Despite the STM offering 95% of pre-pandemic service, the service on Montreal’s most heavily-ridden bus routes have dropped by an average of 13%, and on some routes the drop has been over 30%. This problem had only been amplified post-pandemic, as Montreal endured the largest ridership downfall of any bus system in Canada between 2012 and 2017, while diverting service away from poorer neighborhoods in favor of richer ones.
We know that public transport is the best possible investment that a government could do to promote it’s economy. Therefore, it is confusing why Quebec’s provincial government is hesitant on providing proper funding to help it’s operations. In this article, I look deeper inside the numbers that prove that continuing to invest money inside our deficient road system is actually worse for Quebec’s economy than investing the same amount inside public transportation.
The Pie-IX integrated bus rapid transit (BRT) project had been in the works for more than a decade. It had finally opened in 2022, but it’s sole success is the speed, but the user experience not so much. This articles dives deep into the history of the project, it’s ups and downs. It describes many issues (and fixes!) that should be considered on this transit corridor and many others in the planning phase.