Grand River Transit

[Rainrider22]

The bid for the new GRT facility on Northfield closed this week. Bids were between $104M and $120M. I don't know what the budget was. It was a long process as the bid period started in October and there were 16 addenda making clarifications and changes.

https://regionofwaterloo.bidsandtenders....#Submitted

You can download the plans from the same page.

Too bad we wasted all that money on an LRT. Buses are cheap to own, operate, and maintain!

Note: I am actually in favour of more buses and bus maintenance facilities. But it’s interesting that the amount for a single new bus facility is a significant fraction of the cost of the supposedly ruinously expensive LRT system.

I am still amazed that this project is being built at the North end of Waterloo.  You would think the facility would be more centralized like around Maplegrove Road as an example.  I would love to see what a cost study would say about the extra labour and fuel lost on a bus serving Kitchener or Cambridge having to leave from North Waterloo.  Not to mention the extra distance employees have to drive to get to work there...