Thank you.
My name is Daniel Bergeron. I am the Vice-President of the Agence métropolitaine de transport in Montreal. We are very honoured by the invitation to appear before this parliamentary committee.
The Agence métropolitaine de transport is responsible for public transit in the Montreal area. Our region includes 83 municipalities with approximately 3.6 million people. In terms of public transit in the region, 15 transport authorities are responsible for providing bus, metro and commuter train services. We are talking about 500 million trips a year, which makes public transit a key component of the region. More specifically, public transport agencies in the region provide 10,000 direct jobs, in addition to, obviously, transporting more than 50% of the region's workers daily during morning rush hour.
This year, public transit represented about $1.5 billion in operational costs and region-wide investments. The amount was $1 billion in 1996 and it will be $2 billion in 2017. The funding for current services mainly comes from public transit users—who cover 40% to 50% of costs—as well as the municipalities, the Government of Quebec in terms of investments, and the federal government through various existing funds.
In addition to public transit trips in the Montreal region—and the same goes for Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and other major Canadian urban centres—there are also a lot of congested highways, blocking the transportation of goods, which slows down economic activity.
To address those concerns, the Agence métropolitaine de transport, with all the transportation agencies and all the cities in the region, including the City of Montreal, the STM and its other partners, has developed a 10-year investment plan to reduce traffic congestion and to foster economic activity by transporting goods and by making the city appealing to its residents. This investment plan provides for a $17 billion investment over the next 10 years; that is a huge amount. Municipal and provincial governments are the main players, but we think that the government has a major role to play on three fronts: first, by creating a public transport investment fund in the range of $1 billion for the next 7 to 10 years; second, by continuing to allow public transit programs to be eligible for existing programs; and third, by proposing economic development guidelines for public transit through a 10-year action plan that would include the two investment funds I mentioned.
So these are the recommendations that AMT would like to submit to you: first, creating a new fund for public transport infrastructure in cities across Canada, for a period of 7 to 10 years and in the amount of $1 billion a year; second, maintaining current funds and the eligibility of public transit for those funds; finally, creating a national public transit action plan to encompass all that.
Thank you.