The idea of creating joint bus routes for Montreal and its suburbs did not go through the city’s drivers’ union and seemed to take the Laval and Longueuil transport networks by surprise.
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On Wednesday, the Regional Metropolitan Transport Authority (ARTM) presented the four metropolitan transit companies with a roadmap to revitalize public transport in the context of the budget deficit.
Director General Benoît Gendron has suggested, among other things, that certain services be merged in order to save money.
The next day, he gave an interview to La Presse, in which he said he wanted to treat transportation as a “single deal” and split up the territories of the transportation networks in a context of $500 million shortfalls.
“It is out of the question that drivers from Laval and Longueuil provide services instead of STM drivers,” responded Pino Tagliaferri, President of STM’s Union of Bus Drivers, Metro Operators and Related Services Employees.
No cuts, assures the ARTM
“The aim is to see how we can do things differently, it’s not about cutting back on customer service, it’s not about cutting back on staff,” Mr Gendron assured in an interview with the newspaper.
He said several possible solutions emerged on Wednesday but it was premature to draw conclusions before the action plan is presented in September.
He confirmed that one of the ways to increase the performance of the service could be the establishment of city lines in places where at least two transport networks operate, such as line 139 on Boulevard Pie-IX, which becomes line 439 in Laval.
“So they won’t get the shortfall. This will only create dissatisfaction between transport companies,” says Mr. Pino Tagliaferri.
Surprise
If the Société de Transport de Montréal gives a positive assessment of the major projects proposed by the ARTM, the Société de Transport de Laval is surprised by “details that have leaked through the media” and which would not have been verbalized.
“We are surprised by the situation and are trying to identify the real action plan and expectations of the ARTM,” said Estelle Lacroix, communications consultant at the STL, via email.
The director general of the Réseau de transport de Longueuil (RTL), Michel Veilleux, had agreed to give the journal an interview, an interview he canceled after the article was published in La Presse earlier in the afternoon.
For his part, Exo did not respond to our interview request.
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