The Société de transport de Montréal (STM) was able to save the furniture for 2023 and will be able to improve bus services this fall. Thanks to government assistance and an increased contribution from the Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM), it was able to reduce its shortfall.
The pandemic and the drop in ridership have hurt public transit. Struggling with a shortfall of nearly $78 million for 2023, the STM hinted last fall that it might have to reduce its services. The funding announced in the Quebec government’s budget for public transit, additional assistance of $26.5 million from the ARTM as well as a reduction in expenditures have, however, enabled the STM to reduce its deficit to 23 ,2 millions.
However, the ARTM will assume the risk associated with this residual deficit, the STM said. “Sometimes there are amounts that are not spent in the metropolitan area and which should be able to finance this amount,” explained STM director general Marie-Claude Léonard on Friday.
This outcome will allow the STM to increase the level of service forecast in its 2023 budget. As of next fall, departures will be added on approximately 75 bus lines, which will represent an increase in supply of % compared to fall 2022. Among other things, line 24 (Sherbrooke) will have between 30 and 35 more departures per day, and lines 18 (Beaubien) and 196 (Parc-Industriel–Lachine), between 25 and 30 moreover. For line 211 (Bord-du-Lac), between 5 and 10 trips will be added.
Metro service will remain at the same level as announced last fall. However, the STM plans to make investments to improve safety and cleanliness in the underground network, namely adding 20 special constables, 20 civilians who will act as “safety ambassadors” and 20 station maintenance workers.
Regain pre-pandemic momentum
“We have to get back to the momentum we had before the pandemic,” said the chairman of the STM board of directors, Éric Alan Caldwell. We have to start a new cycle. This new cycle manifests itself in a need to reduce overcrowding, because people are more and more present, and to reinject frequency to make our service more attractive. »
Currently, ridership is only 74% of that recorded before the pandemic. The STM aims to reach a rate of 80% by the end of 2023.
Still, uncertainty remains for the years to come, because the STM is not immune to other deficits. Mr. Caldwell, however, recalled that the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Geneviève Guilbault, had already announced her intention to find long-term solutions for the financing of public transit within the framework of a plan spread over five years.
“Once again, the ARTM and the Government of Quebec are coming to the rescue of the STM. Now that it has the means, the Montreal public carrier is proposing a 3% increase in the service offer for buses starting in the fall of 2023. Metro users will have to be patient and piled up,” lamented Ensemble Montreal advisor Alba Zúñiga Ramos.
The opposition is also worried about the STM’s inability to guarantee the maintenance of the service offer for 2024 and criticizes it for remaining silent on the strategies it will adopt to avoid other deficits.