Mentioned several times in recent years, the prospect of imposing per-kilometre pricing in the greater Montreal area to increase the participation of motorists in the financing of public transit will be the subject of a study in the coming months, even if the Legault government rejects the idea of ”raising the tax burden of Quebecers”.
For more than five years, the Montreal Metropolitan Community (CMM) has seen a decline in revenue from gasoline taxes of 0.6% per year, in a context of increasing vehicle electrification. This situation has led to a gradual decrease in motorists’ contribution to the financing of public transit operations, reaching a low of approximately 5% in recent years. Conversely, the share assumed by the municipalities of the region continues to increase.
In order to reverse this trend, the CMM mentioned in February 2019, in a report written by its Transport Commission, a series of measures aimed at reducing the contribution of motorists to the financing of public transport to approximately 8.1%, here 2028. Part of the lot was the idea of establishing a pricing system on the road networks that would generate $600 to $800 million annually starting in 2028.
Three and a half years later, the CMM announced Thursday that it will launch, at the beginning of November, a call for tenders to find a consultant who will conduct a feasibility study on the potential implementation of a pricing system kilometers in the greater Montreal area.
“I would say that we are taking an additional step because the study that we are asking a consultant to do is not intended to describe what constitutes kilometer pricing, its advantages and its disadvantages. We rather want the consultant to design a system that we could implement in the short term,” explains the To have to CMM metropolitan transport team leader Michel Auclair on Thursday.
This study will, among other things, address the terms and conditions applicable to a kilometer pricing system, the technological choices available, the management structure to be put in place as well as the financial, economic and environmental impacts that such a project would have in the metropolitan area. .
The firm will also have to determine which proposal among the scenarios studied would be the most relevant for the Montreal region. A breakdown of the implementation costs and revenues that such a system would provide will also be provided to the CMM. The latter plans that this study will be initiated in January so that its results are known in August 2023.
” Once [cette étude] going to be in the public square, we hope that it will make the decision-makers involved in collective mobility and sustainable development in general think, ”adds Mr. Auclair.
Frosty reception in Quebec
The CMM, says Mr. Auclair, would like such a system to be implemented on the roads of the region “as soon as possible”. However, it is too early to know if this study will be followed by a pilot project in the region, since such an initiative will first have to obtain the stamp of approval from Quebec.
“Obviously, interventions and modifications to the legislative framework for the presentation of such a system would be necessary and the government is responsible for the decisions that will be made at this level,” indicates Michel Auclair.
However, although kilometer pricing is one of the options recently analyzed by the Quebec Ministry of Transport to compensate for the drop in revenue from gasoline taxes, the CMM’s proposal received a cold reception from of the Legault government, Thursday. “The Minister repeated it last week: there is no question of increasing the tax burden on Quebecers,” declared the To have to Claudia Loupret, press secretary to François Bonnardel, Minister of Transport during François Legault’s first term.
However, the implementation of such a fee would not necessarily imply the addition of a new tax. Conversely, it could replace the existing ones applying to motorists. This is what CAA-Quebec and the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal have proposed in recent years as part of the Working Group on Mobility Funding led by Quebec.
“I understand the ideology that we don’t want to increase taxes, but we can replace one tax with another”, summarizes the professor in the department of urban and tourism studies at the University of Quebec in Montreal, Florence Junca. -Adenot, who takes a keen interest in the challenges of funding public transit.
Social acceptability
The reaction of the Legault government to this approach by the CMM reminds us of the main challenge facing the idea of setting up a kilometer pricing system: that of social acceptability. In Belgium, for example, pilot projects held in 2014 and 2016 encountered failures and raised numerous criticisms in the population.
These attempts have, however, enabled Brussels to refine its management of this initiative to arrive in recent months with the creation of an intelligent application called SmartMove. This makes it possible to calculate the duration of each motorist’s journey in the capital and then price it, in the hope of combating road congestion by promoting increased use of public transport.
“At a time of climate change, when everyone agrees on the importance of taking strong action, a consensus on the principle of per-kilometre pricing is emerging among public transit partners. We now have to find the best way to implement it and this feasibility study is the step that will allow us to get there,” CMM President Valérie Plante responded in a press release on Thursday. According to her, public transit “needs major investments to ensure its development, operation and maintenance,” and a greater contribution from motorists is necessary in this regard.