“A balanced budget”: the STM will be able to maintain its service offering for 2025

For the first time since the pandemic, the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) has managed to present a balanced budget and will be able to offer a service in 2025 equivalent to that which is currently in place, without it being exit from the woods.

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The budget of the Montreal transport company for the year 2025 amounts to 1.8 billion dollars.

“Combined with our considerable spending reductions, this allows us to maintain the level of services. That said, we must recognize that this situation is far from representing our ambition to make public transport even more attractive through an increased service offering,” said the general director of the STM, Marie-Claude Léonard, on Thursday.

The STM recorded a slight increase in its expenses of 0.2% compared to the 2024 budget.

“The upward variation in the budget is mainly explained by the desire to strengthen the feeling of security in the metro network with the hiring of security personnel and maintenance personnel,” he explained.

Nearly 5 million additional dollars are also planned for the maintenance of AZUR cars to ensure their proper functioning in the long term.

In addition to the $36 million reduction in its expenses in 2024, the STM plans to generate an additional $16 million in reductions in its recurring expenses in 2025, “still without impacting the level of service.”

Investments necessary to maintain assets

The transport company has formulated investment needs of $25.8 billion, including $10.7 billion in maintaining metro assets, in its 2025-2034 capital program.

“Maintaining existing infrastructure in good condition and safe should be seen as a precondition for any development of the public transportation network,” explained the president of the STM board of directors, Éric Alan Caldwell.

“Important decisions are required in the short term to ensure that the metro can continue to play its role for the mobility and economic vitality of all of Quebec,” he added.