travel habits.