SkyTrain could come to Surrey by 2025
If the region’s mayors give TransLink the go-ahead to start planning this week, SkyTrain could be running down the Fraser Highway in Surrey in 2025.
On Thursday, the Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation will meet and consider whether to endorse a work plan that includes initiating project development for SkyTrain and refreshing a rapid transit strategy for south of the Fraser River.
“The mayors, if they adopt the recommendations as proposed, will essentially give TransLink a green light,” said Mike Buda, executive director of the Mayors’ Council.
“It’s going to allow TransLink to start working right away — and there’s a lot of work to do.”
At a meeting in November, the council decided to, at the request of the City of Surrey, suspend indefinitely work on a planned $1.65-billion lightrail line between Guildford, City Centre and Newton. Instead, it directed staff to come back with a work plan for proceeding with a SkyTrain line between Surrey and Langley.
According to the proposed work plan, it’s estimated that developing the design for SkyTrain, coming up with cost and benefits, and getting investment plan and business case approval will take at least 15 months. Consultation with the public and stakeholders would take place concurrently.
TransLink will have to submit detailed business cases to the federal and provincial governments in order to transfer the money that was committed to light rail, according to the report.
Money for the planning process will come from the $30 million that was set aside in the 2019 budget to do preliminary work for light rail on Fraser Highway.
The work plan for refreshing the South of Fraser Area Transit Plan — which includes land use plans, demand forecasts, alternatives and implications, and options and timing for Surrey-Newton-Guildford rapid transit — would take about eight months to develop and happen at the same time as work on the SkyTrain plan.
After SkyTrain project development, it’s expected to take 15 months for procurement and two years for construction. The target in-service date for SkyTrain would be 2025.
How far the line would extend down Fraser Highway at that point is still in question.
The mayors said last month that the project should draw only on what remains of the $1.65 billion set aside in the second phase of the regional transportation plan, plus the $1.9-billion that is contemplated in the Phase 3 plan, which has not yet been approved. Given the funding breakdown, staff have said the SkyTrain project — the cost of which was estimated in 2017 to be between $2.6 billion and $2.9 billion — will have to be built in two phases.
“We don’t know how much SkyTrain that’s going to buy until we’ve done the planning and design and all of the things that go into the procurement,” said TransLink spokesperson Jill Drews.
Building SkyTrain on Fraser Highway means that TransLink will have to reconsider its plans to run a new B-Line bus service down the thoroughfare between Surrey Central and Langley Centre. The line was expected to go into service in late 2019, as a precursor to light rail.
“We can’t really run a rapid bus service through a construction zone,” said Drews.
TransLink will now use the money that was set aside for the new bus line to improve the 96 B-Line between Newton, Surrey Central and Guildford and existing bus services on Fraser.