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Long way ahead for new metro cars

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After delays, bus shortages and unhappy drivers who might strike in February, there’s even more bad news for the STM.

French manufacturing giant Alstom has won its case against Quebec for awarding a $1.2 billion contract to replace all of the green line’s 336 metro cars to Bombardier without an open tender. Whatever its final outcome, the STM says, the court ruling will set the delivery of new metro cars back by another year. Here’s more background from La Presse:

C’est le ministre Béchard qui a ouvert le bal en juillet 2005 en déclarant que le gouvernement cherchait à accorder le contrat de remplacement des 336 voitures MR-63 du métro de Montréal à Bombardier Transport sans appel d’offres. À l’époque, M. Béchard était ministre du Développement économique, de l’Innovation et de l’Exportation (MDEIE). Mais il était aussi, et l’est encore aujourd’hui, député de la circonscription de Kamouraska-Témiscouata, dans laquelle se trouve l’usine de Bombardier à La Pocatière.

Le 11 mai 2006, le gouvernement québécois a annoncé en grande pompe que le contrat de 1,2 milliard serait effectivement négocié de gré à gré avec Bombardier Transport. Le nouveau ministre du Développement économique, Raymond Bachand, a soutenu que le gouvernement pouvait légalement procéder ainsi parce qu’il n’y avait qu’un manufacturier de voitures de métro au Canada, Bombardier.

You have to admit that the government’s original plan to award Bombardier the metro contract reeks of patronage: its factory is located in Kamouraska-Témiscouata, the former economic development minister’s riding. Alstom’s factory, by contrast, is located in the PQ stronghold of Richelieu.

If Quebec were a family, something tells me we’d be dysfunctional and prone to nepotism. It’s this kind of arrangement that got us stuck with a load of lemons made by Novabus, which was favoured over other bus companies simply because its factory is located in Saint Eustache.

So while the bureaucrats in Quebec City figure out how to deal with the Bombardier/Alstom mess, Montreal transit users will be stuck waiting for buses that don’t come and new metro cars that won’t arrive for another four years.

Photo by Flowizm

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3 comments

  1. Sigh. And they also say that a driver strike might be in the offing soon. Does the STM just not want to keep its ridership (or god forbid, attract new ones)?

  2. In the EU, you’d have to publish a public tender a fraction of this size in the Official Journal of the European Union and a company in Greece could bid on a tender in Sweden and have recourse if shut out unfairly.

    Meanwhile, in the so-called federal country of Canada, forget about building public transit vehicles outside of Ontario or Quebec for their respective transit systems…

  3. Why they are spending money on new ticket collector booths and fancy electronic passes (and raising fares multiple times every year) when they cannot even get escalators repaired in a timely fashion or maintain a basic level of service is beyond me. STM brass seem to be totally disconnected from the day to day operations of the system. The bus drivers taking the city’s most vulnerable citizenry (those without cars who rely on public transport to get to and from work) hostage with the threat of striking is even more despicable. It all smacks of corruption and greed. The provincial government ought to severely audit them.

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