Public transit has lengthy been understood as a extra environmentally sustainable transportation mannequin, however the problems with the surroundings and the financial system have typically been pitted in opposition to one another.
A brand new examine launched by the Metropolitan Group of Montreal (MMC) dispels that fantasy, exhibiting the financial advantages of public transit are far larger than private cars.
“We tried to take a look at public transit, not solely via the lens of mobility, however via the lens of financial development as an entire,” Marie-Michèle Cauchy, director of the MMC, advised International Information. “It improves productiveness, it helps companies, it will increase family buying energy, and it generates stronger financial returns for Quebec.”
The analysis, produced in partnership with Montreal’s Board of Commerce, makes a case for town to think about public transit a viable funding.
“There’s a difficulty with public funds. We wish to get essentially the most returns on our public funding. And there’s additionally a difficulty with the price of residing for households. So we wished to do the examine taking a look at public transit via this lens to see if it was a great funding,” Cauchy stated.
The examine discovered that in 2024, there have been greater than two million cars on the highway in Montreal and $24 billion in annual spending for households, marking the second highest expenditure subsequent to housing prices.
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The excessive automobile possession fee additionally contributes to site visitors congestion which led to $6 billion in financial losses in 2023, representing 2.1 per cent of the area’s GDP.
In line with the analysis, public transit generates greater than triple the quantity of GDP in comparison with single-vehicle use.
“We have to do higher,” Cauchy stated, including that investing in public transit would additionally preserve extra of the financial advantages in Canada, one thing that’s notably promising given the shifting commerce tensions between Canada and the U.S.
The examine exhibits that the general public transportation sector helps 2.5 instances extra jobs in Quebec than the equal expenditure on cars.
“If we wish to rely much less on different financial areas proper now, we have to spend money on public transit,” Cauchy stated.
Municipal officers have been urging their provincial counterparts to make public transit funding an election precedence.
In August, Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada stated town is going through a $7 billion funds deficit by 2030 to keep up its present supply with town’s transit operator.
Transit specialists say the whole funding mannequin for public transportation must be modernized.
“Montreal is missing in a funds that’s everlasting and utterly devoted and as much as our discretion right here on what we’re going to do with public transit,” stated Evan Roncace, a venture coordinator with the Transportation Analysis Lab at McGill College.
He pointed to cities within the U.S. the place congestion pricing and payroll taxing helps fund extra sturdy public transit programs.
However Roncace stated that growing funding and selling public transit takes an entire society method.
The Metropolis of Montreal presently has the aim of reaching a 75 per cent energetic mode share, together with biking, strolling and public transit, by 2050.
“As a way to obtain that degree of public transportation use, we want much more than simply densifying round public transportation,” Roncace stated. “We additionally have to discourage automobile use. And we have to change folks’s attitudes round utilizing public transportation generally.”
In line with Statistics Canada, 29.1 per cent of Montreal residents used public transit as their essential technique of transportation in Might 2025.
– With information from Phil Carpenter, International Information
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