Logically, Minister Geneviève Guilbault will want to change the name of her Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility to return to its former name of Ministry of Highways.
After all, according to the minister, the State’s mission is to “manage the roads” and not public transport. Except no one asks him to decide where bus stops are located. And if the Quebec government has responsibilities such as the environment, mobility and land use planning, it cannot only deal with asphalt.
In fact, we should not be surprised by the minister’s intervention. Because currently, the government’s only long-term vision seems to be to create a transport agency, undoubtedly based on the Santé Québec model, with its own top gun for all hot files.
What seems obvious is that the new agency will not have as a priority an in-depth review of the public transportation financing system, which is no longer viable and which will be less and less so in the coming years.
In fact, transport companies have to live with three crises which have very different origins, but which all have a very harmful combined effect on their finances.
The first is a consequence of the pandemic which has caused a drop in attendance which continues and which is not likely to be reversed in the foreseeable future. To put it simply, telecommuting is here to stay. In many industries, a daily return to traditional workplaces is simply no longer in the cards. We can’t pretend it doesn’t exist. You have to adjust.
If the financing of public transport does not take into account what is a fact of society, we will inevitably sink into what some politicians this week called a “death spiral”: less ridership, therefore less income, therefore reductions in services and even less ridership.
The second challenge is specific to the greater Montreal region and is the commissioning of the REM. According to the City of Montreal, in 2027, “the REM bill will be financed to the tune of $120 million by fare revenue from users previously using other modes of public transportation.”
In other words, the REM will cannibalize the revenues of transport companies. This is not surprising, the law provides that existing bus networks must switch to the REM. For example, there are no longer any buses running on the Samuel-De Champlain Bridge, everything must be diverted to the REM stations. Even if some bus routes would be faster or more convenient for many users.
The REM finds itself in competition rather than complementarity with current public transport networks.
This situation only worsens the death spiral we talked about earlier. The REM should be an addition to the public transport offer. Rather, it has become a competitor to other modes of transport1.
The CAQ government should also have no qualms about reviewing the privileges that have been granted to REM and CDPQ Infra and which are clearly exorbitant. The political error was that of Philippe Couillard who saw the REM as his legacy and who gave the Caisse de dépôt et placement absolutely everything it demanded.
Let us also note the social aspect of the question: the REM (current and under construction) essentially serves the beautiful neighborhoods of the South Shore and the West Island of Montreal. And to finance the REM, transportation companies will possibly be forced to reduce services, often in less advantaged neighborhoods.
Finally, there is the question of insecurity, particularly in the Montreal metro. We no longer count the violent and even armed events, the illegal use of pepper spray or other irritants. Homelessness now requires spending more and more money to ensure safety in the metro.
For an organization that has relatively few resources like the Société de transport de Montréal, this is considerable pressure, both on finances and on personnel. Not to mention that insecurity has an effect on attendance.
Faced with so many challenges, one would have expected the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility to have an ear, if not sympathetic, at least attentive, to the current difficulties of public transport companies.
Instead, they will have been treated to a lesson in petty politics from a government which is going through a difficult time and which feels an urgent need to reconnect with its political base.
It will therefore be the suburbs rather than the central cities, motorists rather than public transport users, the government rather than mayors. In short, roads rather than sustainable mobility.
1. Read the column “Getting Rid of the Cannibal”
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