Brampton Transit Bramalea Terminal

Bramalea Terminal
Address	160 Central Park Dr., Brampton, ON
Bus Bays	MISSING
Routes	1, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 40, 115, 501, GO

Bramalea Terminal is a transit terminal located in Brampton, ON. It is located on Central Park Dr. just north of the Brampton Civic Centre and just east of the FreshCo store bordering Bramalea City Centre.

Bramalea Terminal has 18 bays divided into two sections. The section with the enclosed building houses the busier routes, while the other section houses less busy routes along with GO Transit routes.

History

Original Terminal

A Bramalea Bus dial-a-bus entering the underground area at BCC to serve the original mall terminal.

The original terminal at Bramalea City Centre mall was built in the 1970's, and was located in the underground parking area on the southeast side of the mall by the underground mall entrance near the indoor mall theatre. It was serviced by Bramalea Bus (dial-a-bus), later Brampton Transit, and GO Transit routes.

1991 Terminal

A route 18 Dixie bus at the Bramalea Transit Centre

Bramalea Transit Centre was one of the larger Brampton Transit terminals, serving the Bramalea area and traditionally home to many routes east of Highway 410. The terminal itself was officially opened on Wednesday, September 25, 1991 (although it had been open since April 1990, plans for the official opening that fall were put off by low ridership due to the recession, and a 10-week transit strike). Transit ridership numbers through the new $1.3 million terminal when officially opened were 12,000 passengers per day, using buses at 15 bays.^[1] The new outdoor terminal replaced the smaller "City Centre" terminal that was located in the underground parking area on the southeast side of the mall.

The new 1991 transit terminal was located at 200 Clark Blvd., south of Bramalea City Centre and parking areas. It was built as a one-way loop around a centre platform and access to and from the mall via a covered walkway at the south end of the mall. A small brown brick building in the center housed the concession stand, washrooms, driver restroom facilities, and vending machines with a small waiting hall. On the platforms, bus shelters and benches were located by the stops. There are not-in-service parking bays for spare buses to lay over in at the west and east ends of the loop. Primary entrances were from the southwest corner onto Clark Blvd., and the northeast corner onto Peel Centre Dr. (two other entrances were blocked off and not used).

Gridlining of the system removed a few routes from the terminal, mainly route 14 Torbram.

The terminal also hosted GO Transit's Brampton-York Mills and Trinity Common local bus services. York Region Transit operated route 77 Highway 7 with Brampton Transit as a shared route between the Bramalea Transit Centre and Finch Regional Terminal from 1990 until the end of August 2010, when it was discontinued as part of phasing in Züm (although an interim route 177/177A replaced the 77 until Züm was ready to be launched).

The Bramalea Transit Centre terminal was closed in the early hours of the morning of September 20, 2010, and all bus services for that day commenced at the new Bramalea Terminal on that morning. The unused terminal has since been largely demolished and converted to parking spaces.

2010 Terminal

In conjunction with the new Züm BRT, a new more modern terminal was constructed and opened on September 20, 2010 (although not fully completed at the opening), replacing the older 1991 terminal. Among other features it has dual platforms, more enclosed areas, and makes use of traffic priority signals to lessen waiting times in and out of the terminal. It is located at 160 Central Park Drive, bordered by Team Canada and Peel Centre Drive and north of the Bramalea Civic Centre on a site where a parking lot once was. This places it closer to Queen Street than the old terminal, but further away from the mall.

The first day of service was also the first day of operation of Züm route 501, which never operated out of the old terminal.

Routes

Bays 1-8 are in the section with the terminal building, while bays 9-18 are in the further section away from the terminal building (closest to Brampton Civic Centre).