Edmonton city council has narrowly decided to build a larger transit garage — and take on millions in debt to do so.

In the spring, city staff recommended scaling down the project to mitigate ballooning costs. But this week, council voted 7-6 to scale it back up.

The decision was part of a multiday budget adjustment on Tuesday and Wednesday. The city will borrow another $66 million to build the garage, which is expected to be completed in 2032.

“When we talk about affordability and long-term planning, we have to mean it,” Coun. Aaron Paquette said during Tuesday’s meeting.

The city must make this investment now, he said, because construction costs and transit demand will only rise.

“We never thank past councils for shortchanging the future.”

The original vision for the garage was that it could store 430 buses. But in April, city administration suggested a smaller facility, for 250 to 290 buses, in an effort to keep the project within its $367 million budget.

Councillors, however, were concerned that, at that size, the facility would reach capacity too quickly, and the next city council would have to immediately start building the next one.

After this week’s council meetings, the new garage will now store 330 to 380 buses. A federal grant will partially cover construction costs.

Trade-offs

Managing the city’s buses has been front and centre, as more than half the fleet is considered to be in poor or very poor condition. City staff says the transit system needs 75 replacement buses each year to address that problem.

On top of that, Edmonton Transit Service (ETS) needs 100 more buses to meet its 2026 service standards, but it has no available storage to buy anything more than the replacement buses.

A standard diesel bus costs roughly $1 million. The city is approaching its debt limit, and will enter a four-year budget later this year.

Coun. Erin Rutherford said she’s worried about the city’s ability to pay for the buses needed and that the new garage will sit half-full.

She said if the city commits to the bigger garage and fills it with new buses over the next decade, there will be less money for other projects, like the metro line extension.

“We don’t have an infinite pool of funding,” Rutherford said.

Mayor Andrew Knack had a more optimistic view. He said council is facing a period of austerity in funding from other levels of government, but he’s hopeful that will soon change.

“We can work to tackle some of these broader challenges and not have to compromise on this particular piece,” Knack said.

“Transit is so important and has been chronically underfunded for decades upon decades in the city, and I’d like to start to make progress on that.”

An electric future?

One of the requirements of the federal grant, which will help offset construction costs, is buying 10 zero-emmission buses. They would be added to the city’s existing — and at times, problem-riddled — Proterra electric fleet.

Proterra has gone bankrupt, limiting the city’s ability to source parts. City staff emphasized Tuesday that issues with a specific manufacturer shouldn’t be equated with the viability of electric buses overall in Edmonton.

Paquette noted those buses are still in use, but there’s a perception they don’t work and the project failed.

“We don’t really do a good job of reversing that false narrative,” he said.

The garage will be built to a net-zero standard — another requirement of the federal grant — and able to accommodate electric and diesel buses.

Despite councillor disagreement on extra money for the bus garage, the spring budget adjustment overall passed unanimously on Wednesday morning.