In 2000, the STM was still called the Société de transport de la Communauté Urbaine de Montréal (STCUM). The change was made in 2002. At the time, the foundations of a concrete plan had just been established to extend the orange line to the other side of the Rivière des Prairies.
“We have been talking about this extension to Laval since the mid-1960s, when construction of the orange line stopped just south of the Rivière des Prairies,” explains Mr. Clairoux. Several projects followed one another over the years, but the context was never conducive to their realization. » It was towards the end of the 1990s, after the creation of the Metropolitan Transport Agency (AMT), the ancestor of the Regional Metropolitan Transport Authority (ARTM), that the project really took shape. The AMT leads this important mandate; in 1998, the project was estimated to cost some $180 million.
“If we rely on the assurances given yesterday by Florence Junca-Adenot, CEO of the Metropolitan Transport Agency, the planned budget of 378.8 million will be respected,” wrote Duty in its edition of March 19, 2002, the day after the start of work in Laval. Very quickly, however, the reality turned out to be quite different: at the inauguration, in April 2007, the project’s costs amounted to 745 million dollars, more than four times the initially estimated budget.
Catherine Morency, professor at Polytechnique Montréal and holder of the Canada Research Chair in Personal Mobility, points out that the addition of these Laval metro stations, although beneficial, was accompanied by cuts in train lines. buses traveling a similar route. “This is the main effect of the opening of the metro in Laval. There were people in the bus network, when lines went to Côte-Vertu, or elsewhere. [À l’ouverture des stations]these people then decided to take their car to go to the metro. »
The same phenomenon occurred during the opening of the Réseau express métropolitain. Ms. Morency remembers having expressly underlined the importance of maintaining bus service on both sides of the St. Lawrence River if there were to be a new link between the two shores, during her appearance before the Commission consultation on improving mobility between Montreal and the South Shore at the dawn of the 2000s. “We had to improve the service, not replace it,” she explains. But in the end, we did exactly that: remove the buses and remove the reserved lanes [sur les ponts]. »
Furthermore, the professor emphasizes that the orange line was already the busiest in the Montreal metro network before its extension to Laval, and that this opening added additional pressure to the line. In its 2007 Transportation Plan, the City of Montreal anticipated an increase of approximately 10,000 trips per day on the orange line after the opening of the Laval stations. Two years later, we observed more than double this number, revealed -. The City of Montreal also reported traffic that “exceeds all [ses] forecasts” in its 2008 Transportation Plan.
“After the extension to Laval, there is talk of extending the blue line towards Anjou, extending the yellow line to Longueuil and closing both ends of the orange line,” recalls Mr. Clairoux.
Ultimately, it is the extension of the blue line that is prioritized. Considered since at least 1979, this project, which will run until 2031, will cost nearly $7.6 billion, according to current estimates. Work began this fall along rue Jean-Talon, at the corner of boulevards Pie-IX, Viau and Langelier, among others.
Ms. Morency views this project favorably, but remains critical of the pace at which this type of initiative is being completed. “We finally have plans. What is worrying is that we find this extraordinary. A public transportation network should be extended and improved continuously; there, you have to move mountains to be able to undertake such projects. That doesn’t make any sense. »
She underlines, among other things, that the lack of funding has significant consequences on the maintenance and upkeep of the service, which thus makes the network even more vulnerable. “We are still very far from what it takes to have a more efficient network. »
Other changes directly affected all metro users. In 2005, the renovation of the MR-73 cars began, the second generation of metro cars, acquired in the 1970s. Shortly after, the STM announced that it would acquire a new range of cars (the Azur, whose contract for manufacturing is entrusted to Bombardier-Alstom), which will replace the first cars, the MR-63, introduced at the inauguration of the Montreal metro in the 1960s.
Another change arrived towards the end of the 2000s: goodbye to the monthly cardboard cards with changing designs and to transfer tickets, issued by machines at the entrance to metro stations. In 2002, the STM launched a project to modernize its fare system, relying on the use of a smart card. “This is about replacing a system that has existed since the mid-1960s, if not longer! » underlines Benoît Clairoux.
In the fall of 2008, the Opus card appeared in the transport network of the metropolis and its surroundings, before completely replacing the previous cardboard system a year later, in September 2009. As for old tickets and connections in paper, they are today the delight of collectors…
Have the last 25 years changed the vision of public transportation in the metropolis? “Auto still remains the main mode [de transport] across Quebec, even in regions like Montreal,” explains Catherine Morency.
“We have continued to create neighborhoods that are very dependent on the car, and access to the car has become much more democratized. We have made gains in certain places, but these gains have not been significant enough to offset the effect of urban sprawl,” explains the professor.
Data from the latest ARTM survey, carried out every five years, proves him right. Approximately two-thirds (66%) of trips made in the greater Montreal area were made by car in 2023. Public transportation made up 13% of trips.
The daily number of public transport trips during the morning peak period increased between 2003 and 2018 in all the regions studied by the ARTM, reaching a peak of 477,000 trips, but it then experienced a significant decline between 2018 and 2023, after the rise in popularity of teleworking since the COVID-19 pandemic. There were 50,000 fewer trips by public transport in 2023 compared to 2003 in the area studied by the ARTM; In Montreal, public transit trips saw the biggest decline, going from 260,000 in 2003 to 236,000 in 2023.
