Edmonton Transit Service Southgate Transit Centre
Opened | 1977 |
Location | 111 St/ 50 Ave |
LRT Lines Served | Capital Line |
Platform | Center island with on street stops |
Passenger Access | Elevated from LRT station |
Park and Ride | Yes, private |
1978 |
Southgate dates from 1977 when it was the first transit centre
on the Southside of Edmonton. As the route 9 trolley coach was being extended
South from 65 Ave, it originally terminated at a temporary off street loop while
the transit centre was being built. Once that was completed in 1977, the route 9
was extended South to this new terminus. The transit centre is located at the
West end of the Southgate Shopping Centre parking lot. Over the years the
transit centre and surroundings have changed significantly.
Initially trolleybuses entered at the North end of the transit centre, crossing
the Northbound wire as they entered, and looped through the South end of the
terminal.
On December 24, 1979 the new passenger shelter building opened. Built at a cost
of $270,000, its design was meant to compliment the design of the Southgate
Shopping Centre.
Next, the construction of Whitemud Drive and split overpasses for 111 St,
Edmonton Transit used a portion of the former 111 St to create new entrance at
the South end, which eliminated the need for the trolleybus wire to cross
itself, and for buses to have to loop though the entire transit centre to turn
back north. This probably happened sometime around 1988/ 1989.
Everything remained in that configuration until 2007. Southgate started on an
expansion project that would bring the edge of the mall right up to the edge of
the transit centre.
More relevant for transit, the SLRT was coming. Due to the construction of the
new station, the entire transit centre was rebuilt with the transit centre
platform being extended a bit to the north. That meant that ETS had to relocated
the transit centre to a temporary location along 111 St at 54 Ave from
July 1, 2007 - mid 2008.
Upon returning to the rebuilt Southgate, all of the construction was not yet
finished on the main building, so in the meantime the modular shelters from
the temporary Southgate were relocated to Southgate until the main building was
open.
Following the opening on the main building in 2009, the modular shelters were relocated
to Jasper Place for installation there to replace that transit centres original
passenger shelter.
With the LRT RoW running down the middle of 111 St, buses returned to entering
the transit centre from the North, like they had originally done.
By this time, Southgate had finished their expansion.
LRT service commenced on April 25, 2010.
Trolleybuses ceased regular operation to Southgate in 1993
when low floor buses were introduced and the route 9 became one of the routes to
operate them.
Under Horizon 2000, 2 route 9 trippers were scheduled to operate with
trolleybuses, doing single AM peak trips from Southgate to NAIT.
Artics came to Southgate in June 2001, again with the route 9, as this was their
initial route to operate on in Edmonton.
The trolley wire came down in March 2007.
Southgate has had a bit of a history with regional services, albeit services
that never did last long. First, a Leduc service was operated by PWT to the
University with a stop at Southgate during the 1999-2000 time frame. The
Camrose Connector had a stop here
as well. During the short period that Devon operated a bus service contracted
out to
ETS, the Devon 570 operated from Southgate.
In addition to those services, Southgate has become an active stop for intercity
buses. Although Kingsway/ RAH was the first to host intercity buses with
Greyhound stopping there, Southgate started hosting EBus starting in 2020.
Since then, The Canada Bus, Rider Express, and most recently FlixBus have
started using Southgate, and incidentally, eBus no longer stops there.
Originally, Bay Q, the northernmost Northbound bay on the main platform was used
by eBus and The Canada Bus. Rider Express was using Bay R, the streetside bays
on 111 St. For September 2024, all intercity coach stops moved to the 111 St
bay, and the route 9 was moved to Bay Q. This was a huge change (although only
in a historical context) as the route 9 had always used the 111 St bay since the
transit centre opened, either because it had trolleywire, or in more recent
years because it could support artics. Although artic deployment has on the 9
has been on and off over the last 5 years or so, artics were removed again from
the 9 for September 2024.