City councillors weigh in on ‘Link’ branding for Saskatoon BRT

Article content

A new name for a long-running project meant to transform Saskatoon Transit received enthusiastic support Wednesday from several members of city council.

“It’s all very exciting. I love it,” Ward 6 Coun. Cynthia Block said during a presentation to council’s governance and priorities committee on branding for the city’s upcoming bus rapid transit system.

Article content

City officials working with an outside consulting firm have proposed “Link” as the new name for the BRT. The suggested name came out of a process that included consultations with various Transit departments, as well as groups representing bus riders, seniors, Indigenous people and new Canadians.

Carla Blumers, the city’s director of communications and public engagement, said having branding in place as construction gets underway on the BRT will be a crucial part of helping the city promote the new system.

Calling Link “not just a new name, but a new era for public transit in our city,” Blumers told the committee it’s important to encourage as much Transit ridership as possible as the city continues to grow, with some 25,000 people having arrived in just the last two years.

The committee voted unanimously to endorse the new branding. Final approval is expected to come later this month at council’s full regular business meeting.

Council members also received an update Wednesday on the overall progress of the BRT.

The system, approved by council in 2019, is meant to increase the frequency of bus service along key routes; BRT buses also stop less frequently, allowing them to get to destinations more quickly.

Article content

Article content

The final tranche of federal and provincial money needed for the project was announced in June.

That final announcement brought the BRT project total to $250 million; just over $183 million comes from the province and the federal government; the city pays the rest.

Those funds cover all facets of the BRT project, including building out the green BRT line between the west and northeast parts of the city, the red line running from east to west, and the blue line operating north to south.

The project will involve building dozens of new stations and dedicated transit lanes and corridors on College Drive and First Avenue, as well as installing a fibre optic cable network allowing traffic signals to prioritize buses.

The Third Avenue bus mall in the downtown will also be eliminated.

BRT funding included $60 million to purchase new buses; council previously approved adding a mix of new diesel-powered and electric buses.

So far, the city is finishing up a $23.8 million contract to buy 20 new diesel buses, split between 10 standard 40-foot buses and 10 60-foot articulating buses.

Article content

The remaining $36.2 million in fleet renewal money was earmarked for 35 electric-powered buses, 10 of which are 60-foot buses; the remaining 25 will be 40 feet long.

The committee heard it won’t be possible to buy the previously announced numbers of electric buses due to inflation in prices since funding was approved and the need to install charging stations at the city’s operations centre.

Terry Schmidt, the city’s general manager of transportation, told committee members that city staff will return in coming months with a recommendation on how to adjust these bus purchases in light of the budget pressures.

Schmidt reassured the committee during questions from Coun. Bev Dubois that Saskatoon is using different electric bus suppliers than Edmonton, which has recently seen problems running its bus fleet after an American supplier went into receivership.

The BRT was slated in 2021 to open in June 2026. It is now projected for a start date in 2028.

Concrete and underground utility work are set to begin this summer on the first of 14 new stations, with 30 more to be done in each of 2025 and 2026 and another round of 14 stations planned in 2027.

Article content

Testing of the signal priority system has been going on since January at various intersections located along future BRT lines; the results will inform the next stages of implementing that system.

The Saskatoon Star Phoenix has created an Afternoon Headlines newsletter that can be delivered daily to your inbox so you are up to date with the most vital news of the day. Click here to subscribe.

With some online platforms blocking access to the journalism upon which you depend, our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark thestarphoenix.com and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed. Click here to subscribe.

Article content