It’s a parking site for 14 full sized and three light duty transit buses, plus a service and storage site for a fleet of 125 corporate vehicles that range from passenger vehicles to firetrucks, arena ice surfacers and snowmobiles. As well, Sunshine Coast Regional District’s (SCRD) Mason Road yard is also a work base for a variety of the regional parks and utility staff. And according to community services manager Shelley Gagnon it’s at and sometimes over capacity.
SCRD directors, at committee, agreed to grant approval in principle to develop an interim plan for an offsite satellite parking area for transit in 2025 at a Dec. 12 meeting. They further endorsed staff efforts to submit a 2026 budget proposal on options to pay for dedicated planning for a Transit/Fleet Operations and Maintenance Facility. Those recommendations will be before the board for consideration at its first meeting of the coming year.
Why transit operations needs an expanded area
Gagnon and BC Transit’s senior manager of government relations Rob Ringma presented an overview of adjustments needed to manage and maintain a growing transit fleet and the other operations, which could mean a stand-alone transit facility. At the committee meeting they stated an expansion is necessary and given limitations around the 1.68 hectare West Sechelt yard, they encouraged elected officials to approve dedicated planning for that starting in 2025. In Gagnon’s view, that will mean looking for off-yard parking for transit buses within the next year.
Off-site bus parking would not only open up working areas at what she characterized as a “tight” site, it is needed to accommodate the two new battery electric buses (BEB) that are slated to be operating on the Coast “before the end of 2025”.
“The Yard’s electrical servicing capacity has been maximized and is insufficient to support the transition to a 100 per cent BEB fleet” according to a report on the meetings agenda which also noted that over the next 25 years, the Sunshine Coast's future transit plan would see the areas fleet will expand to 33 buses.
Ringma said BC Transit’s timeframe to develop a business and design plan for a new transit operating facility would take five to seven years.
The logistics of which service stays at Mason Road and which would relocate to a new site or an expansion area next to the current yard are to be determined as part of that 2025 planning effort. In response to a question from Area F director Kate Stamford about what location factors make for an “ideal” transit operations centre, Gagnon and Ringma had a list of criteria.
The SCRD staffer highlighted the importance of a site with “flat, serviceable land” close to an existing bus route. Ringma added that zoning, the availability of appropriate hydro power supply, costs, and environmental consideration need to be considered.
History of the Mason Road yard
In her report and presentation, Gagnon detailed that the SCRD entered a 30 year lease on the property from the province in 1992. A lease renewal has been applied for, but the province has a backlog of leases to process, and the renewal is still pending.
When the SCRD took occupancy of the site there was a single Quonset hut on the property. In the early 1990’s, the SCRD added a waterworks building and in 1995 the transit building was built. That structure was expanded in 2006 and the SCRD has also added concrete apron around that buildings and an access route gate.
