Edmonton Transit Service Jasper Place Transit Centre
Jasper Place Transit Centre is located in the former town of
Jasper Place, which was west of the boarder with Edmonton at 149 St, until
Edmonton annexed Jasper Place on August 17, 1964. Jasper Place was the first
transit centre in Edmonton when it opened in 1964, and is still in use today.
Over the years, the transit centre has evolved and seen a number of upgrades.
The initial transit centre consisted of an island platform running North and
South between Stony Plain Road and 100 Ave with 8 bays, 4 on each side. A
trolleybus substation was located on the Northwest corner of the property, and
this featured operator washrooms. The route #1 trolley coach was extended West
from it's former terminus at 147 St. With the opening of Jasper Place Transit
Centre, the route #1 trolleybus wires were extended to this destination.
Immediately to the West of the terminal has always been a park, which today is
know as the Butler Memorial Park, although I don't know if this was historically
it's name. In 1979 at a cost of $40,000 the original passenger shelter had it's
heated waiting area expanded, and additional lighting added.
By 1988 the transit centre had been expanded to included an additional passenger
island located towards the Southwest of the existing platform, with space for 2
bus bays. Additionally, buses would now stop on 100 Ave, East and West of the
transit centre.
The trolleybus system was expanded westward during the early 1980's, with wire
reaching West on 107 Ave and 118 Ave to 156 St. From 156 St, the wire ran South
into Jasper Place Transit Centre.
New wire on 100 Ave allowed trolley coaches to turn into the transit
centre, or go straight through to the stop just West of the terminal, which
featured passing wire to allow multiple routes to serve the stop. During Horizon
2000, the 120 would use the transit centre stop, while the 3, 7, and 133 would
stop on 100 Ave. The trolleywire then went North on 158 St, East on Stony Plain
Road. This new wire was configured to send trolley coaches back North on 156 St,
but crossovers allowed alternate routing. All of this new wire was K+M, although
in later years the special work was simplified and replaced with Ohio
Brass-style equipment. There is also a bus stop Eastbound on Stony Plain Road
just before the transit centre that would afford passengers the opportunity to
disembark, especially if your bus need to loop around via 156 St to enter the
transit centre from 100 Ave, or you could catch the trolleybus routes that
stopped on 100 Ave as they came around from 158 St.
In late 2009 the original passenger shelter at Jasper Place Transit Centre was
removed and replaced with the shelters that had been used at the temporary
Southgate Transit Centre, and later at the regular Southgate Transit Centre
after buses had returned there.
The passenger shelter served until 2017-2018 when Jasper Place Transit Centre
received a significant rebuilding, although, this was a long, drawn out
rebuilding it was done as two separate projects.
First, all of the concrete for the bus driveways and passenger platforms was
replaced. This occurred during 2017 and was done at a cost of $2.5 million, with
$1.213 million coming from the Federal PTIF. While the work was being done,
buses were relegated to the perimeter stops, with some additional stops created
West of the regular stops along 100 Ave and Stony Plain Road.
A tender for the replacement of the shelter structure, demolition of the former
trolleybus substation and then construction of a new shelter structure and
facilities for operators didn't close until November 2017.
Work started in 2018 on the new building, and as I recall, the transit centre
had reopened for short time after the concrete work was done, but before
construction began on the new buildings.
This second round of work was doing to cost $5.6 million with about $2.5 million
in Federal PTIF funding, as well as Provincial (GreenTrip?) funding of about
$1.6 million.
Once again, with this work underway buses were back to using the perimeter
stops. Work commenced in Spring 2018 and was supposed to be finished by the end
of 2018. The City of Edmonton terminated the contract with the original
contractor after only 30% of work had been completed by November 2018. Nothing
happened for the following 9 months until a new contractor resumed work. The new
Jasper Place Transit Centre was finally ready by early 2020 with the opening to
occurred at 10am on April 9, 2020.
Due to the way funding came in with the Federal PTIF grants, it was common place
to see bus driveways being rebuilt while new shelter structures would be built
separately later on. This also occurred with: Belvedere, Castle Downs, and West
Edmonton Mall. Incidentally, this happened earlier on in history with Northgate,
Southgate, Westmount, and West Edmonton Mall all having their passenger shelters
built after the original driveway and passenger platforms had been built and
placed in service.
The WLRT will have a Jasper Place stop less than 1 block from the South end of
the Transit Centre. Some original plans had shown a different arrangement for
the transit centre and LRT stop, but a much simpler arrangement just requiring a
short walk became the final plan.