The arrival of Mobilité Infra Québec (MIQ) is a “rare opportunity to put an end to the car-only approach,” says Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante. However, she believes that if the agency’s mandate is not limited to public transit, it risks drowning “in a vast sea of highway projects.”
“If the government truly believes that public transport is a solution […] “It is not consistent to put future public transport projects on an equal footing with road projects,” argued Mr.me Plant on Wednesday, testifying before the Committee on Transport and the Environment, which is studying this week the bill that would bring MIQ into existence.
Officially, the mandate given to the agency would be to deliver projects more quickly and at a lower cost, but this includes highway extensions as well as tramway, bus or metro projects.
According to Valérie Plante, this formula “risks drowning public transport projects in a large sea of highway projects”, largely “because public transport projects are more complex to develop”, but also because “the needs are more pressing”, she said.
Her administration therefore recommends writing “in black and white” in Bill 61 that the agency will prioritize public transportation. “Mobility Infra Québec offers a rare opportunity to put an end to the all-car policy that has long characterized transportation investments in Quebec,” the mayor persisted.
She then gave the example of the tramway project in eastern Montreal, the most recent version of which is estimated at $18.6 billion, to illustrate her point. “Considering its major impacts, both in terms of mobility and in terms of economic and residential development potential […] “We cannot compare this project to the extension of a motorway that already exists.”
A “unilateral” power
Like the Union des municipalités du Québec (UMQ), a little earlier this week, Valérie Plante also took advantage of her outing to reiterate that the future agency “cannot sweep under the carpet its responsibility to finance the operations of the projects, once they are developed.”
“We are concerned about the agency’s unilateral power, which could determine the contribution of cities to public transport projects,” insisted the mayor, who suggests that the bill integrate operating costs “from the design stage of the projects.”
She deplores that “a large part of the problem” of the current crisis in funding for public transport “is directly the result of the business model of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM), whose transport offering cannibalizes the revenues of other transport companies.”
“First, it requires recurring funding. […] And secondly, we need flexibility,” Mayor Plante illustrated on this subject. She shortly after described as “extremely beneficial” the measure requested in Quebec by the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), expressed Wednesday in The Pressto develop real estate projects around the metro, with developers. Minister Guilbault has also shown openness on this subject.
“In Ontario, the investment ratio is 75% in public transit, and 25% for roads. Here, it’s the opposite. We need to reverse the trend,” she also noted.
Speed up, for real
As for the very mandate of the future agency, which is to accelerate projects, this should be done by using “what already exists, by stopping starting from scratch each time,” said Mr.me Plante. She thus calls on Quebec to “base itself on the studies and planning that already exist for the projects that will be prioritized.”
“The arrival of a new agency must not force a complete restart of the prioritization and planning process which is already well underway by all local stakeholders,” the elected official further stressed.
She came to the defense of the Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM), whose planning role “must remain.” On Tuesday, the Authority warned the Legault government that without its expertise in planning public transit projects, they would be “unnecessarily costly,” poorly put together and poorly integrated into the territory.