No Decision on Transit Site
Prince George, B.C.- It has been a little over two months since the Province and Federal Government announced Prince George would be home to a new transit facility, and there is still no word on where the facility will be built.The plan calls for a $23 million dollar new, expanded operations and maintenance facility that will support a fleet of compressed natural gas buses.
The City and BC Transit have been examining the options for the new facilities, but have yet to finalize their decision. It is expected the decision will be announced later this month.
When announced in late July, it was noted the new facility is meant to “position Prince George to meet future demands for transit in addition to improving operational efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions”.
Mayor Lyn Hall has said the investment in the new transit operations facility “is vital for the growth of our community.”
Prince George is also receiving two replacement handyDART buses in the new year. In the meantime, BC Transit was to be working with the community and seniors groups to ensure the 13 thousand hours of handyDART service available in the City is used to its full potential.
The Federal funding for the projects comes from the Public Transit Infrastructure Fund.
Comments
Put it right downtown….since not many people will be venturing down there anymore with the new parking regulations… This frees up lotta space
Someone that has friends within the city admin has probably already scooped up a few lots somewhere and put them together with a huge markup as a package deal. Maybe they even financed it through NDIT.
Aren’t the regulations already in? As far as I can tell, the off street parking is filling up, and there are now more people downtown… Yes, the retail stores are busier, particularly the ones with angled parking.
I think the City has done the right thing, but I imagine those who want to game the system–those who work downtown and try to sneak free parking will never be happy.
In my mind, the proof is in the pudding. We are seeing the good results already, so the debate is finished.
ohh yeahhh so busy that street parking spots are almost empty.. Must be catching the bus downtown
Hmmm… “a fleet of compressed natural gas buses”. One thing’s for sure; that transit facility should be located in a designated “industrial area”, away from high population centers. Compressed natural gas can be extremely explosive around static electricity, and most definitely when the tanks are exposed to fire.
This short video of a garbage truck fire, fueled by natural gas, shows just how explosive the stuff is. Skip to the 60 second mark for all the action.
.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyn3_mqHeic
Ya but they will supposedly reduce carbon emissions and save the world. Who cares about the risk if saving the world.
These buses fueled by natural gas drive through residential neighbourhoods, past schools, shopping centers etc so what is the difference?
Ummm… the size of the tanks would be the difference! The garbage truck, and any transit bus, would have smaller tanks, but the Transit Facility would have the really large, at least full tanker truck size tanks because I would assume that is where the buses would be refueled. Here is the size of an explosion when a Compressed Natural Gas tank of that size goes off… and remember the following videos were taken from over a mile away!
.youtube.com/watch?v=tLGM_2l0zok
If they refuel those buses at the transit facility, it should be located away from a large population center!
The taxi station downtown sold it for years. If they fill the buses overnight they won’t even need storage just a pump and a gas line per vehicle. We had natural gas in a pickup bought from the Fortis predecessors. Was great when the taxi station was on first ave. Cost 5 bucks to fill the tanks and you could drive to Fraser Lake before switching to gas
Dont recall any fires in cabs or at the site downtown
Every type of transportation which uses the external or internal method of combustion of fossil fuels has a risk of catching fire! Electric buses, street cars and trains are much safer. Add to that the latest electric cars. The Paris Auto Show features a whole plethora of those!
Cherry picking one incident on YouTube proves exactly nothing.
With the federal government finally setting the price on carbon , not going electric is going to hurt in many ways not counting the price of carbon itself . Very short sighted .
Once windmills replace oil and gas what will all the thousands of people do for work Ataloss? I am guessing only a few hundred will be needed to clean up the dead bird carcasses at the base of the windmills.
You’re talking 2030 or a bit sooner for oil, gas , and nuclear replacement . So, long before that happens we would likely use either and or groundbased/ flying drones driven by Advanced artificial intelligence programs to have the birds up . If you are worried about job loss . Don’t look at what’s happening in agriculture . Like robots picking soft fruit etc. better you don’t know about driverless trucking/delivery that Mercedes is building .
That truck is also solar electric .
how about some actual shelters and signage that shows info such as bus #, schedule and route instead of a sign with a picture of a bus. and how about buses into industrial sites and working on holidays. want people to use transit? supply some
Some places bus shelters are wifi enabled . Maybe some day in PG .
buses do run on holidays now
downtown? good idea, seems to me there is a vacant lot across from city hall.
Ataloss, I drove semi throughout the 3 western provinces and territories for a number of years and hauled produce from California for a while. I can tell you in no uncertain terms there is absolutely no way in the world a driverless truck can operate in the 3 western provinces and territories, absolutely not. That being said there should be some good You Tube videos the first time a driverless truck is sent down Steamboat or the Coquihalla in a snowstorm!!
Check out Wikipedia…. Vehicular automation … Then scroll down to trucks and be amazed . It’s not coming , it’s here . You won’t see much of what’s happening on msm for obvious reasons but the wiki info will get you started .
I always figured that a good idea for PG would be to consolidate a lot of the transit to transit corridors with high density point to point access. Then focus on the new construction of high rises along those corridors.
First one we should focus on is downtown up Massey to Cranbrook hill. Then put a covered moving escalator up the hill with a moving covered sidewalk to UNBC. Build high density residential around it then the buses don’t have to use so much fuel going up the hill and we get some winter protection from the eliments and some walking involved in the commute. From the base of Cranbrook hill one could run electric street cars down Masset to Fifteenth and downtown.
Once that high density route is established than work it out like a spoke from there over the long term.
Cable cars would be a great deal cheaper . Plus you don’t need near as much real estate . I don’t think you can convince anyone else in PG to move anything around without burning something . So electric anything transportation ? Maybe next century .
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