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Transit is undergoing an expansion in this border city with new and revamped terminals on both the east and west ends.

And Josie Liburdi, a City of Windsor 20-year employee and local St. Clair College civil engineering technology grad, is overseeing both of them.

The east end terminal, across the street from busy Tecumseh Mall, will see several Transit Windsor bus routes combined in a terminus near the corner of Tecumseh Road and Lauzon Parkway, a major big box retail area leading to burgeoning suburbs. The $3.76 million terminal will take the buses away from the congested mall parking lot.

The work involves building a main platform that includes passenger shelters, benches and bike parking. The platform will accommodate up to eight bus bays with an additional layover. A driver’s rest building is also part of the plan.

The west end job is a $1.65 million expansion of an existing terminal, which rubs shoulders with the Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare hospital campus.

It involves extending the main bus platform to accommodate a couple of additional bus bays with added passenger shelters, benches and bike parking. There’s also a driver’s rest building.

The east end facility is being built from scratch while the west end terminal’s construction must accommodate current bus and hospital logistics.

Liburdi’s role is as the nexus among the pivotal construction groups — the city, transit officials, construction consultants and the contractor, Windsor’s Sterling Ridge Group Inc.

“So, I would bring in, as we need, field engineering, or consult with other city departments like building, right-of-way, field services – anyone who has specialties we need to tap into,” she says. “We have biweekly meetings to keep the projects on track.”

Essentially the job requires “making things run smoothly.”

This means ensuring the contactor is meeting timelines, “that the consultant is understanding what the needs are from the city” and “being onsite to track progress” including the details like finishes and concrete patterns.

So far, the work has gone well.

There have been no big change orders, she says.

“That means our design was pretty good.”

And there were no problems during excavation.

“That’s where you can encounter stuff because once you start digging in the ground you don’t know the unforeseen issues.”

��������ion on both sites began last July and wraps up in the spring.

On the east side, work such as terminal road loops have now been completed and winter work has focussed on the building. Decorative fencing and acoustic walls will be installed in the spring along with access sidewalks and landscaping. The brown brick building includes a lunchroom, washrooms and electronics for passenger IT signage.

On the west side, as per the city’s new Transit Master Plan, several routes will be changing, increasing bus frequency, therefore necessitating enlargement.

“Pretty much all the civil work is done and the drivers’ building is now being completed,” Liburdi said.

The only challenge is “trying to get the materials down the street because of the constraints of where it’s located.”

That’s the active hospital and adjacent parking lot, requiring “a lot of co-ordination in trying to fit everything on the parcel.”

And, of course, it means co-ordinating with the bus drivers during segments like concrete pours.

That’s in contrast to the east end “where it was an open field and crews could mobilize anywhere.”

Liburdi entered the construction field in part because her family was in the business.

As a woman in a traditionally male trade she is generally non-plussed. But while the job generally runs smoothly, she sometimes encounters mild biases.

“I think we always have those moments, I’m not going to lie,” she said. “I think sometimes when you might be the only woman at the table you can sense it that they don’t take you like the others at that table. But you don’t let it bother you; you just keep on going, you just show up with the knowledge.”