It was a laidback meeting this week at city council as they tucked in around the horseshoe for a workshop meeting. The topic was operations facilities, and the need to lay the infrastructure that will enable the continued electrification of transit. The present bus barn is horribly out of date; not enough space, and not enough capacity to charge more than a couple of buses at a time, but there is a plan! Let’s check out the recap…

Orientation Meeting of City Council – June 17, 2025

A special meeting of council looked to the future of transit electrification, which also means a new building that will store and charge all those new EV buses.

The general managers for facilities, climate change, finance, and Guelph Transit all took their turn laying out the issues and basically it comes down to space. Guelph now has more buses than places to put them, and that’s before talking about the infrastructure gaps that prevent them from charging more than a couple of EVs at one time. Also, there are other vehicles in the City’s operations fleet that are too big or too unwieldy for the garages at other operations facilities.

Staff reviewed how the development of a new transit and fleet services facility intersects with the City’s climate change goals, and the Strategic Plan. In the end, it could end up costing just over $210 million and while much of that money will come from Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP) funding, it will also involve backing from development charges and the tax supported budget. Later in the meeting, staff said that they would not be looking to increase the capital budget to move forward with the project, but they would instead look at deferrals and use the present funding envelope.

As for the ICIP money, which the City secured for transit expansion and EV buses in 2019, it requires getting approval from the federal government in order to change the plans. The first part will commit funding to six projects to support the electrification, while the second part will support the construction of the new facility; the feds have approved the first part but not yet the second.

Councillors had a few questions about the plan, including the impact on other facilities. Antto Vilkko, General Manager of Facilities and Energy Management, said that moving all vehicle maintenance to the new facility will open up more space at other buildings, including the present Transit building on Watson which has been the subject of some extensive renovations over the last few years. But beyond the new building, part of the plan also looks at the placement of quick chargers downtown, which will help keep EVs on the road throughout the day and not send them back to the bus barn for a four-hour charge.

Mayor Cam Guthrie finished the meeting by noting that this is an example of needed infrastructure that’s not public facing, but still necessary to ensure that Guelph is ready to keep up with growth now and into the future. While it’s true that the new facility will not be a public building in terms of access, it will have public parking so that people will be able to access the trails through the Ontario Reformatory Lands next door. Work on the new facility might start as early as next year.

Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.

The next meeting of city council is the regular meeting on Tuesday June 24 at 6 pm. You can see the agenda on the City’s website here.