Charles Street Transit Terminal

The Charles Street Transit Terminal at 15 Charles Street West in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada is the main bus station and former downtown hub for local Grand River Transit (GRT) bus services for Kitchener and Waterloo.[1] The terminal is now solely used by a number of intercity operators, including Greyhound, GO Transit, Coach Canada and Aboutown.

Charles Street Transit Terminal
Location15 Charles Street West
Kitchener, Ontario
Canada
Coordinates43°26′58″N 80°29′32″W
Owned byRegion of Waterloo
Operated byGrand River Transit
Bus stands25
Bus operators
Construction
Structure typeTicket office, washrooms, waiting room, restaurant, covered platforms
Bicycle facilitiesYes
Disabled accessYes
ArchitectJohn Lingwood
Architectural styleModernist
Other information
Station codeGO Transit: KITB
History
Opened1988 (City of Kitchener)
Closed2019 (station facilities and local bus service)

It was the largest public service facility run by GRT, with the Cambridge Ainslie Street terminal being the only other staffed bus station.

History

Terminal location

The terminal site is bounded by Charles, Gaukel, Joseph, and Ontario Streets in Kitchener's downtown core. However, earlier in the 20th century the site was considered to be on the edge of downtown. This changed in 1947, when the Bullas department store opened on the site as the anchor for the Bullas Building, a mixed-use building which at various times was used for residential, commercial, and industrial purposes. The Bullas brothers, Ross and Roy, had expanded to the site from an earlier location on Joseph Street which was used for their father's furniture storage and distribution business.[2] The move coincided with a wave of postwar prosperity and suburbanization which created a greater demand for fine home goods such as furniture and appliances from Kitchener's manufacturers, but which would ultimately undermine the downtown commercial area with the construction of suburban shopping malls like the Fairview Park Mall in the 1960s and 1970s.

At the time, Charles Street only ran as far east as Ontario Street, where it dead ended, and it was "little more than a lane".[2] The Bullas move resulted in the addition of streetscape amenities such as streetlights and a small plaza with an ornamental concrete fountain, the sculptures from which are now owned by the City of Kitchener and displayed at the Centre in the Square several blocks to the northeast.[2] Pressure mounted from local groups advocating an extension of Charles Street, which included the Bullas brothers. By the late 1950s, Charles was extended to Benton Street through an intersection with Queen Street, creating irregular curves in an otherwise straight downtown street.[2] The extension was carved through a downtown block bounded by Ontario, King, Benton, and Church Streets, and led to a number of historic commercial buildings being razed. Ultimately it joined up Charles with Alma Street, the latter of which was incorporated into Charles Street. Subsequent widenings would devastate the old stretch of Alma Street (now Charles Street East) and create an auto-oriented landscape which proved advantageous for bus operations.[3]

The terminal

The building, which was designed by the local modernist architect John Lingwood,[4] was completed in 1988 by the City of Kitchener, which operated Kitchener Transit, GRT's forerunner, at the time. It replaced a facility at Duke and Scott streets, which had become overcrowded. Ownership has since transferred to the Region of Waterloo, GRT's operator.

In 2002, the Transfers Café moved into the terminal's restaurant location, which it occupied until the closure of the building.[5]

Local bus service at the terminal ceased on June 24, 2019, with the launch of the Ion rapid transit system and reorganization of bus routes to serve it.

Facilities
View bus platforms from Gaukel St.

When it provided GRT service, the main terminal building contained the ticket desk, plus washrooms and administrative space on the upper level; the lower level had a licensed restaurant and walk-in café, plus an ATM. Access between the floors was by escalator or elevator. Access to the bus platforms from the entry structure was by an enclosed, elevated walkway. Each of the two island platform groups have a 'pod' containing stairwells and an elevator, which also served as enclosed, climate-controlled waiting space for passengers, with a total of 20 bus stop locations.[6] Since the stop of GRT services, only a small interior space on the lower level serves as a waiting area; the rest of the building is now closed to the public.

The Greyhound and Megabus stops are beside the main terminal building,[6] with GO transit buses using a platform at the northwest corner of the facility effective April 8, 2017.[7] A small modular office handles Greyhound sales outdoors beside the platform during service hours.

Future
Main article: Kitchener Central Station
The replacement customer service centre, at King and Benton streets

The Charles St. Terminal will become redundant in the near future due to a pair of Regional plans. The first, with the implementation of a rapid-transit backbone which decentralized bus routes and required fewer platforms at a single downtown location, took effect June 24, 2019 and saw Grand River Transit buses no longer serve the terminal.[8] The second, the plan to build a multi-modal hub at King and Victoria streets to handle train, bus, and rapid-transit services, would also replace the existing railway station; this hub does not yet have a firm date for completion.

GRT customer service functions moved to a location at 105 King Street East in July 2019, where they will be served in the interim.

The LRT's Victoria Park station is located just across Gaukel Street from the terminal.

Bus services

Greyhound

GO Transit

Coach Canada
gollark: MagicWizardryCombinators™
gollark: PARSERARSERCOMBINATORSOMBINATORS
gollark: Oops. Accidentally deleted my fonts folder!
gollark: I knew this day would come eventually. I've run out of space in my home folder...
gollark: Unfortunately, it would execute about as fast as a snail moving backwards and nobody would understand the code.

References
  1. "Charles Street Terminal". Grand River Transit. Retrieved June 12, 2019.
  2. Fear, Jon (31 January 2014). "Flash from the Past: Bullas Bros. site now holds Kitchener bus terminal". The Guelph Mercury. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  3. Fear, Jon (2 August 2013). "flash-from-the-past-charles-street-extension-cut-through-two-blocks-of-downtown-kitchener". Waterloo Region Record. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  4. Storring, Nathan (29 February 2012). "Why Save the Charles Street Terminal?". Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  5. Thompson, Catherine (5 May 2019). "Fate of Kitchener bus terminal up in the air". Waterloo Region Record. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  6. "Kitchener – Charles" (PDF). Platform layouts. GRT. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 November 2015. Retrieved 28 November 2015.
  7. "Service Changes Starting April 8". GO Transit. Retrieved March 20, 2017.
  8. "Charles Street Terminal". Grand River Transit. Retrieved June 12, 2019.
  9. Greyhound Canada QuickLink
  10. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-03-08. Retrieved 2017-04-02.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  11. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-03-08. Retrieved 2017-04-02.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  12. "Agents / Stop Locations". Coach Canada. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2015-11-28. Kitchener Transit Centre. megabus.com tickets sold here

Media related to Charles Street Transit Terminal at Wikimedia Commons

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.