National Post (National Edition)
Transit revolution
GOVERNMENTS SEE TRANSIT AS A WAY TO `BUILD BACK FAIRER' BY TARGETING UNDERSERVED NEIGHBOURHOODS, EXPLAINS JASON MAGDER IN MONTREAL. BUT WILL IT REALLY ADDRESS CRISES SUCH AS CLIMATE CHANGE, SYSTEMIC RACISM AND INEQUALITY?
POSTMEDIA IS TAKING AN IN-DEPTH LOOK AT THE SOCIAL, INSTITUTIONAL AND ECONOMIC ISSUES THE PANDEMIC HAS BROUGHT TO LIGHT — AND, MORE IMPORTANTLY, HOW WE CAN SOLVE THEM.
As buses, métros and trains sat mostly empty over the last 14 months, the Montreal region's planners have been quietly preparing a revolution in public transit.
In a little more than a year, the largest transit project since the 1966 inauguration of the métro is slated to begin its first phase. The rollout is expected to take three years and the nearly $7-billion light-rail project known as the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) will transform the region's transit — doubling the existing métro network, linking the fastest-growing suburbs to the downtown core and providing a rapid link to the city's airport from all parts of the network. That project represents the first significant expansion of public transit on Montreal Island since the last stations on the métro's Blue Line opened in 1988.
But the REM is just Phase 1 of a multi-year, multi-billion expansion of the transit network the likes of which the region has never seen.
A $300-million bus-rapid transit link in the city's east end is under construction that will speed travel times and nearly double the capacity of buses transporting passengers from the underserved Montreal North and eastern Laval sectors. A 5.5-kilometre extension of the métro's Blue Line in the east, estimated at more than $4 billion, is expected to begin construction next year, and the province is planning a $10-billion light-rail network called the REM de l'Est toward the city's east and northeast extremes.
If all that comes to fruition, it will amount to more than $20 billion in public spending in a little more than a decade.
The record investments, however, come during a historic decline in transit ridership caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a 90-per-cent decrease at its lowest point. Planners believe ridership levels will return to close to pre-pandemic levels, but it could take years.
The provincial government is betting that the transit projects on tap will improve mobility in the region, alleviate congestion and boost the economy from its pandemic slump.
Montreal is not alone. Cities across the country and continent are investing massively in transit. In May, the Ontario government committed to pay 40 per cent of a $12-billion plan to improve transit in the Toronto area.
“This is a national story,” said Matti Siemiatycki, associate professor in the Department of Geography & Planning and interim director of the University of Toronto's School of Cities. “The pandemic has highlighted many of the shortcomings of our cities. It brought more focus on other crises, like climate change and systemic racism and inequality. Transit has a way of addressing many of those challenges in terms of improved mobility and providing access to communities who have been excluded and who continued to ride transit through the pandemic, often on crowded buses.”
Nationwide, the federal government has been investing far more in transit over the last few years, so many of the projects now being developed were in the planning stages before the pandemic. While there was already a push to invest historic amounts into transit, Siemiatycki contends the pandemic spurred governments to make far larger investments than they might have done otherwise.
He said governments see transit is a way to “build back fairer” by targeting neighbourhoods that have been underserved, like Montreal's northern and eastern sectors.
The Montreal region has been starved for major transit for several decades, as it has been more than 30 years since the development of the city's métro network was put on pause.
“We had a lot of investment in the 20 years between (the 1960s and 1980s), but since then there has been almost no investment,” said François Pepin, the president of the transit lobby group Trajectoire Québec. “Now we're catching up on lost time.”
Taking the 30-year drought into account, Michel Leblanc, the president of the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal, said the spending isn't out of whack with what other cities have spent over the same time.
“For decades, we were not developing the network and putting in those projects that we should have put in place,” he said.
Traffic jams caused undue frustration for anyone commuting by car and cost the local economy roughly $4.2 billion each year, according to estimates from the chamber of commerce. Part of the transit network was also overcrowded, especially the métro's Orange Line.
“If we do nothing, we'll end up with the same problem,” said Simon Charbonneau, a spokesperson for the Autorité régionale de transport métropolitaine (ARTM), the region's transit planning body.
The ARTM is betting that transit habits will return to roughly their pre-pandemic levels in the coming years, though telework will continue to be a factor, so rush hours may be a bit less busy and off-peak times might see increased ridership.
The builders of the REM say they aren't concerned about low ridership when the project is up and running next year. They pointed out that the tunnel through Mount Royal, which was closed to be renovated for the project, opened during the height of the last pandemic — the Spanish flu of 1918.
As far as economic development goes, Siemiatycki said such projects create a lot of construction jobs, then help those living in underserved areas better access to employment opportunities. Charbonneau said a project like the REM, which will be an automated driverless network, also creates an area of expertise that didn't exist before.
“In the case of REM, all the engineering services and complementary firms — not just to build the network, but to maintain it — will now be completely revitalized,” he said.
Leblanc added that transit is seen as a prerequisite for development. The city's east end has numerous plots of unused and contaminated lands, and the REM de l'Est could be the catalyst to get them cleaned up and developed.
“Until we invest (in transit), it's difficult to attract businesses to the area, and it's (therefore) difficult to develop stable high-paying jobs right now in the eastern part of the city,” he said. “But transit attracts investment, which creates good jobs, and then you improve the average earnings of the people living in that part of town.”
There is some worry that in the rush to build transit projects, the province could make bad choices.
The REM de l'Est has been criticized for its route because it replicates part of the métro's Green Line, and for fears it will become an eyesore and splinter neighbourhoods with planned aboveground tracks in the downtown core and historic Chinatown and Old Port districts.
The project is in its consultation phase and critics are not holding back, airing concerns to the proposed builders, the province's pension fund, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, at numerous public meetings and through the media.
“It can't work,” said Université du Québec à Montréal urban-planning associate professor Florence Junca-Adenot. “There's a reason that cities don't do this, and those that have done this, it looks dreadful. Chicago and Miami have it, and if this is the model for Montreal, it's horrible.”
When there are record investments at stake, Siemiatycki said it's important for governments to be transparent and head off potential problems because investing in a dud could affect future projects and deprive other poorly served areas of transit.
“Just because the money is flowing, it doesn't mean every project is a good project.”