GO Transit achieves 'LEED Gold' recognition for eco-friendly Pickering Station

GO Transit's Pickering Station building recently attained LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Canada Gold certification for new construction and major renovations, a first for a passenger station in the greater Toronto and Hamilton area, GO Transit officials announced yesterday.

The Gold certification is a milestone in the agency's efforts to decrease its carbon footprint and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, they said in a press release.

"We believe this LEED achievement for a station is a first for a transit agency in Canada," said GO Transit President Gary McNeil. "We are pushing ourselves to reach higher levels in environmental sustainability when it comes to the design, construction and operation of our new station buildings and facilities."

Some of GO Transit's maintenance and operational facilities have been recognized for incorporating more environmental features. Examples include the Brampton and Oshawa bus facilities, which are LEED Gold certified, and a few other bus stations that have achieved LEED Silver certification.

Some of the Pickering Station's eco-friendly features include a pump that uses heat from the ground to warm the building in cooler weather and offset warmer temperatures; a recovery unit that extracts heat from the air leaving the building and uses it to heat the air entering the building; low-floor plumbing fixtures that conserve water; and a waste management plan implemented during construction that diverted 80 percent of construction waste from a landfill.

LEED Canada is a third-party certification program and an internationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high-performance green buildings. The Canadian rating systems are an adaptation of the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED Green Building Rating System, tailored for Canadian climates.