Windsor city council votes to put $100M toward transit improvements but nixes plan to build new garage

Windsor city council has voted for a $100-million upgrade to transit services in the city but the plan does not include building a new bus garage.

Council voted 9-2 to accept the city administration's plan to use $70 million worth of federal and provincial funding, leveraged by $29 million worth of municipal funding, to put in place eight recommendations made in a feasibility study undertaken by the city's administration.

"If I spend $130 million to build a transit garage not a single person who uses the system will see a single improvement because we have a larger building to park the buses and fix the buses," Mayor Drew Dilkens said following council's vote.

"The stuff we're approving here tonight will actually be stuff the users see and benefit from on a daily basis."

The recommendations include upgrading terminals at Tecumseh Mall, St. Clair College and Hotel Dieu Grace as well as replacing of 34 aging diesel and hybrid buses with new fuel-efficient hybrid electric vehicles and improving bus stops and shelters.

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Automated fare collection and on-demand services will also be implemented and the city will also revisit its 2020 transit master plan "in order to determine the improvement in services that can be provided without expanding the garage and fleet capacity.

The recommendations also include replacing equipment and upgrading buildings at the existing garage as well as adding a small expansion to the site which will enclose the outdoor bus parking area.

The current facility on North Service Road has a capacity of 117 buses and a new or upgraded facility would need to accommodate at least 150 buses, which would eventually require extra space as the fleet electrifies.

Building a new transit garage would cost $191 million and require $120 million of municipal funding. The future cost to give the garage the ability to service electric vehicles would also cost nearly $200 million.

"Administration could not recommend proceeding with the garage at this time as this very major funding decision would need to be made outside of the budget process," the report stated, adding that the implementation of the master plan would continue to be "severely constrained due to the limited space and technology limitations in the existing garage."

Transit advocates say that the decision to proceed in this manner will not allow for the capacity transit needs when it comes to the number of buses and when it comes to electrification of the fleet.

"Whether or not we add new routes, whether or not we add more frequency and especially, something that's been looked at recently, which is expanding into a regional transit system, we won't be able to provide that service," said Kristen Siapas of Activate Transit Windsor Essex.

She said investing now will cost the city less in the long run.

"If we make the investment where we need to and get the new facility up. It's a big investment right at the beginning but it allows us to build a stronger foundation so that as we expand into those other things, electrification of the fleet, adding more routes... it actually allows us to gain more revenue, it helps transit to work better for the city."