Surrey on hook for $39M over transit
Money, land are compensation for dropping light-rail line plan
The Mayors’ Council has approved a deal requiring Surrey to pay $39 million in compensation to TransLink after the city cancelled a planned light-rail line in favour of a SkyTrain line to Langley.
The compensation will include $11.4 million worth of city-owned property needed for the SkyTrain extension project, $5.5 million worth of city land set aside for future roads, 300 park-and-ride spaces worth $12.8 million, and $9.3 million in cash from the city’s coffers.
The council released some details of the compensation agreement following a private meeting Friday.
Surrey could be on the hook for another $5.4 million, but that depends on whether there is a decision to implement rapid transit along King George Boulevard by the end of 2021, and what kind of rapid transit is used.
The Surrey-Newton-Guildford light-rail project, which would have seen 27 kilometres of at-grade rail line built on three major corridors in Surrey, was suspended indefinitely in November 2018.
Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum had promised during that year’s municipal election campaign that the light-rail project would be replaced with a SkyTrain line to Langley along Fraser Highway.
McCallum confirmed Friday that the compensation agreement had been approved by the city and TransLink. The $39 million compensation package was “not unusual” for a project of that scale, he said.
“It’s pretty standard in big projects that this amount of money has to be given to get the right-of-ways and so forth,” McCallum told Postmedia News.
He didn’t have a timeline for the repayment but said one would be established once the project goes out to tender.
Meantime, a business case has been prepared for Surrey-Langley SkyTrain and delivered to the federal and provincial governments, and is still under review.
A draft memorandum of understanding between the city and TransLink, which was released last July, states the two parties would enter into a reimbursement agreement that will see Surrey repay TransLink the money the transit authority “unnecessarily” spent on the light-rail project before it was suspended.
TransLink had estimated it spent $54 million to plan the line, and Surrey would be responsible for up to $39 million.
The reimbursement agreement was a condition for the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain project to be included in a funded investment plan approved by the TransLink board of directors and Mayors’ Council, and before a request for proposals would be issued.