Quote:
Originally Posted by outoftheice
Would this new project be a replacement for the bus barns in Victoria Park?? That land is prime for redevelopment...
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Per Route Ahead, CT is already over capacity for bus barns. They store ~200 vehicles outside as it is; an expansion to Spring Gardens will only add 100 garage spaces. The new facility will handle planned fleet expansion until 2020 or so. It's also going to be a CNG bus facility, so it can't just get filled up with the 330 buses at Victoria Park or we won't have anywhere to service the CNG buses.
Most bus routes start and end in the suburbs, though, so moving barns towards the edge of the city can cut down on deadheading (and putting a facility near a major interchange like Stoney/Deerfoot means the buses can get to the suburbs faster).
In the long term, I'm sure they'll eventually go and be redeveloped, but that may still be decades from now. The value of the land for redevelopment isn't likely to drop anytime soon. I'll also note that the only feasible way I can think of to build a NCLRT before a SELRT would be to convert the VP facility into an LRT garage, since there's nowhere north of downtown suitable for an LRT facility, and the first half of the SELRT runs through nothing but land suitable for an LRT facility. So there is a strategic option that maintaining the bus barns also provides.
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