Edmonton Transit Service Heritage Valley Transit Centre

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

700's at Heritage Valley 5 days before renumbering to the 700x under the BNR. April 20, 2021	700's at Heritage Valley 5 days before renumbering to the 700x under the BNR. April 20, 2021	Looking Northeast towards the terminal. April 20, 2021	Beaumont laying over with a 700x August 23, 2021	Looking NW towards the main terminal building. August 23, 2021
Signage/ map for Heritage Valley. August 23, 2021	Looking NW towards the terminal. August 23, 2021