Winnipeg Transit may scale back scope of new garage after projected cost rises $105M

Rising cost projections for a long-awaited new Winnipeg Transit garage may force the city to scale back the scope of the project, a change that could reduce the city's ability to buy more buses and meet a growing demand for transit service.

The projected cost of building a new transit garage at Oak Point Highway, near Selkirk Avenue in the city's northwest, is now $305 million, which is $105 million above an initial cost projection of $200 million, Winnipeg Transit says in a new report to city council's public works committee.

The new building is intended to replace an existing West Kildonan garage on Main Street, which was built in 1950 and is in danger of being shuttered due to deterioration over the decades.

That facility also doesn't have enough space to store new large buses or house maintenance bays for buses. The new garage planned for Oak Point Highway was designed to be larger and capable of maintaining zero-emissions buses. 

In 2022, the federal and provincial governments committed $133 million toward what was then a $200-million project. The City of Winnipeg is responsible for the rest of the project cost.

In its report, Winnipeg Transit provides city council with three options to deal with the increased project cost. One involves borrowing $105 million to cover the new projected cost.

The second involves whittling down the cost hike to $80 million by cutting back on the spaces for buses, from 249 to 207, and slashing the number of maintenance bays from 20 to 12.

This would mean Winnipeg Transit would run out of space for buses in as soon as eight years, which in turn would force the city to put off some bus purchases and fail to meet ridership needs, the report states.

Transit recommends council approve this option and revisit an expansion of the project in the future.

The third option is to keep the project cost down to the existing $200-million budget by slashing the space for buses and completely eliminating the maintenance bays. This option would force all buses to be repaired at the Fort Rouge transit garage, which would lead to higher operating costs and delay Winnipeg Transit's replacement of diesel buses with electric buses, the report states.

"With the elimination of bus maintenance at the new facility, this option is considered very high risk to transit operations and ability to provide service to the public," transit project manager Adolfo Laufer writes in the report.

Coun. Janice Lukes (Waverley West), who chairs council's public works committee, said she prefers the third option, because the city is already close to reaching its self-imposed debt ceiling.

The report to council, which will be presented at the public works committee's Sept. 12 meeting, suggests that increasing the project budget by $105 million would leave the city with only $45 million more room to borrow money, while increasing the budget by $80 million would leave the city with $70 million of borrowing room.

Lukes said with all Canadian cities facing a transit funding crunch, she hopes the federal government will provide Winnipeg with more help to cover the transit service's infrastructure needs.

She also said she personally would like to see the province devote some gas tax revenue to Winnipeg Transit, should Wab Kinew's NDP government decide to end the gas tax holiday it put in place this year.