I look at the long lines of cars on the bridges, Boulevard des Allumettières or Highway 50.
In the vast majority of cases, people alone in their vehicle. A herd of docile sheep following each other, wasting precious time in traffic by spreading polluting gases.
While we are all heading to more or less the same destination! This is even more true in a region like ours where the majority of morning drivers go to work in downtown Gatineau and Ottawa.
And among all these people who rush into traffic of their own free will, there will be some who complain about the new registration tax from the Société de transport de l’Outaouais (STO). A tax of $60 per year… Hey, how much does it cost you to fill up your Dodge Ram? A hundred piastres? One hundred and twenty piastres? And are you complaining about an annual tax of $60 which helps relieve congestion on the roads and counter solo driving?
Anyway.
The outcry around this tax almost made us forget some good news: STO ridership has returned to 90% of its pre-pandemic level.
People started taking the bus again as before — thanks in part to the forced return of civil servants three days a week.
The wheel has started turning in the right direction again and the STO is forecasting an increase in ridership of 15% in 2025 thanks in particular to the return of lines 100 and 200 and service improvements. This is good news for Dodge Rams stuck in traffic. More buses on the roads means less congestion for them.
However, the STO faces a major challenge: the aging of its bus fleet. Twenty percent of vehicles are reaching the end of their useful life of 16 years, while 42% are already 6 to 16 years old. However, Quebec now requires transport companies to purchase 100% electric buses. Suppliers are struggling to meet demand and delivery delays are piling up. The president of the STO, Jocelyn Blondin, is worried, and rightly so: how will we replace old vehicles?
In the immediate future, the STO intends to extend the lifespan of current vehicles as much as possible. It purchased five million parts to remanufacture the engines. “We also equip our vehicles with an artificial intelligence module which detects potential breakdowns,” explains the general director, Patrick Leclerc.
I understand the Quebec government preaching virtue with this policy of electrifying bus fleets. But at a given moment, the best must not become the enemy of the good. If buses break down one after the other, the reliability of the network will be put at risk. And it is this goodwill that we have put so much effort and money into rebuilding that risks taking a hit.
Since we’re talking about artificial intelligence, I’m surprised that we haven’t yet developed software to encourage carpooling for workers to the city centers of Gatineau and Ottawa.
What would it be like to organize carpooling so that 3 or 4 federal civil servants could ride in the same car?
In my neighborhood, lots of people go to the same offices on Sparks Street, Laurier Street or Portage Street. Isn’t it absurd that everyone travels on their own instead of coordinating to board the same vehicle together?
Developing carpooling software is child’s play. There are several on the market.
Patrick Leclerc told me that there have been experiences elsewhere. “But we realized that it is difficult to mobilize people to carpool in an organized way. There was a pilot project in Laval and it was difficult to keep people engaged.”
In the mind of the STO boss, carpooling is a complement to a solid public transport offer. However, in Gatineau, the backbone of the network is still fragile and underfunded.
We must continue to invest in bus routes to make them more efficient and, above all, increase the frequency of crossings.
“Our central point is really frequency,” says Patrick Leclerc. When buses pass every 10 minutes, people no longer bother to check the timetable. They go to the stop knowing that they will have, at worst, 9 minutes 59 seconds to wait before the next bus.
Frequency is libertyinsist public transport experts. The freedom to move around without hindrance is the dream of everyone stuck in a traffic jam…
