TransLink buys Fraser River waterfront property for Vancouver bus depot use | Daily Hive

TransLink's Vancouver Transit Centre bus depot. (Google Maps)

TransLink has provided its major Vancouver Transit Centre bus depot facility with what is effectively a permanent expansion, ensuring the site’s long-term use for bus operations.

Dan Mountain, a spokesperson for TransLink, confirmed to Daily Hive Urbanized the public transit authority’s recent acquisition of a five-acre property — a portion of 9150 Bentley St. — immediately west of Vancouver Transit Centre.

“TransLink was previously leasing this land, which was used for Coast Mountain Bus Company operations and maintenance. It will continue to be used for these purposes,” said Mountain in an email.

According to a recent industrial real estate market report by Avison Young, TransLink acquired the property for $62.9 million from Southgate Holdings.

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This effectively permanently grows Vancouver Transit Centre from 17.31 acres on the original TransLink-owned footprint to 22.37 acres.

Vancouver Transit Centre was built in 2006 at a cost of $37 million, replacing the former Oakridge Transit Centre bus depot on West 41st Avenue, which was subsequently sold to a developer for $440 million in 2016 and is now set to be redeveloped into a high-density residential neighbourhood.

vancouver transit centre bus depot translink

TransLink’s Vancouver Transit Centre bus depot, with the new acquisition of a portion of 9150 Bentley St. (red) and the original facility owned by TransLink (turqoise). (TransLink)

View of a portion of 9150 Bentley St. acquired for the permanent expansion of TransLink’s Vancouver Transit Centre bus depot. (Google Maps)

Located on the Fraser River waterfront next to the north end of the Arthur Laing Bridge in South Vancouver, Vancouver Transit Centre has the capacity to store and maintain about 400 buses, including its purpose as the exclusive home base of TransLink’s extensive trolley bus fleet of 262 vehicles. This is one of TransLink’s largest bus depot facilities.

A few years after Vancouver Transit Centre opened, TransLink began leasing the five-acre portion of 9150 Bentley St. for the additional space required to handle the growing bus fleet.

TransLink is facing a major bus depot space crunch; it has, in recent year,s noted that there is a growing need to secure large, suitable sites for much-needed bus depot expansion. With its current bus depot capacity at the various locations across Metro Vancouver, TransLink only has the capability to expand bus service levels by about 15 per cent — far short of what it needs to support its goal to double bus service levels across the region.

In late 2024, TransLink estimated it faces a $6.5-billion cost over the coming years to build new bus depots and expand existing ones to support both the transition to a fully battery-electric bus fleet and the overall expansion of bus services.

This includes $3.02 billion for brand-new additional bus depots, including $2.15 billion for land acquisition and construction of a new zero-emission bus depot with charging infrastructure, $720 million for land acquisition and design work for another zero-emission bus depot, and $150 million for additional new bus depot capacity.

Another $3.5 billion comes from the expansion and introduction of battery-electric bus infrastructure for existing bus depots.

There are also further costs of $220 million for the installation of on-route charging infrastructure across Metro Vancouver and $370 million for the expansion of the bus fleet with up to 175 battery-electric buses, which brings such costs to about $7.1 billion.

TransLink’s Vancouver Transit Centre bus depot. (Google Maps)

Just one-km to the east of Vancouver Transit Centre, it is impossible to miss TransLink’s major construction project of the new Marpole Transit Centre bus depot, similarly located on the Fraser River waterfront and at the southern foot of Cambie Street, next to the Canada Line’s North Arm Bridge. The 20-acre bus depot is being built at a cost of $848 million, and it will be TransLink’s first purpose-built bus facility for battery-electric buses, with the capacity to handle about 340 vehicles. It is expected to reach completion and open in 2028.

Although there is now a major emphasis to create new specialized facilities that enables TransLink to transition into a battery-electric bus fleet over time, Vancouver Transit Centre will remain largely dedicated to trolley buses, which already achieves the public transit authority’s zero-emission goals.

Earlier this year, TransLink announced it has selected a major European manufacturer Solaris & Bus Coach to build 262 new generation trolley buses to replace the aging fleet built in the 2000s. The first phase of the order from the manufacturer — entailing 107 trolley buses at a cost of $181 million — will begin to arrive in 2026. These buses also feature larger batteries enabling up to 20 km of off-wire travel when disconnected from the overhead electrical supply.

In 2023, TransLink also acquired two industrial properties, spanning a combined total area of 10 acres, immediately adjacent to Surrey Transit Centre at a cost of about $86 million. This will enable the long-term expansion of this bus depot. Earlier this year, the public transit authority completed a procurement process seeking a contractor to conduct a feasibility study for the Surrey Transit Centre’s expansion master plan.

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