Public transit has long been understood as a more environmentally sustainable transportation model, but the issues of the environment and the economy have often been pitted against each other.
A new study released by the Metropolitan Community of Montreal (MMC) dispels that myth, showing the economic benefits of public transit are far greater than personal automobiles.
“We tried to look at public transit, not only through the lens of mobility, but through the lens of economic growth as a whole,” Marie-Michèle Cauchy, director of the MMC, told Global News. “It improves productivity, it supports businesses, it increases household purchasing power, and it generates stronger economic returns for Quebec.”
The research, produced in partnership with Montreal’s Board of Trade, makes a case for the city to consider public transit a viable investment.
“There’s an issue with public finances. We want to get the most returns on our public investment. And there’s also an issue with the cost of living for households. So we wanted to do the study looking at public transit through this lens to see if it was a good investment,” Cauchy said.
The study found that in 2024, there were more than two million automobiles on the road in Montreal and $24 billion in annual spending for households, marking the second highest expenditure next to housing costs.
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The high car ownership rate also contributes to traffic congestion which led to $6 billion in economic losses in 2023, representing 2.1 per cent of the region’s GDP.
According to the research, public transit generates more than triple the amount of GDP compared to single-vehicle use.
“We need to do better,” Cauchy said, adding that investing in public transit would also keep more of the economic benefits in Canada, something that is particularly promising given the shifting trade tensions between Canada and the U.S.
The study shows that the public transportation sector supports 2.5 times more jobs in Quebec than the equivalent expenditure on automobiles.
“If we want to depend less on other economic regions right now, we need to invest in public transit,” Cauchy said.
Municipal officials have been urging their provincial counterparts to make public transit funding an election priority.
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In August, Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada said the city is facing a $7 billion budget deficit by 2030 to maintain its current offer with the city’s transit operator.
Transit experts say the entire funding model for public transportation needs to be modernized.
“Montreal is lacking in a budget that is permanent and completely dedicated and up to our discretion here on what we’re going to do with public transit,” said Evan Roncace, a project coordinator with the Transportation Research Lab at McGill University.
He pointed to cities in the U.S. where congestion pricing and payroll taxing helps fund more robust public transit systems.
But Roncace said that increasing investment and promoting public transit takes a whole society approach.
The City of Montreal currently has the goal of reaching a 75 per cent active mode share, including cycling, walking and public transit, by 2050.
“In order to achieve that level of public transportation use, we need a lot more than just densifying around public transportation,” Roncace said. “We also need to discourage car use. And we need to change people’s attitudes around using public transportation in general.”
According to Statistics Canada, 29.1 per cent of Montreal residents used public transit as their main method of transportation in May 2025.
– With files from Phil Carpenter, Global News
No farting on the train
Montreal transportation system is a money wasting enterprise. The user pays only a small fraction of operating cost: 25% to 33%. But no business charge only operating cost as they need to charge for infrastructure too! The current system have all Quebecers pay for Montreal transportation infrastructure and maintenance. Including people in Gaspesie and up north!
If the user would pay the real total cost, the user would need to pay well above $1,000 per month.
Time to review our socialist model before we go bankrupt…
C’mon liberal’s…act tough, let’s see you prove me wrong.
My culture calls these people cunts, and you are a bigot to deny my expression.
Can anyone guess the weakest science in the world?
Yep, it’s climate science. It makes microscopic improvements thanks to other scientists of other disciplines shedding some light, but it, in and of itself, is weak science.
Climate change is like the psychology of medical science…desperate to prove a point but failing to do so all of the same.
You cannot say, our weather model is unpredictable because of climate change and still claim the weather models predict doom.
Climate changes. Again, you lack basic critical thinking, but look up.
The climate has been warming for maybe 30,000 years and will continue to.
You will not stop it with a dumb liberal policy involving taxation.
You cannot stop it at all. The taxation is to make poor people insure the risk of ricj see you next Tuesday’s
I mean, honesty is the best policy…
And, I am afraid the idea of humans stopping the Earth’s climate from changing is pedantic, and not realistic by any sound or reasonable measure.
Also, our forest fire season caused by lightning and arson still outweigh the amount of carbon humanity produces.
You are all retards, lacking even the most basic critical thinking skills. You look into absolutely nothing, and call yourself an expert because of work you accomplished 20 years ago or worse.
Canada, is close to par with the US on higher education and near the bottom of the list of G20 Nnations.
You, lacking critical thinking as I said, heard a typical misleading statistic on education and thought you wore the crown
You are dumb
Easy is a luxury Canadians are lucky to have. Privileged, some might say.
Government and business represent the largest polluters on the planet. That’s why China, where the lines between business and government don’t really exist, we have the largest polluting nation in the world.
Your per capita deflections are ignorant and prove you fail to understand data analysis, and cannot discern factual data, from political spin.
Ignorance is only bliss until accountability comes, and it is coming.
Dumb study.
The facts are that Canadian consumers that purchase vehicles for personal use make up less than 1/5th of fossil fuel consumers.
The largest consumers/polluters, by a massive margin, is business and government, not ‘us’.
Saying you want government to take over is saying you want to be a part of the bigger problem, not the solution.
As is Canadian, you want to grasp for what is easy.
Here we go, now talking about payroll taxing like the us, but unlike the US, they actually have less general taxes, this excessive taxation is stifling growth. A complete overhaul is needed