Experts debate costs of SkyTrain vs. LRT in Surrey

A decision to ditch light rail transit plans in Surrey in favour of a SkyTrain extension would give up on a vision to grow the city and come with a price tag that is ‘magnitudes higher,’ experts say.

Doug McCallum, that city’s mayor-elect, told Postmedia News this weekend a SkyTrain extension from King George station to Langley City could be completed for $1.65 billion — the same price as a planned LRT system that would connect Surrey City Centre to Guildford and Newton.

But that figure is far lower than a $2.9-billion estimate engineering firm Steer Davies Gleave & Hatch provided to TransLink in a July 2017 study. That estimate, in 2022 dollars, covered an eight-station, grade-separated, 16-kilometre rail line that would run cars consistent with those designed for the Expo and Millennium Lines.

McCallum previously has stated the project could be done for far less than that $2.9 billion if about half the SkyTrain line was at grade. It is unclear if McCallum’s $1.65 billion SkyTrain figure is supported by any reports, but he cited the roughly $1.4 billion spent on the 11-kilometre Evergreen Line in reaching that number. McCallum did not return a request for comment Monday.

Gord Lovegrove, an associate professor at the University of B.C.’s School of Engineering, said the last time he checked, each kilometre of SkyTrain line could be expected to cost around $150 million to build.

His per-kilometre estimate is not far off the 2011 dollar costs of the Evergreen line once adjusted for inflation. It also is consistent with an estimate in 2016 dollars that Steer Davies Gleave & Hatch provided for the Surrey-to-Langley SkyTrain extension.

“You have order of magnitude differences in costs” between LRT and SkyTrain systems, Lovegrove said.

He said the problem North Americans tend to have with light rail, relatively new on the continent, is that “we want to have our own exclusive rightof-way. We’re not willing to take the risk safety-wise, timetable-wise or schedule-wise to have it run with traffic.”

But Lovegrove said exclusive right-of-ways need not be the case any longer, citing Hamburg’s system as proving you can run at grade in traffic.

“I would just recommend maybe take a second longer look. Otherwise, if you’re spending an order of magni- tude more, then you’re just not able to do as much with that same taxpayer dollar.”

Anthony Perl, a professor of urban studies and political science at Simon Fraser University with a focus on transportation, said that in every category he could think of, SkyTrain “costs more and does less.” Among other things, the automated system demands separated infrastructure, he said.

For Perl, part of the problem with SkyTrain is that it creates “development deserts” between stations. In contrast, the LRT system would have encouraged more density, he said.

“If the City of Surrey goes ahead and cancels the LRT plan, it’s going to set public transit back by 20 years south of the Fraser River,” Perl said.