Latest news with #SkyTrain
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
B.C. minister touts benefits of 3B Broadway Subway Project as businesses ask for support
B.C.'s transport minister talked up the benefits of the $2.95 billion Broadway Subway SkyTrain extension at a Monday photo op — but businesses say there's been little support for them as the delayed project looks to hit its 2027 completion date. The Broadway Subway Project aims to extend the Millennium Line by 5.7 kilometres, bringing the SkyTrain west from VCC-Clark station to Arbutus. And while it was initially supposed to cost $2.83 billion and come online this year, two delays have pushed the project to 2027, and the price has shot up to $2.95 billion. Businesses along Broadway who have had to deal with construction for five years say they're hanging by a thread, even as the province continues to say it will help alleviate pressure on Metro Vancouver's transit system. "As with all projects, there's always challenges," Transport Minister Mike Farnworth said. "There's issues that will come up, just because of the nature of the location, and events that do happen." Farnworth says the extension will increase the capacity of the SkyTrain system by 27 per cent, and would carry three times the capacity of the 99 bus line, which has long been the region's busiest route. "The time to get from VCC-Clark down to Arbutus will only be 11 minutes," he said. "So that is going to be a significant improvement, in terms of people's commuting experience, on the transit system." Farnworth acknowledged the problems the project has faced that has led to a two-year delay. The challenges included labour disputes and problems faced by tunnel boring machines along the Broadway corridor. "We're on time to have it open in 2027," he insisted. Businesses ask for support Farnworth said the Broadway Subway Project, which is funded by the province, has been in touch with local businesses on a daily basis over their concerns. But some of them say they've had to close up shop due to ongoing street construction. "I was forced to remortgage my home on two occasions and eventually was forced to sell my condo because of the drop in sales," said Allen Ingram, the owner of Home on the Range Organics. Ingram ended up having to close his Broadway location a month and a half ago and has shifted to primarily selling his products online, in addition to a new production kitchen on the Sunshine Coast. "It's without the woes of any construction, and it's a lovely place to be," he said. "So on a personal level, it feels a lot better to be removed from what we were going through in Vancouver." Neil Wyles, the executive director of the Mount Pleasant Business Improvement Association, says that he was seeing 50 per cent business vacancies along Broadway from Alberta Street to Kingsway — which he largely attributed to the reduction in foot traffic from subway construction. "We've talked to all of the politicians and everyone seems to be very, very, very sympathetic," he said. "But at the end of the day, there's been zero support for these businesses." Wyles said that businesses had been "hanging on by their fingernails" since subway construction started in 2020, and he is pushing for a tax break for stores affected by construction. "There's no guarantee that your store is going to just be flooded with people because of the Broadway line," Wyles said, when asked whether businesses can expect an uptick in foot traffic when the project is online. "I could not, in good conscience, go into one of my businesses and say, 'But it'll be worth it. It'll be totally worth it, man... I don't think that's true."
CBC
15 hours ago
- Business
- CBC
B.C. minister touts benefits of 3B Broadway Subway Project as businesses ask for support
B.C.'s transport minister talked up the benefits of the $2.95 billion Broadway Subway SkyTrain extension at a Monday photo op — but businesses say there's been little support for them as the delayed project looks to hit its 2027 completion date. The Broadway Subway Project aims to extend the Millennium Line by 5.7 kilometres, bringing the SkyTrain west from VCC-Clark station to Arbutus. And while it was initially supposed to cost $2.83 billion and come online this year, two delays have pushed the project to 2027, and the price has shot up to $2.95 billion. Businesses along Broadway who have had to deal with construction for five years say they're hanging by a thread, even as the province continues to say it will help alleviate pressure on Metro Vancouver's transit system. "As with all projects, there's always challenges," Transport Minister Mike Farnworth said. "There's issues that will come up, just because of the nature of the location, and events that do happen." Farnworth says the extension will increase the capacity of the SkyTrain system by 27 per cent, and would carry three times the capacity of the 99 bus line, which has long been the region's busiest route. "The time to get from VCC-Clark down to Arbutus will only be 11 minutes," he said. "So that is going to be a significant improvement, in terms of people's commuting experience, on the transit system." Farnworth acknowledged the problems the project has faced that has led to a two-year delay. The challenges included labour disputes and problems faced by tunnel boring machines along the Broadway corridor. "We're on time to have it open in 2027," he insisted. Businesses ask for support Farnworth said the Broadway Subway Project, which is funded by the province, has been in touch with local businesses on a daily basis over their concerns. But some of them say they've had to close up shop due to ongoing street construction. "I was forced to remortgage my home on two occasions and eventually was forced to sell my condo because of the drop in sales," said Allen Ingram, the owner of Home on the Range Organics. Ingram ended up having to close his Broadway location a month and a half ago and has shifted to primarily selling his products online, in addition to a new production kitchen on the Sunshine Coast. "It's without the woes of any construction, and it's a lovely place to be," he said. "So on a personal level, it feels a lot better to be removed from what we were going through in Vancouver." Neil Wyles, the executive director of the Mount Pleasant Business Improvement Association, says that he was seeing 50 per cent business vacancies along Broadway from Alberta Street to Kingsway — which he largely attributed to the reduction in foot traffic from subway construction. "We've talked to all of the politicians and everyone seems to be very, very, very sympathetic," he said. "But at the end of the day, there's been zero support for these businesses." Wyles said that businesses had been "hanging on by their fingernails" since subway construction started in 2020, and he is pushing for a tax break for stores affected by construction. "There's no guarantee that your store is going to just be flooded with people because of the Broadway line," Wyles said, when asked whether businesses can expect an uptick in foot traffic when the project is online. "I could not, in good conscience, go into one of my businesses and say, 'But it'll be worth it. It'll be totally worth it, man... I don't think that's true." WATCH | Inside the Broadway Subway extension: Inside the Broadway SkyTrain extension — one of many delayed provincial projects 2 hours ago Duration 1:56 It's caused quite the traffic tie-ups, but urban planners and politicians all agree, it'll be worth it in the end. And today, it was time to show off the Broadway subway, the SkyTrain extension that will add six new stops in Vancouver. As CBC's Justin McElroy explains, the project joins a long list of provincial projects that are over budget and delayed.
Vancouver Sun
17 hours ago
- Business
- Vancouver Sun
Broadway subway hits midway point, later than first anticipated — and at a higher cost
Transportation Minister Mike Farnworth joined journalists Monday to descend several storeys into the cavernous concrete box that will become the Broadway subway line's Emily Carr-Northern Way station to get a glimpse of its progress. 'Here we are at one of the key entrances to the tunnel where they're starting to lay track,' Farnworth said, dwarfed by the six-metre diameter concrete tube around him and the pair of rails that will eventually stretch five kilometres west to Arbutus Street. 'You can see by the size of the tunnel just how big this project is,' Farnworth added. The province also said project's costs have continued to creep higher, to $2.95 billion from the last estimate of $2.83 billion. The project will extend TransLink's Millennium Line from VCC Clark Station to Arbutus Street in the hopes of reducing congestion on Broadway, one of Vancouver's busiest commuter routes. 1 of 20 Full Screen is not supported on this browser version. You may use a different browser or device to view this in full screen. Farnworth said when complete in the fall of 2027, the line will be able to carry three times as many passengers as TransLink's 99 B-Line bus route. Paired with the 16 kilometre extension of the Expo Line from Surrey to Langley, the projects represent a 27 per cent expansion of SkyTrain. Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. 'It's going to be a significant improvement in terms of people's ability to commute,' Farnworth said. 'It'll shorten the commute, on average, for commuters coming from farther out, let's say around the New West, Surrey area, by about 30 minutes.' Monday's tour came at a midway point in construction with some 750 workers at various stages of filling in the subway line's six new stations. The line is being built by a consortium of major construction firms, including Spanish infrastructure giant Acciona and the Canadian subsidiary of Italian tunnelling experts Ghella SpA. When work began in 2020, builders hoped to hit a fall 2025 completion date. A concrete-industry strike in 2022 put a delay into the schedule that spiralled to 18 months by a year ago when the province announced it wouldn't be complete until the fall of 2027. The project remains on track for that revised schedule, according to Farnworth, though that isn't much comfort to a businesses hollowed out by subway construction. 'I've stopped counting,' Neil Wyles, executive director of the Mount Pleasant Business Improvement Association, said of the number of businesses that have closed due to reduced access around station locations. 'I think I stopped counting when I hit the 60s.' Farnworth maintained that the project's builders have had 'a very good relationship between the project and businesses along the line. They are in contact with them, literally, on a daily basis.' The provincial government's Transportation Investment Corp. has been ably to apply lessons learned from other projects on how to 'ensure that the impact is as minimum as possible.' Wyles, however, said none of the liaison between the corporation and businesses has involved the topic of short-term compensation for businesses dealt what is now a seven-year stretch of disruptions. 'If you had a kid at the beginning of the project, the kid would be going into Grade 2 by the time it was done,' Wyles said. 'That's not short term.' In Surrey, crews remain in the early work for the Expo Line extension, 'utility work, vegetation management, roadworks, foundation construction,' according to the project's latest update. Surrey commuters, however, are also starting to face the project's first major traffic disruptions with a full closure of Fraser Highway between 140 Street and 96 Avenue, a stretch near the extension's intended start at King George Station and Green Timbers. The province announced last summer that the project's cost estimate had ballooned to almost $6 billion from the near $4 billion when it was launched. At the future Emily Car-Great Northern Way station on the Broadway subway, things are looking closer to complete. During Monday's visit, workers at one end of the four-block long construction site were busy clearing away stacks of scaffolding parts from the top of station's concrete box before it is filled in to make way for a massive development destined to go up overhead. At the other end, where 700 metres of guideway that extends from VCC Clark Station slopes down into the underground entrance, crews are placing the thousands of rail pads that will hold its steel rails to the concrete track bed. Rail is being welded into 400-metre to 700-metre strings that are then being pulled into place by a device called a speed swing, Farnworth said. To date, rail has been pulled from the Great Northern Way station to its Broadway City Hall station. 'It's going to be great when it's done,' said Wyles at the Mount Pleasant Business Improvement Association. In the meantime, however, 'we've seen a number of businesses leave (and) I think that there are a number holding on by their fingernails,' he added. depenner@
Global News
18 hours ago
- Business
- Global News
B.C. gives behind-the-scenes look at the Broadway subway, still aiming for 2027 launch
It's still more than two years from coming into service, but there's no question Vancouver's Broadway subway is starting to take shape. The province offered the public a sneak peek behind the scenes on the $2.95 billion project, which will see the SkyTrain Millennium line extended from its current terminus of VCC-Clark station to Arbutus Street on the city's west side. 'This line alone will be able to carry at any one time more than three times the capacity of the 99 B-Line, so it is going to be a significant improvement,' Transportation Minister Mike Farnworth said. 4:12 Impact on businesses as Broadway subway extension faces delays 'When this is complete with this project and the completion of the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain project, that is going to increase the capacity of the SkyTrain system by more than 27 per cent.' Story continues below advertisement Once complete, the 5.7-kilometre extension will whisk passengers from VCC-Clark to Arbutus Station in about 11 minutes. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy The massive project is currently employing some 750 tradespeople, many of them currently working on the extension's six three-level underground stations. Crews finished boring the subway's twin five-kilometre tunnels last spring; those tunnels are now clad in concrete and the current focus is on laying track, which is being hauled in in 400-metre lengths. Work on the subway began in 2020, with an initial target completion date of 2025. The completion date has since been pushed back to the fall of 2027, with the province citing a variety of factors including the COVID-19 pandemic, a five-week concrete strike, and unexpected challenges with tunnel boring. 1:48 Completion dates for Broadway subway, Pattullo Bridge pushed back 'Whenever a tunnel-boring machine's going through, there're always issues that come along the way that … slow it down a bit,' Farnworth said. Story continues below advertisement 'We're still on time for the fall of 2027.' Extending the line from Arbutus to UBC remains a priority for TransLink, which has included the concept in the second half of its latest 10-year plan. However, despite support from the university and the City of Vancouver, that extension remains unfunded with no specific cash commitment from either the provincial or federal governments.
Toronto Star
19 hours ago
- Business
- Toronto Star
B.C. provides peek into $2.95B SkyTrain tunnels, set to open in 2027
VANCOUVER - In a maze of cement under Vancouver, the latest expansion to the SkyTrain rapid-transit system is taking shape, one stretch of track at a time. Transportation Minister Mike Farnworth described how track is being hauled into place in 400-metre lengths, as he led a tour of the $2.95-billion Broadway subway project and its two brightly lit centrepiece tunnels on Monday.
