Feds, B.C. commit $3B for Broadway line expansion, Surrey LRT construction

VANCOUVER—The federal and provincial governments have jointly committed more than $3 billion to expand a transit line in Metro Vancouver and construct the city’s first light rail transit system.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier John Horgan announced the funding Sept. 4 in Surrey, B.C., contributing $1.37 billion and $1.82 billion, respectively.

Translink, the City of Vancouver and the City of Surrey will pony up an additional $1.23 billion.

Mayor Gregor Robertson said investment in the Millennium Line Broadway Extension “has been a long time coming.”

The project will take Skytrain underground with an added 5.7 kilometres and six stations along the Broadway Corridor, currently serviced by the 99 B-line bus route.

Part of the city’s Transportation 2040 plan, the expansion is intended to reduce traffic and congestion along the corridor – increasing the system’s carrying capacity threefold.

Construction is expected to begin in 2020 and be complete by 2025.

The first of two phases in the South of Fraser Rapid Transit Network, the Surrey-Newton-Guildford LRT will include 11 new stations along 10.5 kilometres of street‑level track.

The project’s second phase, the Surrey-Langley line, will include 16 kilometres of mostly street level, two-way track, eight LRT stops and a short, elevated segment over the Langley Bypass and Canadian Pacific Rail Corridor.

Federal and provincial funding for these projects is part of a funding agreement signed in the spring of 2018 under the Investing in Canada infrastructure plan that will see $3.917 billion in federal dollars invested in B.C. infrastructure over 10 years.