Square One GO Bus Terminal design concept. Image: Metrolinx.

Last Thursday, March 31, Metrolinx officially finished a long-term project to improve Square One GO Bus Terminal.

Among many new features of the terminal is a new station building on the southeast corner of Station Gate Road and City View Drive. The building contains three GO Transit service windows, accessible public washrooms and a climate-controlled waiting area.

Other improvements to the terminal include:

• a new public-address and closed circuit television (CCTV) system along the bus platforms;
• three new ticket vending machines — two near the platforms and one by the station building;
• a PRESTO fare-card balance checker; and
• monitors displaying information about buses serving the terminal, including bus routes and platforms.

The new $6.5 million facility means “customers travelling through the bus terminal will have a more convenient, comfortable and efficient experience getting to where they need to be,” said Ontario’s Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca during an event officially opening the new facility.

Square One is the second-busiest bus terminal in the GO system - Union Station GO Bus Terminal is the busiest - and it serves an average of 20,000 passengers each day.

Since January 2015, Metrolinx has operated GO buses on 18 new Monday-to-Friday, 27 new Saturday and 35 new Sunday trips across the system. Square One hosts eight more new Monday-to-Friday trips, 17 more new Saturday and 15 more new Sunday trips than it did in January 2015.

Before the new station opened, the site only contained bus stops and a passenger shelters. In September 2012, GO installed a temporary ticket kiosk on the southwest corner of the intersection. It started building the new facilities at the terminal in May 2014.

GO buses operating along these routes drop off or pick up passengers in Square One GO Bus Terminal:

• 19 Oakville / North York;
• 21 Milton / Toronto;
• 25 Waterloo / Mississauga;
• 29 Guelph / Mississauga;
• 40 Hamilton / Pearson / Richmond Hill;
• 45 Mississauga / York U;
• 46 Oakville / York U; and
• 47 Hamilton / York U.

From design concept to reality… How the new terminal building really looks. Photo: Metrolinx.