Region opens massive new maintenance facility for Grand River Transit buses

New building will house and charge region’s first fully electric buses, six of which are expected to arrive next spring

Thestar.com
July 15, 2022
Liz Monteiro

Starting in September, Grand River Transit will begin using the new maintenance facility on Northfield Drive to house regional buses.

After Labour Day, the 305,000-square-foot facility will house about 80 GRT buses to begin with and be the future home of the region’s fleet of electric buses.

Transit is an important part of the region and makes it more vibrant and equitable, regional Chair Karen Redman said at the public opening of the facility on Wednesday.

“This investment in our community will help grow sustainable transit in the Region of Waterloo as we plan to increase readership and expand our network,” she said.

“This is a place for greener buses ... for our zero-emission fleet eventually,” Redman told employees, politicians and guests gathered at 300 Northfield Dr. in Waterloo.

The new building can accommodate 200 buses -- the 40-foot regular buses and 60-foot articulated buses which are bigger, looking like a bus and a half.

The building includes 22 repair bays, inspection pit bays, service lanes and bus washing stations. A large cistern collects rain water and stores it for washing the buses.

Neil Malcolm, acting director of regional transit services, said the region’s first fully electric buses have been ordered and are expected to arrive by next spring. They will be charged at the new facility.

The region’s pilot project will have six electric buses serving routes next year and five in 2024.

The region currently has a fleet of 280 buses, nearly all diesel. Twenty-five buses are hybrid diesel-electric buses.

Malcolm said moving away from diesel buses meets the region’s climate change goals. GRT’s diesel buses account for about one-fifth of all greenhouse gases that the regional municipality produces each year.

As part of the region’s climate change commitments, the region wants to reduce emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. Moving to electric buses and phasing out diesel buses is part of that strategy, Malcolm said.

But electric buses are costly. Each fully electric bus costs $1.4 million, while diesel buses cost about $600,000, he said.

And electric buses need to charged while current GRT buses can be out all day without refuelling.

The new facility cost $118.8 million and was built during the pandemic. The federal government contributed about 40 per cent, while the province gave the region 33 per cent of the money to build the facility. The region paid the remainder.

Before the pandemic, ridership for all of GRT was about 20 million annually, Malcolm said. It dropped off during the past two years and transit officials expect it will be at 80 per cent capacity by the end of this year.