Comments on Is the Montreal Metro Profitable?

By: SG

2017-08-09T14:16:33Z

Pour votre information.
http://cmm.qc.ca/fileadmin/user_upload/documents/20070223_EntenteDeficitMetro.pdf

By: Ling Hua

2017-07-08T17:01:23Z

What an interesting read! Very well thought out research!

By: ant6n

2017-07-07T01:41:24Z

@simval
Firstly the inflation from 2003 would make 300M to 380M today. Secondly, You have to consider that back then, the STM had about 13% less ridership (and didn’t have the Laval metro), scaling the capital cost by ridership would make it 450M per year. Lastly, the STM accumulated a larg investment deficit before this decade, about 4.3 billion by 2013, that it’s now trying to work off. In most recent years, there was more capital spending, up to 800M.

In the 2016 budget, there’s a graph showing the investment deficit evolution possible over the the next twenty years (page 94), and it shows how with an inveestment of 421M$/year it will slowly increase, and with 691M$/year it will disappear by 2030. Thus, picking 620M$ as somewhere between the steady state and the pay-off rate seems very reasonable to me, especially considering that there are no new lines being built right now.

By: simval84

2017-07-06T19:52:02Z

Doesn’t vary a lot? In 2017, they expect about 580 millions, 1 024 in 2018 and 450 in 2019. In 2011, it was less than 300. And that was still within the 10-year plan of massive investments started in 2011.

From 1995 to 2002, the STM actually had more capital spending on its buses than on the metro, and not by a little. 57,0% of its capital spending went to its bus system, versus 31,6% for the metro. In 2002, they spent only 125 million dollars on capital spending.

I’d give the link directly, but I’m not sure it wouldn’t be caught by the anti-spam system. So just Google “Montage PTI 2003-2004-2005 – STM” and you’ll get the document I found.

For decades, the metro system was under-invested in, leaving us with some of the oldest rolling stock in the developed world for a metro system, now we are catching up to the back log of necessary investments, which imposes a lot of investments over many years.

By: ant6n

2017-07-06T18:51:39Z

As I noticed in the article, the numbers don’t change much over the years. The linked spreadsheet shows multiple years. Also note capital cost section “Looking at the capital budget over multiple years, we see that the spending has been relatively constant, around 600M$ per year”.

By: simval84

2017-07-06T18:44:24Z

I once did a similar exercice and came to similar conclusions… however, I would point out that if operating costs tend to be pretty stable year over year, the same is not true for capital costs that fluctuate wildly year-to-year. Currently, the metro is getting lots of capital money because of the incoming Azur trains and long-delayed station overhauls, but that wasn’t true a few years back. I think that by using the current capital investment for just one year, you have severely overestimated the capital cost of the metro system. I’d like to provide a better image, but I fail to see how I can do so effectively.