Invasive orange cones, crowded subways again, a “worrying” increase in fatal collisions and increasing pressure on Quebec to revise public transit funding. The last week has been an opportunity for Montrealers to remember that there are many challenges when it comes to mobility.
However, it was the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal (CCMM) that certainly hit the hardest, unveiling a shocking study on Thursday in which we learned that in one year, 94% of downtown arteries have been hampered at one time or another. Worse still: more than a quarter of the orange cones in the city center, which are so repugnant to workers and tourists, are said to be “useless”, that is to say “abandoned” or “without purpose”.
The study had the effect of sparking a debate, which the City and the Legault government quickly mastered. The president of the city’s executive committee, Dominique Ollivier, acknowledged that “some problems exist on the construction sites” and that we can do better, but recalled that only 30% of the construction sites fall under the municipal administration.
However, no one at the Ministère des Transports (MTQ) intends to change the signage rules. “There is no change planned. On the other hand, if the City wants to propose changes to the signage standards, we are open to collaborating, ”said the spokesperson for the Ministry, Sarah Bensadoun.
In short, we will see, but that does not allow us to envisage a change of culture in practices, as rightly claimed by the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, Michel Leblanc. It remains to be seen whether these discussions will lead to the creation of a municipal by-law on the dressing and signage of construction zones, which Montreal does not have to date, unlike Toronto and Chicago, in particular.
Crowded subways back
Do you take the metro these days? If so, it is very likely that you will find this feeling (great, let’s face it) of being very stuck in the wagon, a bit like before.
The Société de transport de Montréal (STM) noted an increase in the number of trips of approximately 6% this week compared to last week. “This growth is slightly greater than the growth usually observed during this period,” explained the company’s spokesperson, Philippe Déry, in response to our questions.
Let’s not get carried away, however: the “sardine class” is still a long way off, the overall attendance rate compared to pre-pandemic attendance still being only 71%. There is still a long way to go, but we must admit that such progress is “encouraging”, as the STM points out.
Especially since the metro and buses are still in “a holiday return period”. CEGEP students – a significant portion of metro and bus users – are not all back yet. When they are all fully, in the next few days, the trains could therefore be (even more) crowded.
Speaking of public transit: a group of promobility organizations strongly denounced this week the Legault government’s “slowness” in presenting a plan to reform the public transit funding model, an exercise for which Minister Geneviève Guilbault nevertheless showed of the opening. The TRANSIT Alliance plans to unveil “in the coming weeks” a series of solutions to better finance the industry, as part of the Working Group on the financing of sustainable mobility of the Ministère des Transports du Québec (MTQ).
Concerns and requests
On Tuesday, the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) in turn worried about the “worrying” increase in deaths linked to collisions on its territory. In 2022, the police force identified 266, an increase of almost 10% compared to 2021. And pedestrians are particularly affected.
We have to go back to 2012 to find such a high number of fatal collisions on the territory of the Sûreté du Québec. The 266 fatal collisions in 2022 – associated with approximately 291 fatalities – mark an increase of 8.5% compared to 2021, when there were 245 collisions. But above all, this represents a jump of about 15% compared to the average since 2017, which is 232 collisions.
The most marked increases are among pedestrians: in 2022, 36 pedestrians died on SQ territory during a collision, an increase of 20% in just one year. Since 2017, the average has been less than 26 pedestrian fatalities each year; the figures for the year therefore show an upward trend of 40%.