A little respite, a lot of grumbling, and a lingering vagueness for the years to come.
This is the state of affairs, following the new agreement on the financing of public transport concluded between Quebec and the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal (CMM) in recent days.
Legault government to wipe out $200 million in transport companies’ deficit by 2025, revealed The Press Wednesday. This is half of what was requested, and nothing has yet been finalized for the following years.1.
Free translation: the “multi-year” financing framework long desired by the Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault, remains theoretical at this stage.
She is aiming for a resolution to this impasse before the end of the summer, but there are so many strings to tie that it seems hard to believe.
I feel like I’m writing the same column for the tenth time, but let me summarize – again – the crux of the matter. Just because it’s talked about often doesn’t mean it’s clear.
The pandemic, as we know, has caused a drop in public transit ridership. Revenues too, by ricochet. Quebec has injected more than 2 billion to bail out the deficits of carriers since the pandemic, but this one-off assistance is coming to an end.
For next year, Quebec will pay 200 million, on a shortfall estimated at 561 million in Greater Montreal. Period.
The Société de transport de Montréal (STM), exo and the others must learn to balance their accounts, repeats Minister Guilbault. Adjust their expenses to reflect their revenues. Find new sources of financing.
These requests have sometimes been made in a sharp manner, but it must be stressed that a good deal of progress has been made in recent months.
Let’s take the question of expenses. The Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM), which establishes the service offer in Greater Montreal, estimates that “optimizations” will be made next year at $26 million. Recurring savings will reach $150 million in 2028, it predicts.
The ARTM is considering a series of measures, mild or draconian, to cut its costs.
Among the easiest to swallow (and implement): a pooling of certain departments in the four Greater Montreal transit companies. For example, information technology and customer service. Quite logical.
Also on the menu: a reorganization of several little-used bus lines. They would be replaced by an “on-demand” service, which would take users directly to termini or metro stations, rather than crisscrossing empty streets.
A service of this type, called Flexibus, has been very successful in Quebec since its launch in 20222.
In the very short term, the ARTM intends to create about ten “metropolitan corridors.” These will allow, for example, a Société de transport de Laval (STL) bus traveling to downtown Montreal to pick up passengers en route on Montreal territory. Which, strangely enough, is currently prohibited.
On the more robust measures side, the ARTM is juggling with the idea of a total or partial merger of the four metropolitan transporters (STM, STL, RTL and exo). This scenario comes from an analysis by the firm Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton3.
It won’t happen tomorrow morning, and many doubt the real savings that could result from it. But every stone is worth turning over to make efficiency gains.
Because yes, reducing certain expenses seems entirely justified. All the more so in light of the cases of excess that have recently come to light, such as the purchase of 18 Mustang Mach-Es for $65,000 by the STM, or this $46,000 party organized by the RTL4.
That’s for the expense column. There has also been some movement – forced – on the income diversification front in recent months.
Quebec asked cities to use the taxing powers granted to them, and that is what the CMM did, reluctantly, at the end of May. It will increase the registration tax in Greater Montreal from $59 to $150.
The increase will add $193 million to the region’s public transit funding next year, which will cover more than a third of the projected deficit.
The issue is still going down very badly in the suburbs of Montreal. The CMM is made up of 82 cities, and several municipalities believe that they will not have better transportation services, even if their citizens will pay more.
I spoke of grumbling at the beginning of the column, and that’s an understatement. It’s going to continue to rage. But the effect is there: these sums will go directly to public transport.
The 2025 financial package, wrapped up in controversy, will only just allow maintain the service offer, and not to improve it.
If the transport companies go all the way in their (necessary) effort to reduce expenses, Quebec should, it seems to me, return the favor by reinvesting more substantially for the following years.
A minimum to respect its own sustainable mobility policy… which provides for an increase in the service offer of 5% per year until 2030.
1. Read the article “An agreement finally signed, but only for 2025”
2. Read the article “320,000 trips in 2 years: RTC’s Flexibus transport service exceeds expectations” on the RTC website Montreal Journal
3. Read the article “Merger of transport companies on the table”
4. Read the article “Expenses of public transport companies: partywater bottles and influencers »