Expo Line - Surrey Langley Extension: Planning & Pre-Construction

[madog222]

Does anyone remember the reasoning for the Millennium Line opening to Braid 6 months before the rest of the line?

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by Firebrand

Since when did they decided that it’ll be in operation in 2028 instead of earlier? It shouldn’t take 7 years to build the whole 16 km stretch. I thought they mentioned that it’ll open earlier in other sources. No wonder why things take forever to get built in this region.

Hopefully, a change in government won’t cancel the project like many others have done in the past few years.

The problem is that the Federal government gives away all the transit money to Central Canada (Quebec and Ontario), and both of those provinces waste money on short-sighted transit projects rather than expanding their long-term transit projects. Pretty much every LRT project in Canada has been something of a dumpster fire, and cities only go along with it because they get "more"... yeah "more bad" transit because the people who run the cities can't see beyond their mandate.

Which is why everyone except a few grumpy transit-haters are happy that the Surry LRT was replaced with a Skytrain plan. Not even Translink wanted the LRT, because everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, knew it was a horrific plan to go along with Surreys already-horrific city planning. Now Langley gets to be part of Metro Vancouver and not boxed in by Surrey's short-sighted mistakes.

I don't expect much to come of the federal election. What I worry about is Surrey electing someone who won't advocate for the Skytrain next year when the municipal elections come up, and that in turn resulting in a city council who sabotages the construction of the line, like how Burnaby sabotaged the evergreen line getting built for 20-25 years. We can thank Gordon Campbell for ramming through the Evergreen line. The Mayors all squabbled like children.

[logicbomb]

No real surprise. All we had were blueprints but the reality is that we have to see land acquisition and demolition to make way for construction materials and additional prep work along Fraser Highway. This alone will take 3-4 more years.

I still believe we won't see this project completed until the 2030's though.

[flipper316]

They're using the good old covid excuse as one of the reasons. Lazy fvcks .

[cganuelas1995]

When will governments understand that you cannot put LRT in ever city. If you want something on the road and that something to be electric, then put a trolleybus. If you need permanence, put a coat of red paint on the lane, spice up the stops, that sorta thing.

If your city is sprawled and car-dependent, then go with electric rapid bus or grade separate the rails.

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by cganuelas1995

When will governments understand that you cannot put LRT in ever city. If you want something on the road and that something to be electric, then put a trolleybus. If you need permanence, put a coat of red paint on the lane, spice up the stops, that sorta thing.

If your city is sprawled and car-dependent, then go with electric rapid bus or grade separate the rails.

As someone on the streetcar thread pointed out, LRT can be a lot of things, ranging from Skytrain to Toronto's Harbourfront streetcar to San Fran's cable cars. You certainly can put LRT in every city, but the specifics (grade-separated or at grade, shared or exclusive ROW, speed, etc.) will differ depending on need and funding.

Light Rail (LR)(mode)
A transit mode that typically is an electric railway with a light volume traffic capacity compared to heavy rail (HR). It is characterized by:
• Passenger rail cars operating singly (or in short, usually two car, trains) on fixed rails in shared or exclusive right-of-way (ROW);
• Low or high platform loading; and
• Vehicle power drawn from an overhead electric line via a trolley or a pantograph.

https://web.archive.org/web/20131113002142/http://www.ntdprogram.gov/ntdprogram/Glossary.htm

[Metro-One]

7 years to construct 16 km of elevated rail along a straight line corridor that has already been studied and planned to death in detail is asinine.

2026, I could understand, 2028? No excuse.

It is time for BC to re-examine their procedures for such projects.

[SpongeG]

I thought it was because the promised federal money for it has not happened yet.

Anyway can they not do what they can to Fleetwood and then continue on to Langley when the money fully happens?

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

I thought it was because the promised federal money for it has not happened yet.

Anyway can they not do what they can to Fleetwood and then continue on to Langley when the money fully happens?

I'd be genuinely surprised if that's not the case; Fleetwood's ready to go. Unless there's a bit of property acquisition involved too...

[logicbomb]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

I'd be genuinely surprised if that's not the case; Fleetwood's ready to go. Unless there's a bit of property acquisition involved too...

152nd and Fraser Highway has 4 lots that will need to be acquired for construction and access. Assessed is near $8 mil all together, however you can imagine the asking is about 4x because of the assumed redevelopment potential.

[OhioGuy]

Sorry if this has been covered before (I only occasionally pop by this thread for updates)... why are there 3 tracks depicted? Is there a plan for an additional track to offer express service? Given how far Langley is from downtown Vancouver, perhaps providing an express option might be worthwhile? (though I assume most of the ridership along this corridor isn't necessarily going from the Langley terminus to the downtown Vancouver terminus but rather staying within the South of Fraser region?)

Originally Posted by twoNeurons

With reference to the tunnel like effect that bents over the road cause, One thing that’s nice about a tunnel-like effect is it typically tends to slow down cars and makes it nicer for bicycles. One of my favourite parts of the millennium line to ride under is the section from Renfrew to Gilmore as much of it is under the tracks and you have protection from rain.

I know cycling isn’t that popular in Surrey especially on Fraser Highway but I would chalk that up to it being a major fast moving traffic Corridor which is very friendly for cycling.

[CanSpice]

Langley City councillor Nathan Pachal says SkyTrain to Langley isn't delayed and that things are still full steam ahead. The business case released in January 2020 said that "the anticipated opening date for passenger service on this first stage [to Fleetwood] is late 2025", but somehow media has taken this 2025 date to be the date that the full line to Langley City would open.

The September 2021 board meeting agenda still shows a Stage 1 to Fleetwood, and the only mention of 2028 is for the "Surrey-Langley SkyTrain opening day", which would be for the full extension to Langley.

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by OhioGuy

Sorry if this has been covered before (I only occasionally pop by this thread for updates)... why are there 3 tracks depicted? Is there a plan for an additional track to offer express service? Given how far Langley is from downtown Vancouver, perhaps providing an express option might be worthwhile? (though I assume most of the ridership along this corridor isn't necessarily going from the Langley terminus to the downtown Vancouver terminus but rather staying within the South of Fraser region?)

That's a pocket track, not an express track. Three tracks side-by-side are all over the place to park trains so they don't have to enter service from an OMC; an example is between Braid and Lougheed along Highway One.

[OhioGuy]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

That's a pocket track, not an express track. Three tracks side-by-side are all over the place to park trains so they don't have to enter service from an OMC; an example is between Braid and Lougheed along Highway One.

Thanks!

[Tvisforme]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

Langley City councillor Nathan Pachal says SkyTrain to Langley isn't delayed and that things are still full steam ahead. The business case released in January 2020 said that "the anticipated opening date for passenger service on this first stage [to Fleetwood] is late 2025", but somehow media has taken this 2025 date to be the date that the full line to Langley City would open.

The September 2021 board meeting agenda still shows a Stage 1 to Fleetwood, and the only mention of 2028 is for the "Surrey-Langley SkyTrain opening day", which would be for the full extension to Langley.

With respect to councillor Pachal, his blog post appears to be about how the extension to Langley was never planned for completion by 2025, hence, no delays to Langley. He doesn't appear to say anything concrete about the construction schedule out to Fleetwood, or if there will be a partial opening in 2025:

"Because TransLink staff only completed the detailed design work and business case to get to Fleetwood, now provincial staff are working on completing the business case and detailed design work to build the project as one phase to Downtown Langley."

The board meeting agenda does reference Stage 1, but that appears to be in the context of before they had funding for the full line. Further down in that document, they reference the SLS opening day (as you've noted) in 2028 but they also mention the extra cars for SLS being needed by 2028. I'm not saying it is concrete evidence that the whole extension will be delayed, but there may be hints in those documents that suggest such a delay is possible.

[Diegotheartist1]

Back in the 90s, The eastern route of the SkyTrain (Now the Surrey Branch of the Expo Line) was extended to Surrey in 2 stages. Starting with the extension to Scott Road Station which opened in 1990, (Columbia opened a year prior) and the Whalley portion of the extension from Scott Road to King George Station opened in 1994.

I assume this method can be achieved like they did in 1990-94, in which they can build the Fleetwood portion first, and then a year or so later, continue all the way to Langley City.

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

7 years to construct 16 km of elevated rail along a straight line corridor that has already been studied and planned to death in detail is asinine.

2026, I could understand, 2028? No excuse.

It is time for BC to re-examine their procedures for such projects.

I also think 2025/2026 was always advertised as being phase 1 to 168th street. They would have a few options to either open that stretch a bit early while they finish up the remainder to Langley, or delay opening the whole route to Langley to 2028.

That said, I would agree that we could have it constructed quicker. The original SkyTrain line from Waterfront to New Westminster took just 2 years for guideway (21km) and 1 additional year to complete stations. So that's 3 years for 21km + many more stations. There was the incentive of Expo 86 though.

So the entire line to Langley _could_ likely be completed in 4 to 5 years if government of all levels put the needed time and resources into it.

[scottN]

I think that it's advantageous to put the construction of the whole line to tender in a single contract. To do that the high level design for the entire project needs to be completed to the point where bidders know what they are bidding on.

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

I'd be genuinely surprised if that's not the case; Fleetwood's ready to go. Unless there's a bit of property acquisition involved too...

I believe some of the station spots require that mainly at 152nd and 160th.

Both those stations are shown over current private property and businesses. The other stations do not appear to be on private property so would likely be AOK.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by scottN

I think that it's advantageous to put the construction of the whole line to tender in a single contract. To do that the high level design for the entire project needs to be completed to the point where bidders know what they are bidding on.

Yeah the blog post mentions going to tender with the whole thing in 2022, picking a proponent in 2023. 4-5 years to build, and guess what, no train runs past KG until 2028.