Almost anything beats taking the bus
As Montreal’s traffic hell worsens and people contemplate their options, does taking the bus top anyone’s list of alternatives?
Crowded, frequently late, stuck in traffic, inefficient, sweltering in the summer (and often in the winter, too, when passengers are bundled up to brave the elements outside), the bus can be a miserable experience many days.
For those who have no other choice, it is a fact of life. But for those who do, almost anything beats the bus — even if that means taking three different métro lines, a long bike ride or stewing alone in a car to reach a destination.
A Montreal Gazette access request found that the Société de transport de Montréal has seen a 13-per-cent reduction in bus ridership between 2012 and 2017. The steepest decrease was — no shock here — in 2015 when the STM’s budget was constrained and service suffered. As any expert or passenger will tell you, declining service and declining use go hand in hand, locked in a symbiotic downward spiral from which it is difficult to recover.
The drop in the number of Montrealers taking the bus to get around town may be “alarming,” as some observers have noted. But it is hardly a surprise.
Bus ridership across North America is trending down. But there are a few lessons to learn from the revelations of the Gazette’s access request.
Buses are often the go-to strategy when authorities want to tackle transportation woes in a hurry.
They can go anywhere — highways, detours, far-flung suburban neighbourhoods with winding streets — and they don’t run on a fixed rail like trains, trams or subways, so they can be rerouted elsewhere whenever needed.
But unless they are given priority in the form of reserved lanes or advanced signals, they often get stuck in gridlock with everybody else. So what may be the easiest way to boost public transit is not the most effective, efficient or appreciated by passengers.
Once again, the bus quandary underscores the appetite and need for Mayor Valérie Plante’s proposed Pink Line of the Montreal métro. A diagonal line linking Lachine with Montreal North, it would fill some of the biggest gaps in the current métro system. Yes, a brand-new métro line would be expensive — preliminary estimates are $6 billion — but as far as bang for the transit buck and passengers’ eagerness to climb aboard, subways are unparalleled.
Though hardly a quickly achievable promise, the Pink Line will quickly become a necessity in Montreal as the extension of the Blue Line to Anjou brings more passengers to the already saturated eastern leg of the Orange Line.
The Liberal government recently announced funding for a transit study that will examine the Pink Line. But the Coalition Avenir Québec has come out against the idea, proposing more highways and an extension of the forthcoming Réseau express métropolitain to the suburbs.
But prolonging the Blue Line without committing to a relief line is short-sighted and irresponsible when it comes to assuring Montreal’s prosperity in the future.
Another message in these numbers is that when people are looking for alternative ways to get around the city, it’s not by bus. Uber, car shares and Bixi have grown in the years of declining bus ridership, and probably explain some of the decreased usage of inner-city routes.
So, too, has the number of cyclists hopping on their own bikes. Active transport may not be a year-round possibility for everyone in this cold climate, but where there are more cycling paths and distances aren’t too long, it is an increasingly attractive option.
However, adequate infrastructure, like separated bike lanes and long-distance cycling “highways,” are needed to open this possibility to even more Montrealers. Studies have shown that more women would cycle if they felt safer on city streets. The city has announced new investments in a new separated bike lane on des Pins Ave. and is holding consultations on creating cycling corridors, but keeping pace with rising demand remains a challenge.
Of course, none of this means the end of the road for the venerable bus. Rather, it should be a wake-up call to local authorities about how to better serve the public and bolster popular routes. After taking office, Plante secured funding for 300 new hybrid electric buses, which by 2020 will help expand service and alleviate delays from the high number of broken-down vehicles sidelined in the repair shop.
The bus ridership data should be a warning to all levels of government about what kind of transit investments are needed to reduce congestion, meet our carbon reduction targets and maximize the potential of our public transportation systems. Buses can no longer be the easy out in our search for transit solutions.
So what may be the easiest way to boost public transit is not the most effective, efficient or appreciated by passengers.