One of the campaigns we are doing is the transit campaign. The objective of this campaign is to have free, expanded and accessible transit throughout the Montréal region and Québec more broadly. As a subversive group, we do not support the mainstream idea of having every gas vehicle replaced with an electric vehicle. Cars should no longer be the predominant mode of transportation and car culture as a whole should die. We do not want to support the neoliberal framework that aims to benefit car manufacturers and perpetuate extractivist and exploitative practices involved in the making of these electric vehicles. Instead a proper solution would be focusing on public transit. Transportation and being able to go places is a human right. It should be free for all, accessible to all and expanded everywhere. Currently we are going in the opposite direction where transit is increasingly becoming more expensive while quality of service is being degraded or cut completely. We must fight against this trend!
We started this campaign in 2022, in anticipation of the first of the summer fare hikes, which have continued almost every summer since. This campaign began around the same time another one, built around a just economic recovery for Montreal, was losing steam. The older campaign heavily informed the transit campaign. In fact, public transit became a vehicle (pardon the pun) for a radical vision of what Montreal could be if it was centered around climate and social justice. We’re advocating for transit, sure, but we’re also building coalitions and power, and making sure that both our demands and how we achieve them are informed by the work that other community organizations are doing: disability justice work, Indigenous land defence work, housing justice work, anti-racism work, etc. What was challenging with the older campaign was that it was difficult for people to grasp what we were doing. It was too big and too nebulous. Free, accessible, and expanded transit is tangible and enticing to people, and acts as an entry point for greater social transformation. Demands:
- Fare-free public transit for all with no restrictions (liberation)
- Extensive public transit networks across the territory, while avoiding gentrification
- Intersectional accessible networks (mobility: diversity)
