Grand River Transit Charles Street Terminal


	Charles Street Terminal
Address		15 Charles Street West, Kitchener
Opening Date		1988
Routes		1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 22, 91, 200, 204

Charles Street Terminal was a bus terminal operated by Grand River Transit.

Station Description

The terminal was located south of Charles Street, between Gaukel Street and Ontario Street. It consisted of five bus lanes, serving two island platforms and a side platform. Platform 1 had a straight sidewalk, while Platforms 2-5 had five bus stops per lane; this allowed for up to 24 buses to serve the terminal at a time. The main terminal building was located on the Charles Street frontage, with an overhead walkway connecting the main building/Platform 1 to Platforms 2/3 and Platforms 4/5. The walkway had stairs and elevators to each platform, with escalators into the main building.

Intercity and GO Transit buses typically served Platform 1, while GRT buses used Platforms 2 through 5.

History

The terminal was originally opened by Kitchener Transit in 1988. It replaced a smaller terminal at the intersection of Duke Street and Scott Street, which Kitchener Transit had outgrown. Ownership of the terminal passed to the Region of Waterloo upon formation of Grand River Transit in 2000.

GO buses began serving the terminal in May 2009, with the introduction of route 25 between University of Waterloo and Square One. Buses were temporarily removed from the terminal after double-decker buses were introduced in 2013, as they could not clear the overhead walkways in the terminal; instead, buses served on-street stops along Charles Street.

GRT buses stopped serving the terminal on June 24, 2019, with the opening of Ion; intercity buses were permitted to continue using the terminal until September 2019. The terminal currently sits abandoned and blocked off. A proposed Central Station terminal near the Kitchener GO Station would act as an indirect replacement for Charles Street Terminal.

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