The third Tuesday of June is reserved for a special meeting of council, a workshop. The topic this time is one that’s near and dear to some of our hearts: Transit. For years there’s been a project in the works that involves the electrification of the transit fleet, and it’s been a moving target that’s changed a lot over the last five years. Buckle up because we’re going to try again on operations facilities!
NOTE #1: Since this is a workshop/orientation meeting, there are no delegations.
NOTE #2: In addition to meeting in-person, this meeting will also be live-streamed on the City of Guelph’s website here.
Operational Facilities Long-Term Plan – It’s been a while since we talked about this at a council meeting, but the direction back in 2023 was that a new facility will be built at Stone and Watson for a transit complex while the City would commit to upgrades the other buildings to house operations. This report focus on all those other facilities including Parks buildings on Marilyn Drive and Municipal Street, the Public Works building on Municipal, and the Solid Waste Centre on Dunlop Drive, and staff will chronicle planned $75 million in capital costs for these facilities over the next 10 years.
Fleet Electrification, Transit and Facility Needs, ICIP Funding and Budget Update – This report deals with transit specifically, both the old building and the proposed new one. At issue is that if the City wants to electrify the transit fleet then they need a new building with the ability to continually charge all those buses, which they can’t do at their present facility. To help, the City years ago received Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP) funding worth $103.3 million, but the increased costs of, well, everything, have forced a number of changes to the project. The plan has been revised in a number of ways to bring the expected cost down to $199 million ($210.7 million with all the planning work), and along with that Transit will look to extend the life of the diesel bus fleets even while they continue the conversion to EV vehicles.
Guelph Politico 