Is the Legault government seeking to regain control of public transport planning in the Montreal region?
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
The question is valid.
On Wednesday, the Minister of Transport, François Bonnardel, tabled a very harsh report concerning the Regional Metropolitan Transport Authority (ARTM).
As required by law, this report aimed to take stock of the public transport planning and coordination body, five years after its creation. Remember that the Couillard government had created the ARTM to depoliticize the planning of public transport in the greater Montreal area.
However, the observation on the performance of the ARTM is far from positive: abrupt management, lack of transparency, interference in the operations of transport companies, opacity of the budgetary process, poor collaboration with partners… the criticisms are harsh.
The authors of the report, however, commend the cleanup that the ARTM has carried out in the some 700 transit tickets that existed in the greater Montreal area. On this point, she can say “mission accomplished”, even if some South Shore users find it hard to digest the $5.25 they will have to pay to take the metro at the Longueuil–Université-de-Sherbrooke station.
This report comes at a bad time for the ARTM. The organization must oversee the planning of the major public transit project for eastern Montreal following the withdrawal of the Caisse de depot et placement du Québec and its eastern REM project.
Will this poor evaluation of the ARTM’s performance be the excuse given by the Minister of Transport to take the reins of this major project? Minister Bonnardel declared that he was giving the ARTM a few weeks to adjust, otherwise he would not hesitate to “roll heads…. »
True, the ARTM must rectify the situation and take note of the report, which it did on Wednesday. It must also assume its leadership. It is not for nothing that some people call it “authority without authority”. The organization is struggling to establish itself.
That said, it was never made easy for him. Shortly after its creation, the Couillard government granted extraordinary powers to the Caisse de depot, which developed its West REM without regard for the ARTM, which had no choice but to watch the train go by. .
Then the Legault government continued to trample on the authority of the ARTM by entrusting CDPQ Infra with the REM East and South Shore projects. Without government recognition, it was very difficult for the organization to assume any leadership.
As if that weren’t enough, the pandemic hit, with its catastrophic impacts on public transit ridership and funding.
Fortunately, the authors of the report recognize these two major obstacles to the functioning of the ARTM.
Does this mean that without the REM and COVID-19, the ARTM would have deserved a perfect score?
Absolutely not.
We will only remember its strategic development plan, a long list totaling 57 billion dollars of projects without any priorities. The ministry had sent the ARTM back to its drawing board, with good reason.
That day, the ARTM failed to demonstrate that it had its files well in hand and a vision to articulate them.
In the wake of the report from the Ministère des Transports, the ARTM must therefore review its mode of operation, improve its collaboration with transport companies, and acquire the necessary expertise to better plan its projects.
The ball is in her court and she must act quickly.
But this report should not be used as an excuse for the government to interfere more in decisions concerning public transit in the Montreal region.
It is important to develop projects based on the needs of users and the reduction of everything to the car, not on electoral motivations.
The responsibility for planning the future structuring transportation project for the east end of Montreal must therefore fall to the ARTM, in collaboration with the City, the STM and the Ministère des Transports.
These are wagons that we want to see rolling, not heads…