Hopping on the bus to Edmonton from St. Albert for work or school will be that much easier in 2020, with imminent completion of a new park and ride facility that has been a decade in the works.
Last spring, construction began on the new $30-million Campbell Park and Ride, which will replace the old Village Station and be able to accommodate 800 vehicles.
The anticipated opening will be in September, and Coun. Wes Brodhead said there were “so many issues to work through” in getting the park and ride through, which has "been on the books" since 2009.
Land for the facility – which is located just south of the Anthony Henday and east of St. Albert Trail – was in the transportation and utility corridor, necessitating a land transfer.
St. Albert also had to secure funding, which was announced in 2015 when the Alberta government said it would fund $20 million of the project through a Green Trip grant. The city is paying for the remaining $10 million through municipal sustainability initiative (MSI) funding.
Then there was also a gas pipeline that needed to be moved, which cost construction schedules a month, Brodhead said.
Every fall, Brodhead said it is common for him to get emails from people saying “we have got to do something” to expand parking for transit. They would complain about loved ones running late and unable to find parking, resulting in them parking somewhere they should not and getting a ticket.
“So clearly we need to have more parking for transit,” he said. “People will be able to not only have that expanded access to parking stalls, but it should flesh out our local transit system a little bit.”
Work is at a standstill for the winter season, but St. Albert communications adviser Juliann Cashen said in 2019 crews managed to place pilings for the station’s foundation and inserted grade beams, architectural wall concrete and structural steel.
Work that was started last year and will be carried over into 2020 include servicing and underground utilities, erecting the roof and exterior walls, site grading, concrete work and pavement subgrade preparation.
Some improvements to Campbell Road will also take place in 2020.
The new park and ride will become St. Albert’s main transit station, and the old Village Station land is set to be repurposed for the rebuild of Firehall #1.
Coun. Ken MacKay said he will be “looking and watching” closely to see how the new facility will impact St. Albert Transit service levels. He wondered whether some people would feel since they have already made it all the way to the Anthony Henday, they may as well drive the 10 or 20 extra minutes all the way into Edmonton.
The Campbell Park and Ride will have 500 paved and 300 gravel stalls, and capacity is expandable to 1,600 spaces. Up to 16 buses will fit at the transit station, expandable to 24 buses.
The station will include a transit centre building, washroom and bicycle storage facilities and a “Kiss & Ride” area.
The station is also the proposed future terminus of Edmonton’s northwest LRT line.
The city did not grant an interview for this story.
