My Alerts 
Maintaining our métro network
Our métro will soon be 60 years old. To continue providing you with safe, reliable service, we must keep our infrastructure in a state of good repair. Because without the métro, thousands of people would lose their main mode of daily transportation.
Our métro is vital:
- For the people who make 1.1 million trips on the STM network every day
- For the 215,000 workers who use it to get to their jobs
- For the 175,000 students who use it to get to school
- For the 1,500 Québec suppliers who work with us
- For the drivers who want lighter traffic
- For everyone else who depends on it
Make no mistake: The aging of our infrastructure has very real consequences
The average age of the métro’s assets is 48 years. Having equipment this old has very real consequences:
- +267% increase in service interruptions caused by equipment breakdowns over 10 years.
- Between 2018 and 2022, reports of equipment in critical condition went up 300%.
- Our MR-73 trains, which are almost 50 years old, are about 11 times less reliable than our AZUR trains and are among the oldest in the world.
- Unforeseeable closures have increased:
- April 2023: The Green line was shut down, affecting 90,000 people.
- October 2024: Saint-Michel station was closed, affecting more than 15,400 people a day for over five weeks.
The Montreal métro, which will turn 60 in 2026, is still safe. But these figures are a reminder that it’s time to take action to keep it reliable and ensure it continues to play a key role in the future of urban mobility.
Keeping the métro safe and reliable, for you
Our current investment deficit for asset maintenance stands at $6.6 billion and continues to grow each year.
To address that, we have a clear action plan(in french only) that calls for an investment of $10.7 billion over the next 10 years to maintain our aging infrastructure and equipment. For our customers, implementing that plan would mean more reliable service and stations that are better lit, in better condition, and safer, among other improvements.
Major investments are required to implement our plan.
Investing in our network today means securing its reliability tomorrow. It’s an ambitious project and a great responsibility, but it’s part of our commitment to future generations.
Maintaining our assets
Asset maintenance includes all the work we do to restore, maintain and modernize our infrastructure. Here are a few examples:
These systems protect métro stations from leaks. They cover a station’s underground roof like a giant umbrella. In our network, several of them have reached the end of their useful life and need to be replaced. This work is essential in making the network more resilient to climate change. Without it, service could be impacted.
Most of the métro’s mechanical ventilation stations are over 40 years old. They house equipment that regulates the ambient temperature in the métro and vents any smoke so that customers can evacuate safely in the event of an incident. Several of our mechanical ventilation stations are reaching the end of their useful life, requiring major work.
Many of the escalators in our network date back to the 1970s and 1980s. Repairing them is complex, and replacement parts are difficult to source, which causes delays. Working escalators are a necessary part of the métro for seniors, travellers with luggage, and customers with functional limitations.