Mr. Chair, members of the committee, good morning.
I am happy to have the opportunity to speak to you today on behalf of the Agence métropolitaine de transport, but in particular to talk about prosperity, particularly that of the Montreal metropolitan area.
The federal government will have important decisions to make in the coming months, which will have a decisive impact on the prosperity of the entire region. I am referring here to the new Champlain Bridge and to the implementation of a light rail transit system in the downtown A10 corridor, and to the federal funds that will be allocated to this.
Created in 1996, the mission of the Agence métropolitaine de transport is to increase public transit services so as to improve the efficiency of people's movements in the Montreal metropolitan area. To execute its mission, the agency plans and operates five commuter train lines—soon there will be a sixth—and promotes public transit.
In our Vision 2020 strategic plan, we set ourselves the objective of increasing ridership on the metropolitan public transit network by 33%, by increasing trips from 480 million, the 2011 figure, to 640 million in 2020.
We have a number of projects, including extending the subway, the east train and the Pie-IX BRT. All of these projects represent an investment of over $16.8 billion over a period of 10 years.
We talk about money a lot. However, recent studies have clearly shown that investing in public transit generates many economic benefits and contributes in a structuring way to the wealth and dynamic character of the city of Montreal. As proof, I would simply mention that in 2009, public transit generated value added for the Quebec economy in the order of $1.1 billion, and supported 14,000 jobs. A dollar invested in public transit has an impact—