Fifty new bus shelters are coming to Burnaby by December of this year.
The shelters are expected to be fully in place by Dec. 1, according to a request for proposals earlier this year.
After a 2021 complaint about a lack of bus shelters creating unsafe conditions, the city reviewed its bus shelter program due to concerns it was “insufficient to meet the public’s expectations,” according to minutes from a 2021 financial management committee meeting.
The 50 shelters to come this year are part of a seven-year program in which the city wants to install or replace about 370 transit shelters by 2030.
In 2021, staff reported Burnaby had a total of 968 bus stops. The bid documents from this year stated the city has a total of 209 bus shelters: 158 shelters with lit advertising boxes and 51 without.
Bus stops are a city responsibility, not TransLink’s.
The locations for the bus shelters will be decided by a model which looks at how much certain bus stops are used, the number of transit routes in the area, how close the stops are to schools, rec centres and businesses, according to the city’s financial plan.
City staff told the public safety committee in 2021 it “would be ideal to have a bus shelter installed at all bus stops in the city,” but illuminated bus shelters cost about $30,000 each, which would mean a total of about $22 million to install bus shelters at all Burnaby stops.
Transit shelters include glass panels and benches, a foundation pad and electrical wiring for lighting.
