Montreal-area transit agency Exo is cutting 73 jobs — about 11 per cent of its workforce — in its 2026 budget, and warns it cannot reach a $100-million savings target by 2028 without eventually reducing service. Quebec’s transit agencies face a persistent funding shortfall despite recovering ridership.
A smaller budget and a warning
Exo, which operates suburban commuter trains and buses across the Montreal region, unveiled a 2026 budget that reduces overall spending by 0.4 per cent from the previous year and eliminates about 11 per cent of its workforce — 73 jobs.
Board chair Pierre Fortin said the agency cannot meet its target of reducing spending by $100 million by 2028 without eventually affecting services. “Despite the revision of its organizational structure and an already highly optimized model, Exo will not be able to achieve the target of $100 million in recurring savings by 2028 without altering the service,” the agency said in an email. “Other measures will therefore need to be identified and implemented in the metropolitan area to ensure public transit funding.”
A sector-wide squeeze
Exo is not alone. Transit agencies across greater Montreal have faced persistent budget shortfalls as operating costs grow faster than revenue. Under a 2024 funding agreement with the province, the agencies committed to cutting recurring expenses by hundreds of millions of dollars a year over the coming years.
Ridership is not the problem: it has been gradually recovering from its pandemic collapse, and on some networks exceeds pre-pandemic levels. It still does not close the gap.
Montreal’s main agency, the Société de transport de Montréal, announced earlier this month that it is cutting about 300 jobs in a $1.8-billion 2026 budget that includes $56.5 million in recurring savings. The STM says it will reach its own $100-million recurring reduction target in 2026, two years ahead of schedule — but it is also carrying an asset maintenance shortfall estimated at $7 billion, which could reach $9 billion by 2030 if the trend continues, as decades-old fleets and stations age.
According to the regional authority, the ARTM, riders pay only about 20 per cent of the cost of service. Municipalities and other governments cover nearly 70 per cent, and drivers pay about 11 per cent through gas taxes, registration fees and a $150 annual fee for Montreal-area motorists.
‘Finance public transit at the same level as roads’
On Wednesday, groups representing transit users and municipalities jointly denounced a $200-million cut to a provincial program meant to help develop public transit. Philippe Jacques, a spokesperson for the advocacy group Trajectoire Québec, argued the province’s transport investments are disproportionately skewed toward roads.
“Quebec must stop imposing cuts on transportation companies and transport organizing authorities and finance public transit at the same level as roads, which currently benefit from 70 per cent of the investments,” he said.
A memo the group submitted with Alliance Transit at the Quebec legislature puts a number on the gap: Ontario is investing the equivalent of $3,753 per person in public transit over the next 10 years, against $1,607 in Quebec.
Retired Université de Montréal urbanism professor Paul Lewis says Quebec transit is underfunded relative to its needs, and that the shortfalls show up as unmaintained stations, fleets that are not upgraded and departing employees who are not replaced. Services have not been greatly reduced so far, he said, but “we’re getting to a point where it will be difficult to maintain the same level of service we’re used to, a little bit everywhere, if we continue to make cuts.”
