The subway is a continuous westward extension of the existing Millennium Line from VCC-Clark Station to a new terminus station at Arbutus Street. Six underground stations will be built along the 5.7-km-long route, including a major interchange hub to the Canada Line at Broadway-City Hall Station.
“This is an exciting milestone for a critical infrastructure project that will transform the way people travel in and around the Broadway corridor and create good-paying jobs to support BC’s economic recovery,” said Rob Fleming, BC Minster of Transportation and Infrastructure, in a statement.
“Investments in public transit infrastructure are crucial to improving commute times, reducing carbon pollution and laying the foundation for strong economic growth.”
The remaining four new stations will have single-occupancy washrooms accessible from public areas of the stations, but only with the assistance of a SkyTrain attendant, similar to the existing procedure on the SkyTrain network.
But in a motion that will be discussed by city council next week, Wiebe writes that all new stations should include universally accessible, public gender-neutral washrooms.
He is also taking issue with the number of elevators in the stations. Only Broadway-City Hall Station and Arbutus Station will have paired elevators reaching every level of the station. The inclusion of a secondary elevator is seen as necessary to provide additional capacity and redundancy whenever elevators are out of service for maintenance.
Consultation materials note there will be single-occupancy washrooms accessible from the public areas of the stations with the assistance of a SkyTrain attendant, similar to the existing policy on the SkyTrain network.
Two of the busiest stations Broadway-City Hall Station and Arbutus Station will be built with accessible washrooms in the fare paid zone in the future.
At Broadway-City Hall Station, the Millennium Line extension will share the existing Canada Line street entrance through an expansion. An interconnected series of underground pathways will seamless connect the Canada Line and Millennium Line platforms to support transfers; with the project replacing the 99 B-Line, it is estimated 75% of the Canada Line and Millennium Line passengers at Broadway-City Hall Station will remain underground when they perform their transfer.
As noted previously, every level of the stations will be linked by elevators, staircases, and both up and down escalators.
All stations have a concourse level the middle level between the street entrance and the platform level for the circulation space needed to accommodate passenger flows moving in and out of the station. The concourse levels vary in size, but the largest appear to be at Broadway-City Hall Station and Arbutus Station.
Apart from South Granville Station, the fare gates of most stations are located on the ground level, near the entrance.
Every station has a commercial retail unit, with all six units totalling over 3,300 sq. ft. of leasable space.
The first buildings set to be demolished are on the city block located on the southwest corner of the intersection of Main Street and East Broadway, where the Mount Pleasant Station entrance building will be located.
Another major demolition area will be the city block where the existing Broadway-City Hall Station entrance is located. All of the buildings on this city-owned block will be razed.
November 2020 conceptual design of Mount Pleasant Station. (Government of BC)
November 2020 conceptual design of Mount Pleasant Station. (Government of BC)
A smaller demolition footprint is slated for the sites of Oak-VGH Station and Arbutus Station, while South Granville Station will be integrated into a private mixed-use office and retail development. The developer’s demolition work on the old RBC office building for the building that will incorporate the South Granville Station entrance began last year.