Ontario Construction News staff writer
The drive for a new transit maintenance facility for Waterloo Region is moving forward following the awarding of a $104,333,000 contract to build the garage.
The new facility, to be located on Northfield Drive in Waterloo, will be built by Magil Construction Ontario Inc. Magil’s Ontario operation is based in London. The project calls for the construction of a new 305,000-square-foot bus storage and maintenance facility that will accommodate both regular and articulated buses.
The new maintenance facility is designed to accommodate transit ridership goals that were set in the Regional Transportation Master Plan and the Grand River Transit Business Plan. Construction of the facility is scheduled to begin this spring, with completion anticipated for the summer 2022.
“Transportation plays a critical role in building a successful and healthy community in addition to its role in moving people and goods. We’ve learned that many residents of the region are interested in using sustainable modes of transportation such as walking, cycling, and public transit to get from one place to another, but are concerned about aspects such as safety, distances between destinations, and transit service frequencies which discourage them from using these modes of transportation,” Thomas Schmidt, Commissioner, Transportation and Environmental Services, wrote in the transportation plan, titled Moving Forward.
“Moving Forward has developed new strategies to help encourage more residents to choose to use sustainable modes of transportation such as walking, cycling, and using public transit.”
The need for a new maintenance facility for Grand River Transit (GTR) was identified in 2012, when the transit authority realized there was a need to expand bus storage and bus maintenance capacity, by adding a new 200 bus facility. At a public consultation in November of 2016, residents were told the existing maintenance facilities on Strasburg Road in Kitchener and Conestoga Boulevard in Cambridge were nearing capacity and would not be able accommodate additional capacity. The property on Northfield Drive (300 and 350) was purchased in 2014.
Service increases included adding buses for Bus Rapid Transit Service and providing higher capacity feeder service for Light Rail Transit.
Highlights of the new facility include:
- Perimeter landscaping with naturalized open space to buffer the development along both frontages
- Employee parking area with a bridge to main facility entrance
- LEED Silver target applicable to design and construction
- Building mounted and pole mounted lighting to limit light trespass into neighbouring properties
- Outdoor patio
- Indoor storage, maintenance and servicing of 250 equivalent buses
- Single-storey facility with a two-storey administrative block
- One main and one alternate driveway entrance.
The Canada Ontario Infrastructure program is providing $87 million of the total budget. The region includes three cities, Waterloo, Cambridge, and Kitchener and four rural townships: North Dumfries, Woolwich, Wilmot, and Wellesley.
“The GRT Business Plan (2017-2021) will guide the planned improvements to the regional transit network and service levels over the next five years to achieve the Regional
Transportation Master Plan ridership target of 28 million annual riders by 2021,” Ken Seiling, then regional chair, wrote in 2017.
“Increasing the share of travel by transit supports the regional goals of managing growth sustainably, improving air quality, and contributing to a thriving and liveable community.”