Quebec’s cities are running out of time and money to keep their public transit systems from falling apart.
A coalition of municipal leaders appeared before the province this week with a stark warning: transit agencies across Quebec will need at least $20 billion by 2035 just to keep existing infrastructure from deteriorating. And that’s before a single new bus route or metro extension is added.
The call came jointly from the Union des municipalités du Québec (UMQ) and the Association du transport urbain du Québec (ATUQ), who urged the next provincial government to treat transit funding as a matter of urgency rather than a political football.
“The public needs transportation that’s faster, easier and more accessible,” said Maude Marquis-Bissonnette, chair of the UMQ’s large cities caucus and mayor of Gatineau. “Good public transit helps combat cost of living concerns these are investments in the population’s quality of life.”
ATUQ board chair Edmond Leclerc added that beyond the $20 billion maintenance gap, cities are also staring down a $550 million shortfall in operating funding for transit in the years ahead. The numbers, taken together, paint a troubling picture for commuters who depend on buses and metro lines daily.
At the heart of the municipalities’ frustration isn’t just the lack of money it’s the way the province manages what it does spend. Municipal leaders pointed to a pattern of last-minute reversals and bureaucratic bottlenecks that have cost cities dearly.
Marquis-Bissonnette highlighted one particularly glaring example: a garage designed to charge electric buses in Quebec City. The province pulled its funding midway through construction, after $94 million had already been sunk into the project. “Currently, there’s a tarp covering the construction site,” she said.
Laval Mayor Stéphane Boyer described a similarly frustrating experience. In 2021, the Quebec government granted $2.2 million for a feasibility study on a high-frequency bus corridor with dedicated lanes along Concorde Boulevard. The following year, Quebec cancelled the project despite the studies being 90 per cent complete. The fallout: $65 million in federal grants lost and $2 million spent on work that will likely gather dust.
“Stop-and-go,” Boyer said bluntly, is how he would characterize the province’s approach to transit investment.
The consequences aren’t abstract. Montreal’s metro system, which dates back to the 1960s and ’70s, is in desperate need of renewal. In Sherbrooke, a mechanical lift used to hoist buses for repairs is among the aging assets urgently requiring attention.
The municipalities are asking for something they say shouldn’t be controversial: stable, predictable, long-term funding, combined with less red tape and fewer delays caused by provincial micromanagement.
“We believe the Quebec government is capable of making an effort toward efficiency,” said Marquis-Bissonnette, “that it’s capable of optimizing how it handles current investments.”
With a provincial election on the horizon, municipal leaders are hoping their message lands with whoever forms the next government before more tarps get spread over half-built infrastructure.
