Youth in Montreal’s east end are more susceptible to social isolation, financial precarity and issues accessing higher education because of a lack of public transit services in the area, a recent report suggests.<\/p>\n
The report, entitled Oubli\u00e9s au terminus, was tabled by the Rivi\u00e8re-des-Prairies\u2013Pointe-aux-Trembles youth council earlier this month.<\/p>\n
It highlights the realities of youth in the borough who regularly find themselves having to sit in a bus and metro for more than an hour to arrive anywhere near the downtown area.<\/p>\n
“The fact that a car ride between Rivi\u00e8re-des-Prairies and the [Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Trois-Rivi\u00e8res] is, in some cases, faster than travelling by public transit to the Universit\u00e9 de Montr\u00e9al illustrates the gravity of the situation,” the report says.<\/p>\n
The university in Trois-Riv\u00e8res is around 130 kilometres away, while the Universit\u00e9 de Montr\u00e9al is about 25 kilometres away from Rivi\u00e8re-des-Prairies.<\/p>\n
Darl\u00e8ne Jean Jacques, co-president of the youth council, knows this reality all too well.<\/p>\n
Studying full-time at Concordia University, while doing volunteer work and working in a bank, she felt she had no choice but to buy a car so as not to spend hours getting to and from her home and her daily obligations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt limits access for youth to have a proper social life because for us in the borough, for us to be able to access concerts, activities… you have to take at least an hour of bus just to get to a metro,” she added.<\/p>\n
While there are some express buses in the area, they aren’t accessible outside of weekdays and rush hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe east end is kind of a forgotten place on the Island of Montreal,” said Jacques. “We have a flagrant disparity when it comes to transport compared to the west end.”<\/p>\n
According to the report, lack of access to sufficient public transportation accentuates an already-existing disparity when it comes to education access.<\/p>\n
The report says youth in the east end already face higher drop-out rates and a lower percentage of the population has a bachelor’s degree compared to other parts of the city.<\/p>\n
It also limits their access to work opportunities and can make it difficult to escape poverty, the report says.<\/p>\n
The youth council fears this situation will only be made worse as already-existing public transit services continue to see issues of funding<\/a> and risk being cut in some places.<\/p>\n Jean Jacques said the youth council wrote to the transportation minister but it was to no avail.<\/p>\n She hasn’t gotten any concrete answers from the city’s public transit authorities either, she said.<\/p>\n “We\u2019ve had the meetings where they propose projects and then, last minute, the project gets not enough funding or for some other reason the project gets voted out,” she said.<\/p>\n In 2020, residents were told they would be getting access to an extension of the city’s light-rail network in a project known as the REM de l’Est.<\/p>\n