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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 system, similar to the VAL system of Lille and Toulouse. As of August 2009, it actually comprises two systems, incompatible with each other, the older Expo/Millennium Line and the brand new Canada Line:

The Expo & Millennium Lines start in downtown Vancouver and serve the southeastern neighborhoods of the metropolitan area. Expo & Millennium Lines run 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 train 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.

Canada Line - initially referred to as the Richmond-Airport-Vancouver line (RAV) (see map) began construction in late 2005. It opened on 17 Aug 2009, a few months ahead of the 2010 Winter Olympics. The line is 19.5 km long, and extends from the Waterfront, down through Cambie Street, over the North Fraser River, and it branches 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 completely underground, while the line going over the river, to the airport, and to Richmond Centre is above-ground, as the soil in the area was not suitable for building a subway-like system (See details). 20 2-car trainsets were delivered by Rotem; these are 41 m long, 3.6 m high and 3 m wide. The system is fully automatic, but technologically not compatible with the existing Skytrain Expo & Millennium lines.

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).

03 Jan 1986: Waterfront - New Westminster (21.4 km)
Feb 1989: New Westminster - Columbia (0.6 km)
16 March 1990: Columbia - Scott Road (2.5 km - including the 616 m Sky Bridge across Fraser River)
28 March 1994: Scott Rd - King George (4 km)
05 Jan 2002: Columbia - Braid (3.8 km)
31 Aug 2002: Braid - Commercial Drive (15.4 km)
21 Nov 2003: Lake City Way station added
06 Jan 2006: Commercial Drive - VCC-Clark (0.8 km)

17 Aug 2009: Waterfront - YVR-Airport/Richmond-Brighouse (Canada Line - 19.5 km)

 Projects

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. 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. View map with Evergreen Line!

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.

Along the common stretch, the Expo & Millennium Line 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.

The Canada Line operates every 4-6 minute during daytime service, with trains serving the two southern branches alternately.

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

- FARES (2009)

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

TransLink

Canada Line (Construction Project)

Coast Mountain Bus Company (Official Page)

Skytrain at Wikipedia

Canada Line at Wikipedia

NYC-Subway-Resources - Vancouver Page

Great Vancouver Rail Map from JohoMaps

Vancouver - Future Network (Matt Buchanan)

Pictures courtesy of Matthew Huston (1-5) & Frank Rösel (6-7)