New SkyTrain guideway construction hits halfway mark
Published 4:03 pm Thursday, July 30, 2026
The guideway that will support the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension passed the halfway mark on construction in July, the province announced on Thursday, July 30.
The milestone means that half of the thousands of individual segments are in place, as well as some pre-cast components that will make up the concrete platform for the 16-km extension from King George Station to the future Langley City Centre Station.
Most of the guideway is being built by four launching gantries. These are giant mobile cranes that sit on top of the concrete pillars and move along them, hoisting up segment after segment which are then connected together by work crews.
Three of the launching gantries are moving from east to west, with the Surrey Sprinter headed towards King George and at 96 Avenue as of July 29.
The fourth gantry, the Langley Launcher, is moving west to east, and is heading for the end of the line at Langley City Centre. It recently passed 64 Avenue and is getting close to the Langley-Surrey border itself.
Although the guideway will be mostly composed of pre-cast concrete segments the size of a large car, a few stretches are made of larger components. Some pre-cast concrete spans were lifted into place across 203 Street in Langley City earlier this summer, and large steel beams have also been put in place across the Serpentine River west of Highway 15.
Although the guideway is only half completed, work on building the rails themselves has also begun. According to the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain project announcement, six locations of rail and trackwork were under way at the end of July, most recently a section between 159 and 166 Streets.
Most of the new line runs down Fraser Highway, but in Langley it veers slightly to the north, running through an alley and then down Industrial Avenue to its final station.
When completed, the new extension will have eight stations, including six in Surrey and two in Langley, and will allow people to ride from Langley to downtown Vancouver’s Waterfront Station in a little over an hour. The $6 billion project is currently scheduled to be complete in late 2029.