KEY IMPROVEMENTS
Construction underway to improve Marine Atlantic terminal in North Sydney
Construction underway at Marine Atlantic terminal in North Sydney.
Changes are coming to the Marine Atlantic terminal in North Sydney.
Construction is well underway at the terminal as the company makes enhancements to its marshaling area and ticket booth infrastructure to improve the safety and security of its customers.
The company identified the need for improvements to its marshaling and ticket booth areas after traffic congestion in the previous years.
“We are reconfiguring it so the booths are more modern and offer better amenities to our staff and our customers,” said Darrell Mercer, spokesperson for Marine Atlantic.
“As customers exit the ticket booths right now, there’s a little
congestion from commercial and passenger vehicles and they often have to cross paths to move into the actual terminal marshaling yard – with the changes, we won’t have that.”
The new infrastructure will include four new ticket booths. The booths will replace the current ticket infrastructure. All booths will have the ability to process both commercial and passenger traffic.
“Each ticket booth would have a lane that would go into it and it’s more less a feature when you come off the main road then you have an area to go into, with one probably designated as commercial and others would be passenger vehicles,” said Mercer.
Work began at the terminal in September and the company hopes the project will be finished in January.
Last year, Marine Atlantic transported about 327,000 passengers, the bulk during the summer months, running between June and September.
According to the company, approximately 70 per cent of passenger traffic is during the summer months because of tourism season. Commercial traffic remains steady throughout the year.
“It’s a project that was designed for safety and security and should bring benefits to both Marine Atlantic employees and customers,” said Mercer.
Once the project is complete in North Sydney, Marine Atlantic will begin work on a similar project at the terminal in Port aux Basque, N.L.
Mercer couldn’t confirm the total cost of the North Sydney project. In total, he expects work at both locations, combined, to be a multi-million dollar project.