03.05
Today (Thursday, March 5th) I attended the B.C. Transit open house. I don’t take the bus, and I’m relatively new to the community but I was very interested in what was going on.
The deal is that they are relocating the bus terminal. The biggest concern to the community was the environmental impact of the new bus terminal.
I’ll summarize the slides.
1st Open House Held on September 17th, 2008 addressed:
- Need for Transit to relocate from Function Junction
- Site selection process and site options considered
- Preferred site selected adjacent to BC Hydro Rainbow sub-station
- 32 community embers attended
What was heard at the 1st Open House:
- Provide environmentally sound solutions
- Minimize environmental footprint (Areas)
- Maintain cycle trails
- Continue valley trail system
- Come back to residents with design details
Key Design Details:
- The area or footprint optimized at 5.6 acres (average site 6 to 8 acres)
- Run-off from facility and hillside treated in new bio-filtration ponds
- Facility drainage installed with oil/water separators
- A series of marsh ponds will be constructed to increase the effective size of open water areas
- Culverts designed to provide for future fish and wildlife passage
- Significant riparian planting program
- Buildings designed for LEED compliance
- Facility designed to accommodate future growth
- Maintained existings cycle trails
- Maintained Valley Trail system
- Environmental proposals have been approved by the Ministry of Environment
That’s the deal. It’s looking pretty good. It should be really good and effective. It’s the cleanest, most environmentally sound bus station I’ve ever seen.
Hopefully you made it out. I didn’t know the right questions to ask because I’m not familiar with the current system, but now I at least know more about what’s proposed.
Contact B.C. Transit for further details.
