Hey guys, welcome back to the channel! Today, for a return to our Transit Future series,
we are heading west, and taking a look at rapid transit from the past into the future
for our second home of Metro Vancouver.
Being a region of about 2.5 million people, Metro Vancouver’s rapid transit has evolved
with the region as it has grown, and it now consists of three SkyTrain lines, a Seabus
route, 5 RapidBus express bus routes, as well as the commuter railway the West Coast Express.
Let’s go and take a look at the city’s mass transit history, and its future as the
system continues to expand and develop along with the city.
[Intro]
Our first order of business is to take a trip down memory lane, and explore the history
that has led us to the rapid transit system we love today.
The first line in the current system to begin operation is the Seabus, all the way back in 1977.
This is a passenger ferry service that crosses the Burrard Inlet to connect the city of Vancouver
with North Vancouver, between the terminals of Waterfront and Lonsdale Quay.
The 3.24 km, or 2 mile long route is served by 3 ferries, and it takes about 10-12 minutes
to make its journey, carrying around 18 thousand passengers every single day.
After the SeaBus came the 80s, and with the 80s came the first iteration of the SkyTrain,
which, as a lot of you may know, is the main transit service in the system.
The first SkyTrain line to open was the Expo Line, with its first phase opening in 1985
just before Expo 86. The 21.4 km, or 13.3 mile long route consisted of 15 stations,
and it connected Downtown Vancouver at Waterfront to New Westminster towards the eastern end
of the region.
The line was extended with two more stations Columbia and Scott Road in 1989 finally bringing
rapid transit South of the Fraser River. The Expo line was further extended to Surrey City
Centre in 1994 with 3 more stations and 4 Kilometers or 2.5 miles of track.
The next SkyTrain line to be built was the Millenium line, which opened its first substantial
phase in 2002, from Commercial Drive horizontally across to the east then turning Southwest
to connect with the Expo Line at Columbia.
The arrival of the Millennium line also brought with it a weird service pattern, with the
line starting at Waterfront station, sharing tracks with the Expo Line, then travelling
all the way around the loop to Commercial Drive, where the line terminated after phase
two was finished late in the same year.
Lake City Way station opened in the following year due to delays, and the line was then
extended from Commercial drive to VCC-Clark in 2006, which meant that the line passed
by the combined Commercial-Broadway station twice on the same route stopping on different
platforms, and creating an interesting pretzel setup.
The most recent line to open was the Canada Line, which was constructed and opened in
anticipation of the Winter Olympic Games in 2009.
This line finally filled the void that is a north-south connector down to the suburb
of Richmond, and more importantly, it also connects to Vancouver International Airport
Canada's most important Airport west of Toronto.
The 19.2 km, or 11.9 mile long route consists of 16 stations, and it forks just past Bridgeport
to go to both the Airport and further into Richmond.
After the Canada Line opened, the Millennium Line was extended to Lafarge Lake in Coquitlam
with the Evergreen extension in 2016.
As part of this extension, service of the Millennium and Expo lines was finally adjusted
to get rid of the nasty loop, with the Millennium line now continuing past Lougheed Town Centre
station onto the Evergreen extension, and the expo line taking over Braid and Sapperton
stations as one of its branches.
Besides these lines, there is, of course, also the West Coast Express, but we won’t
be including it in our discussions much today, as it is only a commuter service that doesn’t
run for the whole day, and doesn’t quite fit our definition of rapid transit.
And there you have it, the current structure of rapid transit service in the Metro Vancouver
Area. The SkyTrain lines alone carry more than 500 thousand people daily, with rapid
year over year ridership growth driven by smart development around stations.
Now that we have gone through the current system in place, let’s take a look at what
the future will bring to the region in terms of improvements and extensions.
We’ll first look at the extensions that are the furthest along - most, if not all
of the planning and studies have been done for these two extensions, the funding has
been secured, and they are currently in procurement, with construction scheduled to start in the
coming years.
First up, we have the Fleetwood Expo Line extension, extending the line from King George
to Fleetwood in Surrey.
This line started out as a light rail project that would have connected the system to Newton
and Guildford, but that idea has since been scrapped, and the funding that would have
been enough for that whole line will instead go to this extension, which will be a full
Skytrain extension.
This means that the funding initially enough for the light rail line wouldn’t be enough
to finish the whole extension to Langley, and so this first phase will only have 4 stations,
terminating at 166 Street in the Fleetwood area of Surrey.
The business case for the full Langley extension will be completed very soon in early 2020,
with construction possibly starting in 2022, and revenue service to Fleetwood beginning
in late 2025.
The other line currently set to start construction is the Broadway extension to Arbutus, which
extends the Millennium line west from VCC-Clark to Arbutus street along Broadway.
This is the first step to completing the eventual UBC extension of the SkyTrain, which we’ll
talk about in more detail later in the video.
The Arbutus extension will include 6 stations, including an upgraded Broadway-City Hall station
at the interchange with the Canada Line, which was originally designed with knockout panels
in place for this eventual extension.
The planning has been completed for the line, and they are looking to select a contractor
by April 2020, with construction to begin late this year, for an expected completion
date by 2025.
One extra addition to the system that is not an extension, but has already been funded
and will be commencing construction soon is the Capstan Way SkyTrain Station.
This is an infill station on the Canada Line, located at No.3 road and Capstan Way in Richmond,
right between Bridgeport and Aberdeen stations.
The way this station was funded is quite unique: the city of Richmond collected funds from
apartment developers that were building nearby, and now that the city has the funding necessary,
they are able to finally build the station.
The project is still in the design stage, and the station should be constructed and
begin operating within the next few years.
The next few proposed projects are currently under study by Translink, and funding isn’t
in place just yet, but they are very likely to happen in some shape or form in the future.
First up, we have the Burnaby Mountain Gondola. The main campus of Simon Fraser University
is located on top of the mountain, and has a significant demand for transit from students.
The business case is strong with this project, considering the significant development on
the mountain, the surprisingly low cost of a gondola, the removal of polluting diesel
buses, and creating a reliable and rapid connection up the mountain, which the buses are not right
now particularly in snowy weather.
The project is currently under study, with 3 possible routes being studied, but we think
the best route would be direct from Production Way-University station to the transit exchange
at the top of the mountain.
Next up, we are following up the Fleetwood Expo Line extension with the full Expo line
extension to Langley. As we mentioned before, there currently isn’t enough funding for
the whole extension to be built, with another 2 billion dollars needed to build the whole
line. However, it will be studied and planned alongside the Fleetwood extension, and it’ll
be ready to be built when the funding does materialize.
The next extension is probably the most anticipated future extension of the SkyTrain system, the
Broadway extension to UBC. As we mentioned earlier, the extension has been approved,
but the funding has not yet been secured.
UBC is one of the largest transit destinations in Vancouver, and the university itself is
advocating for the line very hard, and is even willing to pay for some portion of it,
but the logistics for the long extension haven’t been sorted out yet.
Hopefully we’ll be able to see more progress on it in the near future.
And finally, the last project under study right now is the YVR International terminal
station on the Canada Line.
With the expansion of the International terminal of the airport (you can check out more details
on that in our future of YVR video), the airport will be extended far enough to the east to
warrant the construction of a new station.
This project is being studied right now, and is very likely to happen in conjunction with
the airport expansion.
The next few extensions we’ll talk about are likely to happen, but they are not currently
under study, and there aren’t any plans for them to happen just yet, but they still
make a lot of sense and would be valuable additions to the system.
The first of these is the Millenium line extension to Port Coquitlam. When Coquitlam Central
station was initially built, a spur in the tracks was put in in order to facilitate future
development, and this extension would utilize that exact spur to extend further east into
Port Coquitlam, with a possible stop at Kingsway in the middle.
Beyond that, an extension to Maple Ridge is also possible as well, but that’ll be a
long way into the future.
The next possible extension, or extensions rather, is extending the Expo line down to
Guildford or Newton. Either of these could happen as skytrain lines or light rail lines
depending on the situation, and these two urban centers are both good places to connect
to the network.
The SeaBus route might also get an upgrade in the form of what we’d propose to call
the Burrard line to Lonsdale Quay, which would be a high capacity underground rail shuttle
to replace the SeaBus.
This would be constructed in a tunnel under the Burrard Inlet, and the depth means that
they won’t actually be able to cut straight across, and instead it’ll have to take a
more circuitous route to the other side.
And finally, the last route in this category is the Arbutus Light Rail. This is a possible
line along the Arbutus Greenway, which is a historic rail corridor converted into public
space for walking and cycling, and it would make a great north-south connector through
the city, connecting with the Arbutus station on the Millennium line extension.
The last category of possible lines we’ll be looking at are really just fantasy lines,
and they are based on the current routes served by RapidBus.
The three lines in question are the Hastings line, the Marine Main line, and the 41 Ave
line with a potential connection to Hastings.
These will probably not happen too soon as the ridership isn’t currently there on these
routes, but it’ll be a good way to bring even more capacity and comfort to these corridors,
especially as major developments such as those at Oakridge come online.
Alright guys, so this is what the future of rapid transit in Metro Vancouver could look
like, with all of these being either SkyTrain or Light rail lines, tying the region together efficiently.
We’re really excited to see what the future will bring to the region, and we’ll be there
along the way to give you guys updates on these new developments in the system.
If you enjoyed this video, make sure to like, subscribe, and tell us down in the comments
which new line or extension you are most excited for, and if we missed anything important in
the future of the system.
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help us keep making great videos for you guys. Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you in
the next one!
[Outro]