Quebec should already be planning more métro extensions, transit leaders say

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With work on the extension of the métro’s Blue Line just beginning, the Montreal region’s public transit leaders said planners should already be at work developing the métro’s next extension.

Speaking at a luncheon conference organized by the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal, Marie-Claude Léonard, the CEO of the Société de transport de Montréal, her counterpart with Exo, Stéphane Yelle, and Benoit Gendron, the director general of the Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM), agreed that the province has to do better in planning long-term extensions to existing transit networks.

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“Montreal is one of only four métro systems in the world where we aren’t continually planning for the next extensions,” Léonard said in a question-and-answer session with Chamber president Michel Leblanc.

Léonard, Gendron and Yelle all greeted the creation of a new provincial body called Mobilité Infra Québec, which the province hopes will plan long-term infrastructure projects.

Léonard said she hopes the new agency will be able to execute long-term plans not just of future projects, but also figure out how to provide recurrent and stable funding so that transit agencies can pay for the additional operation costs and the cost to maintain the new infrastructure.

Among the projects they cited as priorities is the extension of the western end of the métro’s Orange Line to the Bois-Franc neighbourhood of St-Laurent, which would allow the métro to link up with the upcoming Réseau express métropolitain (REM) station there.

“Surely, the western branch of the métro has some capacity still, so we have an interest in putting more people on it,” Gendron said. “Have to have a redundancy in place for the transit network. This project would allow for riders not to be taken hostage if, for example, there is a breakdown in the métro, or the REM.”

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Speaking to reporters after the luncheon, Leblanc said Montrealers are frustrated over the lack of long-term planning, adding that the Blue Line extension was in the planning phase for decades before construction began. With an expected delivery date of 2031, now is the time to start planning the next extensions to the métro.

“The ARTM and STM agree with us that we have to stop considering the development of the métro by project, where everything else is frozen once we start on a project,” he said. “What’s annoying is this way of proceeding where we put on ice new extensions that should be priorities. We’re asking this of Quebec, and we will continue to ask it on a common front, and we hope to be able to provoke a change of approach in developing the network.”

Leblanc said he’s frustrated with how long it takes for new projects to come to fruition, adding that there is a cost to such delays, as Montrealers have grown cynical about promised improvements.

“The risk is that first, we will only look at the Blue Line, and then by the time we start agreeing to build more extensions, I’ll be dead,” Leblanc added. “It’s going to be just way too long. We should be able to do it, it’s being done elsewhere and the agency eventually will make sure that once we have the budget in place it is built relatively on time and relatively on budget.”

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Léonard agreed there should be more long-term planning done for the region, and she said she’s optimistic that if the Orange Line extension planning gets underway soon, it can be delivered relatively quickly.

“We always agree with increasing the transit network,” Léonard said. “We want to make sure that year after year we have a plan to develop the proper transit solutions in the right place. I think this project has been studied for years, and I think there is something we can do in a shorter time frame.”

Overall, Leblanc said he’s optimistic about the future of transit in the region, as ridership seems to be returning to prepandemic levels, and the operators say they can now rely on stable funding from the municipal and provincial budgets to maintain services.

“They say the budget (for 2025) is there and the discussions for the next three years are going well, so that’s very positive,” Leblanc said. “It’s stabilizing.”

jmagder@postmedia.com

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