Bus hub · STM & intercity
The STM recorded 293.9 million trips in 2025, a 6.6% decline driven by labour action and the departure of international students — but the recovery was visible by summer, and the network’s workhorses held. The 747 express airport line kept its downtown link until the REM station opens, and the intercity trade to Quebec City, Ottawa and New York runs on a mature, competitive coach market.
The STM’s 2025 was the toughest of any major Canadian system: 293.9 million trips, down 6.6%, with four of six union groups in negotiation through the year and rotating strike actions. Underneath, a demographic shift did its own damage — new immigration policy cut the international-student population, one of the metro’s most loyal rider groups.
The explanations matter because they are one-offs. By summer 2026 the system was visibly recovering, and the structural assets are untouched: four metro lines, 68 stations, the continent’s densest heavy-rail network per kilometre, and a bus fleet that feeds the REM’s new stations. The agency ratified four labour agreements by May 2026; the remaining two are negotiations, not disputes about the network’s direction.
Montreal’s intercity coach trade is one of North America’s oldest — the Montreal–Quebec City and Montreal–Ottawa corridors run frequent scheduled service, and the Adirondack-pattern New York line predates every boutique carrier on the continent. The 747 airport express remains the city’s single most-watched bus: when the REM airport station opens, it hands over the YUL–downtown link after sixteen years.
The TIO framing: watch the STM’s 2026 print and the REM handover. A system that loses 6.6% to strikes and students and keeps its planning demand up 14.5% (mtl.org visits) is not a declining network — it is a network in a one-year trough. The 2026 number is the tell: if the metro recovers even two-thirds of the decline while the REM keeps adding 130,000 a day, Montreal will have quietly built the continent’s most interesting two-layer transit city.
The TIO Read: don’t short a strike year. The STM’s −6.6% is the most mechanical decline in the series — labour actions plus a student exodus explain nearly all of it. What the bus and metro network keeps is the thing money can’t rebuild: density. The intercity corridors to Quebec City and Ottawa never lost frequency, and the 747 is about to be upgraded into a rail line, which is the best retirement a bus route can get. Watch the 2026 recovery print — it will be the cheapest buying signal in Canadian transit data.
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