There is light at the end of the tunnel for the Broadway Subway project — the SkyTrain Millennium Line’s extension to Arbutus — as it is now approaching its final stages of construction, but businesses, residents, drivers, and bus public transit riders are being asked to brace for the most disruptive phase of construction yet.
The provincial government announced today that contractors will proceed with a full four-month closure of Broadway to vehicle traffic between Main Street and Quebec Street — a busy one-block stretch of the arterial corridor.
Beginning in January 2026, this closure will allow crews to safely and efficiently remove the temporary four-lane traffic deck that was installed to facilitate the construction of Mount Pleasant Station directly beneath the street. The work will also include restoring the roadway to its new, permanent design.
“These temporary bridges allowed vehicles and buses to continue flowing while crews built the tunnels and stations below,” said Mike Farnworth, the B.C. minister of transportation and transit, during today’s press conference.
“If you’ve driven this corridor or taken the 99 B-Line recently, you might not have realized that you were travelling right over top of a major transit expansion. Now, with construction of the stations progressing, we are entering the next phase by removing these decks and rebuilding the street above the stations, starting with Mount Pleasant Station.”
Officials say this full closure approach was chosen over an alternative that would have reduced Broadway to two vehicle lanes — one lane in each direction — and extended construction by roughly 16 months, as opposed to the eight-month construction timeline for the selected strategy to complete this phase of work, including the four-month closure.
In essence, the provincial government is opting to “rip off the bandage” quickly, rather than prolong the construction disruptions in the area.
Map of the Broadway Subway’s station blocks for road reconstruction. (City of Vancouver)
“The key thing that we’re trying to do is to minimize the impact as much as possible. And so by doing the rerouting and doing it the way that we are doing, we are going to cut the time of the delay in removing these bridge decks by almost half. And so that will be a significant improvement,” said Farnworth.
Along the entire new six-km-long Millennium Line extension, there are a total of five traffic decks over Broadway to enable the construction of five subway stations. There is no traffic deck at Great Northern Way-Emily Carr Station, the sixth station, which is the only off-Broadway construction site.
Precise plans are still being developed for the removal of the traffic decks at the remaining four station sites, with the goal of minimizing both disruptions and the overall construction timeline. The provincial government has not ruled out the possibility of similarly prolonged full closures of select blocks directly above Broadway–City Hall Station, Oak–VG Station, South Granville Station, and Arbutus Station to facilitate deck removal and street restoration.
“We want to take the same approach with each of those different stations. And in each case, we’ll assess the best way to do that in terms of the routing around each of those particular bridge decks around those stations. But the key will be to minimize the closure time,” continued Farnworth.
At South Granville Station and Arbutus Station, each traffic deck spans one block, while the decks at Broadway-City Hall Station and Arbutus Station each extend two blocks to accommodate not only the construction for the subway station structures but also a major crossover track switch.
There will also be an effort to stagger the traffic deck removals at the locations as much as possible to limit the overall traffic disruptions along the entire Broadway corridor.
March 2023 view of Broadway, with the temporary Mount Pleasant Station traffic deck. (Government of BC)
November 2022 construction progress on Mount Pleasant Station on SkyTrain’s Millennium Line Broadway Subway, with the temporary traffic deck shown. (Government of BC)
Traffic and bus route changes for the removal of Mount Pleasant Station’s traffic deck
As for the precise plan at Mount Pleasant Station for the only finalized traffic deck removal strategy at this time, TransLink buses will take a short one-block detour to the north via Main Street, East 8th Avenue, and Quebec Street. A temporary traffic signal will be installed at the intersection of Main Street and East 8th Avenue to facilitate improved bus movements through signal priority, and there will also be new bus queue jumpers and dual turn lanes. This includes detours of the 99 B-Line, No. 9 Boundary/UBC, and N9 NightBus.
Pedestrian access will be maintained during this construction process, and additional wayfinding signage and other measures will be made to support already-struggling businesses.
The closest alternative east–west arterial routes — East 4th Avenue and East 12th Avenue — are expected to experience a significant increase in vehicle traffic volumes, along with higher traffic levels on Main Street, Cambie Street, and other connecting roads leading to these corridors. Both routes have already seen added congestion throughout the years-long construction period.
Traffic impacts and detour routes for the four-month full closure of Broadway between Main and Quebec streets to enable the removal of the temporary traffic deck above the Mount Pleasant Station construction site. (Government of BC)
In Summer 2026, the block of Broadway between Main Street and Quebec Street will have four vehicle lanes — two lanes in each direction — open to traffic, wider sidewalks, and the sidewalk on the south side of Broadway reconnected to Main Street, and most of the safety fencing removed.
Before subway construction began, Broadway featured six vehicle lanes — three in each direction. However, under the City of Vancouver’s Broadway Plan, the corridor is being transformed into a “Great Street,” permanently reconfigured with four vehicle lanes to make room for wider sidewalks and outdoor patio spaces. The first sections to showcase this new design will be the blocks currently under subway construction, with the remaining portions of Broadway expected to adopt the same layout gradually over many years through adjacent redevelopment projects and City-led road upgrades.
The multi-step process to restore Broadway at the station construction sites involves removing the traffic deck, which is a heavy-duty bridge structure made of steel and concrete. Then, the space between the roof of the subway stations and the street level is filled in with gravel, with permanent underground utilities also installed before the top layer of gravel is added. The last step involves repaving Broadway and completing the “Great Street” finishings.
Process to remove the temporary traffic decks for the Broadway Subway’s station construction sites. (Government of BC)
New permanent road design for Broadway between Main and Quebec streets, above Mount Pleasant Station. (Government of BC)
According to the latest construction updates by the project office, three of the six subway stations have seen their underground roofs completed, and work is now progressing on the interior of the station structures and the street-level entrances. Electrical and mechanical equipment are also currently being installed across the subway route.
Last month, crews completed the major milestone of installing the railway track from VCC-Clark Station through Broadway-City Hall Station — about half of the entire extension route. Dynamic testing of the railway system will begin in 2026.
The provincial government has reaffirmed today that this Millennium Line extension is still scheduled to open in Fall 2027.
Major construction work first began in Spring 2021, with an original completion timeline for late 2025. Initial delays with starting the tunnel boring process delayed the opening date to early 2026, while subsequent major delays with the tunnel boring process itself greatly contributed to moving the opening day target to Fall 2027.
Installation of the temporary traffic decks began with the Mount Pleasant Station construction site, starting in October 2021 and concluding in April 2022, when four vehicle lanes were reinstated. The sequence of traffic deck installations across the five Broadway subway station construction sites progressed from east to west, following the order of the tunnel boring machine breakthroughs in the excavated pits beneath the decks. Arbutus Station’s traffic decks were the last to reach completion in Spring 2023.
However, the installation process for the traffic decks did not necessitate prolonged full closures of the street to vehicle traffic.
Temporary traffic deck; construction progress on SkyTrain Millennium Line Broadway Extension’s South Granville Station, late Summer 2023. (Government of BC)
Traffic deck; construction progress on the Millennium Line station structure beneath West Broadway for Broadway-City Hall Station, as of March 2023. (Government of BC)
Learning from the Canada Line’s disruptive cut-and-cover, open-trench tunnel construction process in the 2000s, the tunnel boring process was selected for this project’s primary construction method to mitigate the surface impacts to businesses and traffic. However, localized cut-and-cover was still needed for the subway station construction sites on Broadway.
In late 2024, the provincial government announced the project’s cost had increased by $127 million from $2.83 billion figure at the start of construction to the new estimate of $2.95 billion.
On a seamless one-train ride on the Millennium Line, travel times from Arbutus Station will be about six minutes to Broadway-City Hall Station (interchange to the Canada Line), 11 minutes to VCC-Clark Station, 12 minutes to Commercial-Broadway Station, and 47 minutes to Lafarge-Lake Douglas Station in Coquitlam.
If funding is made available, the long-envisioned Millennium Line extension from Arbutus Station to the University of British Columbia could begin construction in the early 2030s. The provincial government is currently in the process of conducting the project’s business case, and there have been renewed calls from Vancouver’s municipally elected officials, UBC students, and advocates to prioritize and expedite this project.
Until the UBC SkyTrain extension is complete, the remaining journey to the campus will be made by a truncated 99 B-Line route from Arbutus Station.