The least we can say is that the City of Montreal’s new urban planning and mobility plan (PUM) does not lack ambition. The City wants, by 2050, to start from zero and reach 184 km of tram lines, in addition to extending the metro and rapid bus service (SRB) network. If the Caquists are fixated on the third link in the Quebec region, the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, also has her whims, linked to the return of the pink metro line project to connect the city center to the north- east of the city.
Never mind ! Between the backward-looking vision of the Coalition Avenir Québec and the progressive approach of Projet Montréal in terms of mobility, the choice is obvious. Where the Prime Minister of Quebec offers us a shameless waste of public funds to save five minutes on road congestion between Lévis and Quebec, the mayor of Montreal invites us to dream of a city on a human scale, capable of meeting the challenges of the energy transition and to demonstrate responsibility and equity in land use planning.
The PUM is a plan marked by ambition. All mobility projects provide for the construction of 300 km of transport lines (by SRB, tramway or metro). Investments are vaguely estimated at tens of billions of dollars, a sum that will obviously have to be revised upwards in a Quebec market marked by labor shortages, an increase in the cost of materials, a drop in productivity in the construction sector and the difficulty of finding compliant bidders or those interested in carrying out major works.
The plan is ambitious, but is it realistic? At the microphone of 15-18, Marco Chitti, an expert in urban planning specializing in transport issues, pointed out that Paris, a city much more populated than Montreal, where the density is already conducive to the organization of collective transport, managed to add 200 km of lanes in 30 years. He estimates that Montreal could install at most 50 km of tram lines by 2050.
The list of risk factors likely to undermine the PUM is long. The method of financing public transport, the governance of the agencies responsible for planning, metropolitan competition for structuring projects and Structural constraints in the construction industry constitute obstacles to the ideals of the PUM. Not to mention the sclerosis of the municipal bureaucracy, which struggles to fulfill its primary responsibilities, such as maintaining its own low-rent housing stock, or issuing building permits within a reasonable time frame. These shortcomings cast doubt on the realism of another PUM objective, namely the construction of 200,000 new housing units by 2050.
Last detail, and not the least. In Quebec, the government in place is far from behaving as an unwavering ally of public transportation, despite the considerable sums invested over the years. The Legault government has no achievements to its credit in terms of structuring public transportation projects. He postpones, quibbles, resuscitates the dying corpse of the third link. It gives the impression that it is aiming for the impossible: taking part in the energy transition and climate action without altering the individual behavior of motorists. The main contender for the post of Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Poilievre, makes an even more intransigent speech. Accusing his opponents of waging a “car war,” he promised not to invest “a cent of federal money” in the tramway project in Quebec. Wait a bit for him to read the PUM.
Mayor Plante is perfectly aware that the City of Montreal has no power over the decisions taken in Quebec or Ottawa regarding the financing of structuring public transportation projects. She considers it important to “show the way”. Updating the plan, done through a consultative process, was essential to head on to address the challenges facing Montreal. By linking the densification of the territory, sustainable mobility and access to housing, the Plante administration wants to create equitable, sustainable and humane living environments. We can certainly question the realism of these proposals, as the opposition leader at City Hall, Aref Salem, did. The fact remains that they are in line with the mission of a city the size of Montreal.
Unrealistic, ambitious, necessary. The urban planning and mobility plan is a call to citizen action. Its chances of success will largely depend on the leadership at Montreal town hall. It will not be enough to show the way. It will also be necessary to set an example in day-to-day management so that the PUM is executed with a sense of rigor and responsibility.