Cost of Transit garage jumps to $305M

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This article was published 06/09/2024 (399 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The price of Winnipeg Transit’s new north garage has surged by $105 million and has sparked calls to scale down the project, which could hinder service levels.

The transit garage is expected to cost $305 million, while council budgeted $200 million for it in 2019, a new report says.

Transit staff recommend city council defer $25 million worth of work and take on $80 million of debt to cover the shortfall.

However, the head of council’s public works committee wants the project to be completed within its original $200-million budget.

“I personally am not going to want to go (closer to our) debt ceiling. I’d sooner approach (the project) in phases… We know the route we have to go is increasing our transit service and making it really state of the art and desirable, but we only have so much money,” said Coun. Janice Lukes (Waverley West).

City staff blame the cost hike on an outdated, preliminary estimate, a delay in senior government funding approval, pandemic price increases and soil remediation costs, among other factors. Due to a tri-government funding deal, any changes to the project’s scope would require provincial and federal approval.

Transit officials warn reducing the cost hike to $80 million would postpone key elements of the project to an unknown date.

The change of scope may reduce the number of bus storage spaces at the garage from to 207 from 246, cut maintenance bays to 12 from 20, remove a geothermal heating system and defer the installation of one wash rack.

Doing so could lead the garage to run out of bus storage space in about eight to 10 years and force Transit to defer future purchases of 60-foot articulating buses, the report notes.

“We’re eventually going to run out of storage space in the facility under (the options to reduce the budget)… Where we might see that impact is having less capacity with those larger buses,” said Jesse Crowder, the manager of Winnipeg Transit’s asset management office.

When asked if such changes would increase the risk of riders being passed up by buses that are full before they reach their stop, Crowder said that’s tough to predict.

“That’s kind of what we’re looking at but we don’t really know until we… see what the ridership is like,” he said.

Crowder said the recommendation would result in a “reasonable” sized facility being built, with the goal of limiting the impact on riders.

The report notes sticking with the original $200-million budget could lead Transit to remove all maintenance bays, reduce the size of the facility, increase its operating costs to maintain buses and delay the purchase of electric buses.

“This option is considered very high risk to Transit operations and ability to provide service to the public,” the report notes.

Lukes said she is concerned about the potential effect on service but said changes wouldn’t be immediate, since the project’s target completion date is Dec. 31, 2027.

She noted the city only has $150 million of borrowing room left under its debt strategy, so devoting $80 million to one project could affect other infrastructure priorities.

The councillor said she hopes federal funding can help to address Transit’s needs, since cities across Canada have stressed their revenues aren’t sufficient to cover public transit.

“I think, nationally, everyone is aware that all transit systems are under this pressure. If (our decision) means doing the garage in phases and waiting to see what happens with federal money, I think we have to do that because we can’t do it on our own,” said Lukes.

A local transit advocate urged the city to cover the price to complete the entire project as planned, arguing Transit must do all it can to increase capacity before it unveils a massive network overhaul in June 2025.

“They are getting in their own way before this huge investment in transit service… If they fail to take this opportunity … we’ll be paying for that for generations,” said Kyle Owens, president of Functional Transit Winnipeg.

Owens accused the city of failing to prioritize transit, noting inflationary hikes for many other city projects didn’t prevent them from being approved.

“We see so many city departments show the same increase in costs due to inflation and those budgets get rubber-stamped… Transit, over and over again, seems to be first in line to reassessing the scope of projects when it comes time to spending money on service,” he said.

The original project called for a 40,000-square-metre garage to replace Transit’s north garage, which the report describes as “in poor condition and functionally obsolete.”

Transit officials are asking city council to seek more funding for the garage from the provincial and federal governments.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

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