The deterioration of the metro increasingly affects its efficiency. In 10 years, the number of service interruptions due to equipment breakdown has more than doubled, according to the Société de transport de Montréal (STM). It will have to cut its spending again this year to balance its budget.
Posted at 3:35 p.m.
Updated at 4:00 p.m.
“When we have poorly maintained infrastructure, we are no longer able to fulfill our mission,” summarized the general director of the carrier, Marie-Claude Léonard, at a press conference on Thursday.
She presented her group’s 2025 budget, the first in balance and without a shortfall since the start of the pandemic due to the increase in the vehicle registration tax (TIV).
We point out from the outset that the proportion of service interruptions due to equipment breakdown has exploded by 133% over the past 10 years. While there were just over 60 in 2013, this figure was 154 in 2023. More recently, reports of assets in critical condition also tripled between 2018 and 2022.
Without reinvestment, episodes such as the closure of the green line in April 2023 or that of Saint-Michel station on the blue line for a month will occur more often. “Our network is old and needs investment. And it must come soon,” says CA president, Eric Alan Caldwell.
Read our article “Saint-Michel station reopens its doors”
Maintaining assets takes up a significant portion of the STM’s major projects for the next decade, with 10.7 billion in investments required until 2034. Of this number, however, “only 800 million are included in the Quebec Infrastructure Plan [PQI] », or barely 7.5% of the amount, which the company actively deplores.
Mr. Caldwell is asking Quebec for a recurring annual investment of 560 million “to ensure the sustainability of our metro” and thus gradually fill the asset maintenance deficit, estimated at 6 billion. “We are currently doing 330 million,” he said to illustrate the size of the challenge.
78 fewer positions
To balance its budget estimated at $1.8 billion in total, a slight increase of 0.2% compared to 2024, the STM will have to reduce its recurring expenses again in 2025, this time by $16 million.
The cuts will go to goods and services, but will mainly go through la suppression of 78 positions. However, this is much less than the 86 million eliminated this year, the cuts of 52 million in 2023 and 27 million in 2022.
This new reduction in spending will make it possible to maintain the level of service almost intact, although down slightly. In the metro, we will serve the equivalent of 85.8 million commercial kilometers, or 300,000 fewer than in 2024.
For buses, it will be 65.8 million kilometers, a reduction of more than half a million which can be explained by a fewer number of mitigation measures put in place around the future Anse-à-l antennas. ‘Orme and Deux-Montagnes of the REM.
The official opposition at Montreal city hall, however, is concerned about a drastic reduction in the number of buses. “The STM is losing control of its management. […] The quality of service, both for the metro and for buses, is deteriorating. And the infrastructure situation is much worse than we feared,” reacted the mayor of Montreal North, Christine Black.
Aging trains
The project to replace the old MR-73 trains, which have a reliability 14 times lower than that of AZUR trains, benefits from a budget of 3.5 billion dollars. However, this is only a start-up cost, as this vast project is likely to take more than a decade.
We add to all this the extension of the blue metro line to Anjou, which will cost at least 7.6 billion, which constitutes a marked cost overrun compared to the previous estimate, which was 6.4 billion . Its delivery will not take place before 2031, revealed The Press last July.
Read our article “Even more expensive and even more late”
A sum of more than a billion is finally planned to make more metro stations universally accessible, with an elevator. The STM is pursuing the target of reaching 41 universally accessible stations by 2030; there are currently 27, but five projects are already underway.
A little more than 316 million trips were recorded on the Montreal public transportation network in 2024. Next year, based on its projections based on employment and the density of the metropolis, the company expects to make increase this figure to 329 million, which would represent an increase of almost 4%. “We see that people are gradually returning to their usual habits. […] We think that over the next few years it will stabilize,” said M.me Leonard.
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