Creation of Mobilité Infra Quebec: STO wishes to retain stakeholder role 

The Société de transport de l’Outaouais (STO) is firmly maintaining its desire to retain decision-making authority as the Quebec government introduces a bill to create Mobilité Infra Québec (MIQ), an organization set to take control of transportation projects.

Djeneba Dosso

The STO, known to oversee and support all major public transit projects, may have some of their workload lightened, as the government is seeking to create a new entity that would manage large-scale development projects.

The bill for the creation of the MIQ comes as studies have started for the city’s tramway project. If adopted, the task force would facilitate the execution of significant transportation initiatives, taking over planning, implementation and decision-making for the STO, who will be consulted periodically. For the transport company’s President Jocelyn Blondin, turning the face of public transportation in Gatineau into consultants for major transport-related projects feels like demotion.

“We must not only be consulted,” he said. “We must be involved at all stages of the project. We recommend that MIQ be obliged to partner with the transport company that will carry out the operation from the beginning of the project.

The project in question, being the city’s tramway, has been handled by STO’s Tram Project Office, which has been overseeing the file up until this point. In addition to the possible dismantling of STO’s task force, the adoption of this bill could represent a lot of changes for the company, the most significant being finances, as they would now assume expenses that were once entirely government funded.

“Capital projects are currently funded by governments,” they detailed in a press release. “A project under the supervision of Mobilité Infra Québec will require a contribution from the STO or the city. The amount could also be decided unilaterally by the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Development. For the STO, capital financing must continue to be 100 per cent assumed by governments.”

This stance was echoed in the parliamentary committee meeting on September 17, where the STO asked that the MIQ be excluded from projects that are related to day-to-day operations and the regular planning of public transport services. Shortly after the meeting, STO released a list of recommendations should the government move forward with the creation of MIQ.

1. Eliminate the need for government authorization for public transport companies to exercise powers related to selling or developing property to reduce delays. STO also seeks to remove a clause on property sales, as this authority is already granted under existing laws governing these companies;
2. Amend the Public Transport Companies Act (PTCA) to give public transportation companies the means to promote the real estate development of public transport sites and enable public transportation companies to partner with private entities for construction on transport infrastructure and adjacent real estate developments;
3. Amend section 92.0.8 of the proposed PTCA to provide that the financial consideration made must benefit the financing of the public transport infrastructure project, or its maintenance, its operation or the provision of services of the transport company according to percentages to be defined jointly by MIQ and the project operator;
4. Specify the mission assigned to MIQ, in particular by indicating in section 4 of the MIQ Act, that complex transport projects refer to major public road projects, excluding operational tasks like garage expansions, asset maintenance, or improvements to systems central to transport companies, such as fleet management or ticketing;
5. Clarify MIQ’s areas of intervention and responsibilities in sections 5 and 29 of the MIQ Act, specifying that MIQ’s mobility planning duties do not include the regular planning of a transport company's public services;
6. Define MIQ’s responsibilities to exclude regular planning of public transport services from its mobility planning duties in sections 5 and 29 of the MIQ Act;
7. Provide, in the MIQ Act, that MIQ projects are automatically operated by local transport companies, unless the company is unable to do so;
8. Provide, in section 74 of the MIQ Act, that the government, municipalities, and transport companies need to negotiate agreements on financing maintenance, operation, and development costs of the project; and,
9. MIQ’s governance must include expertise in universal accessibility and disability transportation, and it must have the necessary resources for planning and developing accessible infrastructure in all projects.

While MIQ’s future is still far from being set in stone, the STO is prepared to put their foot down in order to continue assuming leading responsibilities on all large-scale development projects in Gatineau.

After all, “The STO will have to respond to the population when the project is in place,” Blondin pointed out. “It is therefore important that it is involved in the different steps to ensure that it is accountable.”