TransLink’s Mayors’ Council chooses SkyTrain for UBC expansion
Posted February 15, 2019 11:37 am.
Last Updated February 15, 2019 4:36 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – It’s one giant leap forward for SkyTrain to UBC: TransLink’s Mayors’ Council voted to move forward with SkyTrain as the chosen technology to get rapid transit to the university.
The earliest construction would start is 2025 and only if the project receives funding under Phase Three of the mayors’ ten-year transportation plan. The project is expected to have a price tag of more than $3-billion.
Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart is calling this great news for students, workers, educators and businesses across the region.
TransLink Planner Geoff Cross says the next phase includes a lot of public consultation.
“Project planning still to be done is really around station locations, horizontal alignment, vertical alignment, connections, costing to be able for you to understand where this fits, what the business case looks like for future funding decisions,” he adds.
That process is expected to last up to 18 months with a full business plan developed by 2020.
Cross says other factors needing to be considered include the best construction method.
“The next phase would include quite a bit of public and stakeholder consultation, working with the City of Vancouver, syncing up with some of their land use and corridor planning, understanding what the technical and functional requirements for tunnelling, etc. could be.”
Concerns have also been raised about which company will be chosen to build the new SkyTrain considering recent problems being faced by one of the bidders SNC Lavalin.
Protecting renters long new route
Although Vancouver councillor Jean Swanson says she’s in favour of better transit, she says it shouldn’t be at the expense of low-income renters.
She says there are thousands of apartment units along the new SkyTrain route that should be protected.
“I’m not against having better transit, but I am afraid there’s 30,000 purposed built apartment units, they desperately need to be protected from being demolished and replaced with higher density condos,” she says.
Swanson hopes the city can re-zone the areas to be rental-only to protect renters.
