transit

RTC unveils new routes, new app, more àVélo stations

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RTC unveils new routes, new app, more àVélo stations

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

The Réseau de Transport de la Capitale (RTC), buoyed by a boost in ridership and a new source of revenue, is adding two new routes and implementing an application to integrate mobility services. It’s also moving ahead with an expansion of the popular àVélo bike-sharing network.

At a Feb. 5 news conference at a library in Val-Belair, RTC and city officials confirmed that several elements of the 2025-28 development plan unveiled in the fall will be put into effect as of this spring. The choice of Val-Belair is significant in that as of late August the 804 bus route will be extended into the sector.

According to RTC president and executive committee member Maude Mercier Larouche, the new $60 municipal tax on vehicle registrations, implemented at the beginning of the year, “allows us to maintain, but above all to efficiently develop our service offering.”

The registration fee affects some 300,000 vehicle owners and is expected to add nearly $20 million to city coffers.

In a news release, Mercier Larouche said, “With the improvements planned for the coming year, the RTC is realizing its vision for the future, which is to offer simpler, more direct and more efficient journeys by multiplying travel options.”

One travel option the city is promoting heavily is the àVélo bike-sharing service, which is managed by the RTC. As of May 1, 50 new stations, with 500 bikes will be added to the net- work in the sectors of Vanier, Saint-Louis, Saint-Rodrigue/ Jesuites and Maizerets. This marks the largest expansion of the service, now boasting 115 stations and 1,300 bikes, since it was launched in 2021.

Other new RTC services coming this year are the addition of Flexibus service in Cap-Rouge and the expansion of eXpress bus routes in the suburbs.

Also announced recently, is the awarding of a contract to develop a mobile application to integrate transportation services in the capital region.

According to a Jan. 31 release from the city, the new app, to be tested in the fall, will “bring together bus services offered in the CMQuébec territory (RTC, Société de transport de Lévis, Transport collectif de La Jacques-Cartier, PLUmobile), the tramway, adapted transport [used by people with disabilities], the Flexibus on-demand transport service and the àVélo electric bike-sharing service, as well as services from other partners such as car sharing, ferries (Société des traversiers du Québec), taxis, private and public parking lots and electric vehicle charging stations.”

The city said the app will be “the very first regional mobility platform developed for a public transit company in Canada.”

The city awarded the contract, with an overall estimated cost of $14.28 million, to Siemens Mobility Canada, a division of the German transportation technology giant.

Implementation of the app will be handled by Capitale Mobilité, the RTC’s division that manages ventures separate from bus system operations.

The RTC recorded a significant boost in ridership in 2024, as reported in data released on Jan. 24. Bus users took more than 31.5 million trips last year, a jump of 11.6 per cent.

Students accounted for the biggest increase, at 12 per cent, while there was a three per cent decrease in senior ridership. General customer use rose two per cent.

The increase in ridership added some $8 million to RTC revenue from passengers, for a total of $76.4 million.

RTC unveils new routes, new app, more àVélo stations Read More »

Flexibus service coming to Sillery and Montcalm

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Flexibus service coming to Sillery and Montcalm

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

The city’s popular Flexibus on-demand mini-bus service is expanding to serve the Montcalm and Sillery districts.

Service in the new zone, the sixth created since Flexibus launched in 2021, started on Nov. 18, with boarding spaces on Rue Verger, Gignac and Maguire as well as on Ave. Cartier in Montcalm.

To take advantage of the service, users need to book a space online in the seven- passenger buses. The service has no fixed routes as itineraries are adapted to customer demand. Passengers can get on or off at regular stops on Réseau de Transport de la Capitale (RTC) bus routes.

Passes are the same price as for regular RTC buses.

The expansion of the service requires an investment of $700,000, according to city documents. The entire network is budgeted at $21.5 million into 2027.

RTC president Maude Mercier Larouche said, “The rapid adoption of Flexibus by customers clearly demonstrates how the service meets the needs of citizens in terms of local travel.”

According to a city survey, users are making more than 18,700 trips per month with the service, with students making up more than two-thirds of users. The main customer destinations are secondary schools, local businesses, shopping malls, community centres and transit hubs where riders can connect with regular RTC bus routes.

The other zones served are northeast (Wendake, Saint- Émile, Lac-Saint-Charles and Notre-Dame-des-Laurentides), the northwest (Val-Bélair and Loretteville), Beauport (Courville, Montmorency and Sainte- Thérèse-de-Lisieux), Saint- Augustin-de-Desmaures and L’Ancienne-Lorette.

Plans are in the works to next extend the service to Cap-Rouge, Orsainville, Lebourgneuf and a fourth zone to be determined.

Full information on using Flexibus is available on the city’s website.

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Opposition attacks CAQ for more tramway delays

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TRAM TRACKER

Opposition attacks CAQ for more tramway delays

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

Four months after the Coalition Avenir Québec government announced its approval of the first phase of Quebec City’s tramway project, a deal is yet to be signed to restart construction.

The prolonged delay has the Quebec Liberal Party transport critic and MNA for Nelligan Monsef Derraji wondering whether the CAQ government is stalling in the hopes a Conservative federal government under Pierre Poilievre will kill the project if it comes to power in the coming months.

Derraji and other opposition members grilled Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault for two hours in the National Assembly on Sept. 27 on the tramway project.

In an interview with the QCT, Derraji said the problem for the CAQ government is “they have no money.” He said the government has been cutting programs and now Guilbault “said she’s waiting for money to come in from the federal government” for the tramway project.

He said Premier François Legault had called on the Bloc Québécois to support a Conservative non-confidence motion to defeat Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government. The premier “wants as soon as possible an election on the federal level.”

Poilievre has said on several occasions “he would give nothing to the tramway project,” Derraji said. The way he sees it, Legault and Guilbault “are waiting for a federal election, and after that they will say we don’t have the money for this project.”

Derraji said Guilbault had promised in June to give a mandate to the Caisse de dépôt et placement infrastructure division (CDPQ Infra) to restart work on the first phase of the $5.1-billion project.

“Why is she waiting? Next year we’ll have Pierre Poilievre.” Derraji noted that while Poilievre opposes the tramway, he has said a Conservative federal government would help finance the CAQ’s plan for a “third link” bridge across the St. Lawrence River.

Besides Derraji, opposition MNAs Étienne Grandmont of Québec Solidaire — whose riding would be home to several tramway stations if the project goes ahead — and Joël Arseneau of the Parti Québécois questioned Guilbault.

For her part, Guilbault said sending a mandate letter to CDPQ Infra is not a simple matter. “They [the opposition] just talk about the letter, but I don’t know if they understand how it works, the preparation and design of a major project. There are several things happening at the same time.”

She said meetings have been taking place between government officials and CDPQ Infra since June, when the agency submitted a report the CAQ government had requested that recommended a sweep- ing urban transit project for Quebec City and Lévis, to be called Circuit intégré de transport express or Cité.

Guilbauilt said the project transition committee last met on Sept. 24. “It’s important for people to know that the project is moving forward,” the minister told the opposition members at the National Assembly session.

As for federal funding, Guilbault said there are “certain people in the current fed- eral Liberal government who claimed in the newspapers that they were on target. That’s their usual claim: ‘We’re on target.’ But what does that mean in real life? For me, a target is money … I negotiate with them, I make my requests and I wait for the cheque, and the cheque doesn’t arrive.”

Jean-Yves Duclos, the federal minister of public services and procurement and MP for Québec, denied Guilbault’s claim (see separate story).  

Opposition attacks CAQ for more tramway delays Read More »

Duclos to Guilbault: Tram money is ‘in the bank’

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , , ,

Duclos to Guilbault: Tram money is ‘in the bank’

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Federal minister and Liberal Quebec lieutenant Jean-Yves Duclos has sharply refuted Quebec Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault’s claim Ottawa has yet to “send a cheque” to help finance Quebec City’s tramway project.

Duclos responded to Guilbault’s comments at a media scrum on Oct. 4 following a Quebec City announcement about loans for small busi- nesses. The minister had taken the swipe at the federal govern- ment a week earlier in front of a National Assembly session focused on the tramway project. “I wait for the cheque and the cheque doesn’t arrive,” Guilbault said, in the context of answering questions from opposition MNAs about the CAQ government’s delay in mandating the resumption of construction of the first phase of the tramway project, as promised in June.

Duclos told reporters the federal government has put “$1.5 billion and more in a bank account for the Quebec [City] region for the tramway.”

As for Guilbault’s comments, “I say this with respect, but sometimes I need to say things more clearly … I explained to her again last week what she should have understood a long time ago. I told her several times. I don’t know why it’s not getting through.”

Duclos, who recently took over as Liberal lieutenant for Quebec in the wake of Pablo Rodriguez’s decision to seek the Quebec Liberal Party leadership, said, “To claim that there is no money from the Canadian government is false, and I think everyone should admit that, including Ms. Guilbault. We have to stop diverting attention and going back over old issues that have been clarified for a long time.”

Duclos said when Guilbault sends the bill for the tramway, “we’ll send her a cheque.”

As for the threat of a future Conservative government under Pierre Poilievre, who has said he would not fund the tramway project, Duclos said the Conservative leader “wants to steal money from the tramway bank account of people in the Quebec City region. We can’t imagine that he would want to do that, but knowing Pierre Poilievre, it’s pure Pierre Poilievre.”

Duclos to Guilbault: Tram money is ‘in the bank’ Read More »

City bike lane network keeps growing

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

City bike lane network keeps growing

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Quebec City cyclists now have an additional 12.7 kilometres of bike paths to enjoy. The Ville de Québec has added six new sections to its VivaCité* bike path network this summer – the Pente-Douce corridor (from Rue Marie-de-l’Incarnation to Chemin Ste-Foy) and the Ma- rie-de-l’Incarnation corridor (from Rue Guyart to Côte de la Pente-Douce) in Montcalm, the 3e Avenue Ouest/52e Rue corridor (76e Ave Ouest to 4e Ave Est) in Limoilou, the Du Pont corridor in Saint-Roch (from Rue du Prince-Édouard to Rue Saint-Vallier Est), the Quai Saint-André corridor in Petit-Champlain (Rue Saint- Pierre to Rue Dalhousie) and the Neilson corridor in Sainte-Foy (Rue de Marly to Rue André-Giroux).

Two existing bike lanes have also been spruced up with improved lane marking, additional protective barriers and traffic lights adapted for cyclists; they are the Boul. Laurier corridor near the Université Laval campus (Rue des Gouverneurs to Rue Marguerite-Bourgeoys) and the Chemin Sainte-Foy corridor in Montcalm (from Ave. de Vimy to Ave. des Érables).

Safety improvements to an additional corridor (the 4e Ave corridor in Limoilou) should be completed by mid-November, city officials said.

The additional corridors essentially triple the size of the bike lane network, modelled after Montreal’s Réseau Express Vélo, which began with six km of lanes in 2023.

Coun. Pierre-Luc Lachance, member of the executive committee responsible for mobility and road safety, estimated the cost of this year’s improvements at $4.8 million, although the exact cost won’t be known until all upgrades are com- pleted.

Lachance said the bike lanes are “part of the city’s big ten- year plan for mobility,” which includes a 150-km network serving 85 per cent of the city’s neighbourhoods by 2035.

“We are in a new dynamic to make biking a means of trans- portation and not just a way to have fun,” said Lachance, himself an avid cyclist. “Having separated bike lanes makes a huge difference in terms of safety – there are more families with kids taking their bikes to school. With every new installation, we see behaviour change; when we put in the corridor on Chemin Ste-Foy, the average speed of the cars went down by a few kilometres per hour, and that’s a big deal. If we want to encourage people to walk or take their bikes, it has to be safe.”

Over the next few months, the city is planning public consultations about the future of the bike path network. The consultation calendar is available at ville.quebec.qc.ca/citoyens/participation-citoyenne/activites/index.aspx.

*Editor’s Note: The version of this article published in the print edition of the Oct. 9 QCT refers to the bike network by its previous name, Vélo Cité. City officials announced the new name (VivaCité) on Oct. 8 after the print edition went to press. 

City bike lane network keeps growing Read More »

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