Thunder Bay Transit receives $19.5M for infrastructure improvements

Thunder Bay Transit will be making a number of improvements to its infrastructure thanks to $19.5 million in funding from the municipal, provincial, and federal governments.

All-told, the agency is receivingabout $4.5 million from the City of Thunder Bay, about $6.4 million from the province, and about $8.4 million from the federal government for nine projects, representatives of the three governments said at the Thunder Bay Transit facility on Fort William Road on Friday afternoon.

"Anything we can do to make transit easier and more accessible, we are so glad that the other orders of government, provincial and federal, are with us," Thunder Bay Mayor Ken Boshcoff said at the announcement. "They don't have to be coaxed, the collaboration and partnering is inspiring to see."

"We're very proud of our transit operation, and these investments for our community are very heartfelt," he said. "They will have an immediate impact,and the fact that we are going to be able to continue to provide service for those who really need it, that's the essence of public service."

The projects themselves are wide-ranging, and include:

• Constructing new multi-use trails to make transit stops more accessible;
• Refurbishing buses;
• Improvements to the Fort William Road transit facility, including replacing a section of the roof, and renovations to the approach aprons;
• Addressing accessibility issues at 67 bus stops in the city;
• Purchasing advanced traffic management software to assist with real-time route management;
• The purchase of two electric pickup trucks and the installation of two charging stations at the transit facility (previously announced), and
• The construction of a new secondary access into the transit facility property from High Street.

Transit manager Brad Loroff said most of the projects will be completed by 2032.

"There's lots of work underway, lots of work going on with respect to all of the different things, bus stop improvements, vehicle procurement, vehicle refurbishment, garage infrastructure, new software technologies, all kinds of great things," Loroff said. "So we couldn't be more excited about all of this."