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VANCOUVER

British Columbia . Canada

Vancouver Skytrain System

System

Vancouver (British Columbia, Canada) is situated on the west coast not too far from the U.S. border. The metropolitan area has about 2 million inhabitants. Vancouver hosted the 1986 World Expo.

The Vancouver Metro, called SkyTrain, is an automated metro similar to the VAL system of Lille and Toulouse. It starts in downtown Vancouver and serves the southeastern neighborhoods of the metropolitan area. SkyTrain runs mainly on an elevated structure with trains every 2-5 minutes.

Station platforms are 80 m long, which allows 6-car-trains, although SkyTrain normally operates 4 car Mark I trains and 2 car Mark II trains. The average station distance is 730 m in the city centre area and 1750 m in other areas. All stations now have elevators, after Granville was retrofitted with one in 2006. In the beginning trains got names like Spirit of Victoria, Spirit of Vancouver, etc. For the inauguration of the second line a new type of trains was ordered with cars 17.3 m long (earlier stock 12.3 m) and three doors per side each 1.6 m wide (compared with two 1.2 m wide doors per side on original cars). All of the cars operate on both the original Expo line and the new Millennium Line.

Total length of the first line, now referred to as the Expo Line, is 28.6 km (only 1.3 km in a former railway tunnel in downtown Vancouver - Burrard and Granville; and Columbia station is covered), total travelling time is 39 minutes.

The second line, the Millennium Line opened in 2002 to connect Broadway to New Westminster. The line is mostly elevated (800 m underground near Columbia station). Both lines operate along a common stretch from downtown Vancouver (Waterfront station) to Columbia station. Construction began in Jan. 2004 of the remaining part of the Millennium Line, from Broadway/Commercial to the line's western terminus at Vancouver Community College (VCC). This section was opened in January 2006.

Apart from SkyTrain there is the West Coast Express which only operates into Vancouver in the mornings and from Vancouver in the evenings (5 trains each direction).

History

3 Jan 1986 - 21.4 km (15 stations) - Waterfront - New Westminster
16 March 1990 - 3.2 km - New Westminster - Scott Road (including Sky Bridge across Fraser River - 616m)
1994 - 4 km - Scott Rd - King George
5 Jan 2002 - Columbia - Braid
31 Aug 2002 - Braid - Commercial Drive
21 Nov 2003 - Lake City Way station added
06 Jan 2006 - Commercial Drive - VCC-Clark

Projects

Canada Line - the Richmond-Airport-Vancouver line (RAV) (see map) has been under construction since late 2005. The line is to be opened on 30 Nov 2009, in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics. The projected line will be about 19.5 km long, and will extend from the Waterfront, down through Cambie Street, over the North Fraser River, and it will branch from there letting you go westward to Vancouver International Airport, or southward to Richmond Centre. The line from Waterfront up to somewhere near Marine Drive -- which runs alongside the Fraser River -- is planned to be completely underground, while the line going over the river, to the airport, and to Richmond Centre will be completely above-ground, as the soil in the area is not suitable for building a subway-like system (See details). 20 2-car trainsets are being delivered by Rotem; these are 41 m long, 3.6 m high and 3 m wide. The system will be fully automatic, but not compatible with the existing Skytrain lines.

From the existing Lougheed station, a Skytrain line (or similar technology) is planned to Coquitlam Centre. Other options like light rail were finally ruled out in Feb. 2008. The 11 km Coquitlam route was named the 'Evergreen Line' in Dec. 2005 (See details about this project). On 18 April 2008, TransLink and the BC Ministry of Transportation announced that the Evergreen Line will follow the 'northwest route' from Lougheed Station, elevated on North Road to Clarke Road, head into a tunnel from Clarke Road north of Como Lake Avenue, emerging at the bottom of the Clarke Road hill to run on an at-grade alignment adjacent to the Canadian Pacific railway line. It willl then continue to the Ioco Road overpass where it will turn eastward, change back to an elevated guideway northward along the Lougheed Highway to Pinetree Way, and finally turn northward to a terminus just north of Douglas College in Coquitlam.

Other plans include a 12 km line from Broadway Station to University of British Columbia by 2020, as well as double capacity on the existing Expo Line, including major improvements to stations starting in 2009 and a 6 km extension in Surrey by 2020.

Photos

Photos © John Day (1, 2) and Rob Chew (3-5)

Books

Practical Info

Along the common stretch trains run every 2-3 minutes during daytime and every 4 minutes late evening. During peak hours Expo line trains run every 2-4 min and Millennium line trains every 5-6 min.

Service is from 5:00 - 1:15 Mon - Fri, 6:00 - 1:15 on Saturdays and 7:00 - 0:15 on Sundays.

- FARES (2008)

The metropolitan area is divided into 3 fare zones and the Skytrain runs through all of them (Zone 1: Waterfront - Joyce / Rupert; Zone 2: Patterson / Gilmore - Columbia; Zone 3: Scott Road - King George)