2018: public transit breaks ridership records.
2019: public transit breaks ridership records.
2020: the pandemic puts a brutal brake on this momentum.
2023: Despite the end of travel restrictions, most transit companies have yet to return to pre-pandemic ridership levels. After three years of exceptional budget support, senior levels of government are beginning to hesitate. Is the investment worth it?
After the Ryan reform of the 1990s, and just when we had just regained a real momentum of development between the 10-minute network in Montreal, the REM and the tramway in Quebec, we are experiencing a new crisis in public transport.
However, nothing has changed, or almost. True, public transport is less busy at rush hour. But everyone will tell you: 2019 was also the heyday of the “sardine class”, when it was not uncommon to have to pass one or two metros before being able to get on it. When on hearing shouting, in the bus, “Move backwards! “, we painfully made a little room for new people to embark.
Before the pandemic, public transport was not full: it was overflowing. Their current occupation is probably a better balance than only unsuitable accounting leads us to consider unsatisfactory.
Retain, develop
Today like yesterday, public transport is one of the keys to getting out of our dependence on the car. They have a low energy, environmental and territorial footprint and, conversely, local economic benefits nearly three times greater than those of the automobile industry. It is an essential mode for its inclusiveness, but it is also a remarkably structuring mode, which can and must become a first choice for a growing part of the population.
This is really not the time to let go of public transport, on the contrary. It’s time to build customer loyalty, and to develop to seek out new markets. The cities and states that have made this choice have almost all returned to their pre-pandemic levels of traffic. We propose two strategies to achieve this.
On the one hand, in the short term, you have to bet on frequency, all day long. Specialists have shown it: the most deterrent in public transport is the wait (and the lack of reliability). No need to wait for a bus to overflow to increase the frequency.
Montreal saw the truth with its network every 10 minutes, and it is this target that must be aimed for, on all networks, for a maximum of routes. A good public transport network is a network where you don’t need to look at timetables.
Conversely, reducing supply to absorb deficits would be absolutely counterproductive and lead to a negative spiral.
On the other hand, to be ready for the long term and open up new markets, we must also invest in new structuring projects, including in heavy mode. Current projects – extension of the blue line, REM de l’Ouest, tramway in Québec – are necessary, but not sufficient.
The east and northeast of Montreal must be at least as well served as the west will soon be, with a direct link to downtown. The Gatineau tramway project must materialize. Lévis must finally have a network to match, and why not a direct link with downtown Quebec. Why shouldn’t medium-sized towns each have their own structuring course? And why not connect them with an intercity network worthy of the name?
Everywhere in Quebec, public transport must become attractive and structuring. Let’s double the offer for the next generation!
While the Minister of Transport is in consultation on the financing of mobility and the Climate Summit opens in Montreal, this is the choice that cities and the government must make.
Now is the time to build the transportation network of the future, the one we will need to support, in the coming decades, a lifestyle with a high quality of life and a low environmental footprint. Now is not the time to do less, now is the time to do more. It’s time to get out of the pandemic lethargic state to regain ambition for public transport.