It’s something seen in other big cities, but not Alberta’s capital: an intermodal hub.
Such facilities bring together various forms of transport like inter-city bus services and public transit and now it’s an idea being mulled over at city hall in Edmonton.
“The province has expressed some interest in working on this,” Coun. Andrew Knack says.
“I think there’s absolutely a need for some type of hub,” he added. “That’s why we brought this forward in the first place.”
The debate stems from the 2016 relocation of bus carrier Greyhound from downtown Edmonton to the Via Rail terminal, which is located in an industrial area near Yellowhead Trail.
The location is a challenge to get to for some because of a lack of transit connections or even sidewalk access in the area.
Earlier this year, Global Edmonton showed how difficult walking to and from the station can be.
READ MORE: Travellers ‘surprised’ by inaccessibility of Edmonton’s Greyhound depot
The sight of travellers trudging to and from in the snow was met with disbelief among many Edmontonians.
“We welcome the opportunity to enter discussions with the city or the province about intermodal,” says Scott Wright with Greyhound Canada.
Now, the city is working with various stakeholders – everyone from private bus companies to the airport – to see if there’s an interest for intermodal.
The city of Winnipeg is an example of how intermodal works. In 2009, Greyhound relocated to a new facility at that city’s airport.
“Then it’s a quick connect over to the airport to catch their flight or to connect to transit in that facility,” Wright says.
Some of the challenges for Edmonton include the availability of land for a hub as well as costs.
“We just don’t want to get caught up in the thinking that we need to have this big Grand Central Station in the heart of our downtown,” Knack explains.
“There’s a lot of sort of questions to this. That’s the point of needing to go forward with this and get together a stakeholder committee.”
Another report will come back to council in 2019.