{"id":2210,"date":"2009-03-19T08:40:39","date_gmt":"2009-03-19T12:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingmontreal.ca\/2009\/03\/19\/the-stm-needs-new-ways-to-make-ends-meet\/"},"modified":"2013-01-21T11:05:23","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:05:23","slug":"the-stm-needs-new-ways-to-make-ends-meet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/03\/19\/the-stm-needs-new-ways-to-make-ends-meet\/","title":{"rendered":"The STM Needs New Ways to Make Ends Meet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week the mayor announced $40-million cut in spending on transit<\/a>, about 4% of the STM’s annual budget. And this, he assured us, was supposed to go down with no fare hike nor service reduction. “If $40 million in cuts will really be painless, why weren’t they made long ago?” asked an editorial in The Gazette<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now Mayor Tremblay, Andr\u00e9 Lavall\u00e9e (the city councillor in charge of transportation), and Michel Labrecque the new president of the STM, are off to see the wonderful wizard of Provincial Transportation. The mayor reckons that the STM can squeeze more out of Quebec’s Green Fund, a provincial gas-tax reserve. No news yet on how this request has been received, but when I spoke with a friend who works at the STM, she said that their offices were remaining calm in face of the cuts (and the STM isn’t particularly famous for their calm responses…).<\/p>\n

\"Lionel<\/a><\/p>\n

Our conversation, however, turned to more interesting when we began to ponder how the STM could increase their independent revenue in the long term. Renting out d\u00e9panneur space and advertising may be a drop in the bucket, but the STM does have one underused asset: big chunks of prime real estate all over the city.\u00a0 Aside from the stations located in the central business district, most metro stops have some kind of above ground structure – often a needlessly large and bizarrely-shaped heap of concrete, surrounded by a rather underused public square.<\/p>\n

Last year, the city announced that a cultural centre would be built atop the Saint-Laurent metro<\/a> station. Couldn’t they also develop other metro stations in order to help offset the STM’s chronic deficit and even amass the capital to invest in new projects?<\/p>\n

The metro tends to create a hub of activity which is attractive to residential, commercial and business developers alike. Why shouldn’t the STM itself reap some of the benefits?<\/p>\n

Lionel Groulx, pictured above, seems ripe with possibility. Mont-Royal, Laurier, Georges Vanier, Du College and others also come to mind. Building on top of metro stations could involve some delicate structural planning but I doubt that it is beyond the realm of modern-day engineering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week the mayor announced $40-million cut in spending on transit, about 4% of the STM’s annual budget. And this, he assured us, was supposed to go down with no fare hike nor service reduction. “If $40 million in cuts will really be painless, why weren’t they made long ago?” asked an editorial in TheContinue reading “The STM Needs New Ways to Make Ends Meet”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5022,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7840,33],"tags":[1082,2297,8,321,3191,346,3556,1035,3754,3755,3753,420,830,554,302],"class_list":["post-2210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-transit","tag-andre-lavallee","tag-city-councillor","tag-city-hall","tag-du-college","tag-lionel-groulx","tag-mayor","tag-michel-labrecque","tag-president","tag-prime-real-estate","tag-provincial-gas-tax-reserve","tag-quebecs-green-fund","tag-stm","tag-transportation-2","tag-tremblay","tag-usd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe STM Needs New Ways to Make Ends Meet - Spacing Montreal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/03\/19\/the-stm-needs-new-ways-to-make-ends-meet\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The STM Needs New Ways to Make Ends Meet - Spacing Montreal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last week the mayor announced $40-million cut in spending on transit, about 4% of the STM’s annual budget. 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