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Within the last year, hundreds of buses have been towed off city streets, not because they broke down, but because they ran out of gas, the boss of the Société de transport de Montréal’s maintenance workers union told the Montreal Gazette Tuesday.

Gleason Frenette said as a way to save money, the STM eliminated some jobs in its maintenance garage, which forced them to institute a new system of gassing up the buses. Instead of fuelling them at the end of each day, the STM’s new directive only calls for buses to be gassed up on an as-needed basis.

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“It used to be very rare that a bus would ever run out of gas,” Frenette said. “Now, it happens every day. We have three tow trucks, but it’s not enough. We have had to hire private contractors (to tow away all the buses that run out of gas).”

Frenette said he has now twice flagged the problem in private meetings with Luc Tremblay, the STM’s director general, but the situation has not changed.