Montreal mayor decries lack of public transit funding in Quebec budget

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante says Quebec's budget lets public transit fall by the wayside.

The budget, presented by Finance Minister Eric Girard in Quebec City on Tuesday, included new money to support businesses affected by U.S. tariff threats and investments to "build wealth" in Quebec. 

But it lacked meaningful public transit spending, Plante said, and it appears to lack a commitment to fund a new tramway project connecting the Lachine borough to the Metro's Green line. 

"It's a hard hit for the Montreal Metro and it will definitely have a long-term impact," she said. "I think citizens are worried."

Éric Alan Caldwell, the chair of the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), said the STM had asked the government to increase the amount of money allocated to maintaining public transit infrastructure, but it didn't get it.

Instead, despite what Caldwell described as a government commitment to fund public transit and invest in new infrastructure projects, he said it is failing to invest and lowering the amount of money available to maintain the Montreal Metro system. 

"We had requested funding to respond to the needs of the Metro, to increase funding for the next three years," Caldwell said. "Instead, we have a drop in funding." 

Caldwell said the government's stated commitments to fund new Quebec infrastructure projects was incoherent with its lack of funding for the Montreal Metro system. 

"We have projects ready to be funded," Caldwell said, "but we're going backwards." 

Quebec Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault said the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government has invested in ample public transit projects and public transit infrastructure in Montreal over the past seven years. She said the government's new infrastructure commitments were focused on maintaining and building roads. 

"Never has any government invested more than us in transportation," she said. "We also need roads. We have a lot of money for the roads so that people are able to circulate with their cars from one region to another."

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