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With the closure of the St-Michel station now in its third week, the city of Montreal is once again calling on the province to urgently increase its funding of the maintenance of the city’s métro network.
In a unanimous resolution passed on Monday, city council called on the province to increase its financing of public transit maintenance so that it reaches $560 million per year, up from an average of $240 million per year that is forecast to be spent over the next decade.
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The STM closed the three easternmost stations on the Blue Line on Oct. 3 after degraded concrete was found in the St-Michel station in a strategic support beam just above the walkway leading to the station’s platforms. While the Fabre and Iberville stations were reopened six days later, the St-Michel station, which is used by 26,000 travellers daily, remained closed on Monday.
Speaking in council chambers Monday, Sophie Mauzerolle, the Plante administration point person for infrastructure, said the situation is becoming urgent, as the STM has estimated it needs $6 billion in order to make up its maintenance deficit.
“We can no longer accept the underfinancing of the métro network’s maintenance operations,” Mauzerolle said.
She said the St-Michel incident is the second time in two years that métro service was affected by maintenance issues. In April 2023, the STM shut down service on the Green Line between the Lionel-Groulx and Frontenac stations for less than a day after cracks were found in the tunnel between the Berri-UQAM and St-Laurent stations. The STM has also noted a 133-per-cent increase in the number of interruptions because of equipment breakage in the last 10 years, accounting for 154 interruptions per year. There was also a 300-per-cent increase in the number of alerts for equipment breakage between 2018 and 2022, the resolution states.
The city’s opposition agreed with the Plante administration.
“Elected officials are right to ask for more money from the higher levels of government for maintenance, but the reality is that these demands can easily be ignored, and we have seen this in the past already,” Opposition leader Aref Salem said.
Christine Black, the opposition spokesperson for transit issues, added that while it’s good to ask the province for more money, she’s concerned about how the Plante administration has mismanaged public funds. She cited as examples the Bellechasse garage, which has engendered hundreds of millions in cost overruns, and the purchase of 300 hybrid buses that were intended to improve bus service, but were never fully put into service. She said that is money that could have been invested into the métro’s maintenance.
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