The Vancouver region’s transit authority says the Surrey mayor’s proposed extension to the elevated SkyTrain network won’t get more than the $1.6-billion already set aside for a now-cancelled light-rail project – and that won’t be enough to reach the centre of nearby Langley.
TransLink has told the region’s mayors that it could build the SkyTrain extension by 2025 after Surrey’s mayor followed through with an election promise to cancel a light-rail project that had been approved and funded. Mayor Doug McCallum has insisted the 16-kilometre elevated SkyTrain line could be built without increasing the $1.6-billion budget.
But Jill Drews, a spokeswoman for TransLink, said a new SkyTrain in Surrey would not cover the full 16-kilometre route to the centre of Langley.
“If the mayors endorse our recommendations Thursday, we will study the route and report back on how much we can build for the existing $1.6-billion in funding we have for LRT,” Ms. Drews said in an e-mail exchange on Monday.
TransLink will ask the Mayors Council on Regional Transportation to use the LRT budget to instead build SkyTrain along the Fraser Highway into Langley. The proposal would also cancel an LRT line from Surrey’s Guildford neighbourhood to Newton and instead cover the route with bus service.
New SkyTrain in Surrey was one of the key election promises of Mr. McCallum and his Safe Surrey Coalition. Mr. McCallum, seeking a return to the mayor’s job he held for nine years ending in 2005, promised to scrap an 11-station LRT system and extend the current SkyTrain system eastward from Surrey to Langley along the Fraser Highway.
Mr. McCallum did not respond to requests for comment about the latest TransLink proposal or the agency’s assessment that the entire line to central Langley could not be built with the existing LRT budget.
Oliver Lum, a spokesman for Mr. McCallum, said on Monday that the mayor would not be commenting on the new proposal before the mayors' council meeting.
Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart said, in an interview, that he was looking forward to getting more details on all the ideas.
Mr. Stewart said he supports the idea of an effective, eventual SkyTrain link between Langley and the main campus of the University of British Columbia on the west side of Vancouver.
That would come about because of a new SkyTrain line running from Langley into the existing line in Surrey, then on into Vancouver and on through a planned Broadway subway that is to run to the Kitsilano area of Vancouver and then on to UBC.
“If you could get from Langley to UBC that would do a lot to bring people together in the region,” said Mr. Stewart, who wants to expedite the construction of the line to UBC. “I am trying to pull that all together and move forward.”
Mr. McCallum has said he could build the SkyTrain to Langley for $1.6-billion, and not the $2.6-billion price previously projected.
Mr. Stewart said he needs more details on that idea, including experts assessing the routing and other features to bring the project in at that budget.
“I am no expert on this so I am really looking forward to getting those details and then the mayors voting on whether this moves forward or not,” he said.
A 2012 study by the IBI Group, an architecture, planning, engineering, and technology firm, said LRT could carry about 4,800 people per hour at peak periods while rail-rapid transit, like SkyTrain, would carry up to 17,000 people an hour in each direction.
Ian Bailey