PART 4 – Moving Forward

In the past, your typical Transport Terminal was a regional, national, or international company that operates a fleet of tractor-trailers and usually contained an office, repair garage, an outdoor storage area where tractors and trailers were parked and stored, and may have some ancillary warehousing or cross-dock facilities to transfer goods to other trailers or to smaller trucks. Depending on the size of the company or their service area, a transport company may have several terminals over a geographic area.

As the number of owner-operators or independent truck driver’s increases, and given the regulatory framework, there is growing demand for safe and secure facilities to store tractor-trailers and trucks that are not tied to a specific transport company or trucking operation.

These independent operators may conduct their business from their truck, place of residence, or elsewhere and they may have their trucks and trailers serviced by third parties, eliminating the need for a physical on-site office or garage. These facilities act as a safe and secure temporary storage area for the tractor-trailers and trucks when not being driven.

A Transport Terminal shares similarities with uses such as a warehouse or manufacturing facility such as truck traffic, storage of trailers, and large paved areas to manoeuvre and store trucks. Any specific provisions, restrictions, or prohibitions applicable to a Transport Terminal must be appropriate and fair.

Where Should Transport Terminal Be Permitted?

Policy Direction

The locational requirements in Section 6.4.3.3 of the Official Plan serve as a starting point in providing policy direction on where a Transport Terminal should be located. The requirements include sufficient separation or buffering from sensitive land uses, access to an arterial road, provision of full municipal services, directing industrial traffic away from residential areas, and access to designated truck routes.

Further policy direction is required for a Transport Terminal to encourage access or adjacency to the truck route network, including long combination vehicle (LCV) routes, while discouraging direct access to major commercial corridors to minimize traffic conflicts and noise and dust issues, and access or adjacency to rail, airport, and water port services to maximize inter-modal opportunities,

Any Transport Terminal or freight-intensive use should be prohibited or discouraged from locating near sensitive land uses such as residential areas unless appropriate mitigation measures such as berms, noise barriers, or other buffering are in place to mitigate noise, dust, or light pollution from the Transport Terminal.

ACTION 1: That the Official Plan BE AMENDED to provide further policy direction regarding additional locational criteria for a Transport Terminal that:

  1. encourage adjacency to the truck route network, including any long combination vehicle routes;

  2. discourage direct access to major commercial corridors to minimize traffic, noise, and dust conflicts and issues;