Edmonton Transit Service Heritage Valley Transit Centre
Opened | November 30, 2020 |
Location | Ellerslie Road and 127 Street |
LRT Lines Served | Future SLRT |
Platform | Center island with perimeter stops on east side |
Passenger Access | N/A |
Park and Ride | Yes |
Heritage Valley Transit Centre is located south of Anthony
Henday Drive in southeast Edmonton, joining Lewis Farms as the only other ETS
Transit Centre outside of Anthony Henday Drive.
Built at a cost of $30 million, the Transit Centre and Park & Ride lot were
complete on time and budget in 2019, but not opened until November 30, 2020.
This transit centre was originally built to provide a Park and Ride location to
the Century Park LRT Station as the land ETS had been
leasing for the Century Park Park & Ride lot was was coming to the end of the
lease, and the land was being returned to the land developer. To provide a
shuttle service ETS included 8 buses in an articulated bus order specifically
for the Heritage Valley shuttle service.
As noted earlier, while completed in late 2019, it took a year for the Transit
Centre and Park & Ride to go into operation. The shuttle service was budgeted to
cost $2.97 million, requiring 26 FTE's. Council voted to delay the opening from
early 2020 to late 2020 and use that money instead to partially fund a service
(510x) to cover the Valley Line Southeast LRT, which was now 1+ year late.
Under the Bus Network Redesign there was no Mill Woods to Downtown bus to
replace the 8 and 15, as it was planned for the VLSE LRT to be in operation by
the time of the BNR rollout.
Unfortunately, in addition to the delay in opening, COVID caused a significant
drop of Transit ridership in the early months of 2020, carrying into 2021 with a
massive drop in Park and Ride demand. None the less, the route 700 started
operation on November 30, 2020 providing a shuttle service as frequent as 5
minutes between Century Park and Heritage Valley with articulated buses during
peaks, and 40' buses during off peaks. As could be expected, ridership was
minimal. Eventually the articulated buses would be pulled from the 700 and only
40' buses used. Under the BNR, the peak frequencies were reduced to 7/8 minutes
from 5 minutes, although off peak remained at 10 minutes, Monday to Friday.
What was interesting with the start of operations at Heritage Valley, we were
given a glimpse of what was to come with some of the new features of the BNR:
- being given the 700 series route number aligned it with the quadrant numbering
scheme of the BNR, and the Rapid route numbering scheme, becoming the 700x under
the BNR
- the Transit Centre features the final version of the bus bay identification
scheme trialled at South Campus and Lewis Farms
- first use and only use of a new style bus stop sign pre-BNR.
Both prior to and after the BNR, initially only the 700/ 700x would serve
Heritage Valley, despite that other routes did run near by (all of which went to
Century Park).
Heritage Valley did get put to see use as a Park and Ride location for the 2021
Heritage Festival in August 2021, and later on, on August 23, 2021, Beaumont
Transit route #540 started using Heritage Valley as it's Edmonton terminus. This
is seemingly on account of ETS not having space at Century Park due to increase
bus volume under the BNR, although, ETS also no longer operates Beaumont
Transit, with PWT taking over the contract. This is to be a short term use, as
Beaumont Transit intends to move to the Mill Woods Transit Centre, no doubt once
the VLSE LRT commences revenue service operation.
At present (November 2021) the NLRT extension to Blatchford is under
construction. The City has funding commitments in place, and is prioritizing
an SLRT extension to Heritage Valley as the next project. The hope is to get
construction started in 2022, with service starting somewhere in the 2026/27
timeframe. The Heritage Valley Transit Centre will feature an elevated station,
a first for the high floor LRT network. No doubt Heritage Valley Transit Centre
will see much more bus service once route restructuring cuts back a lot from
having to run all the way north of Century Park.
Sources:
"Heritage Valley Park and Ride Update" Memo to City Council accessed October
31, 2021