New agreement aims to extend SkyTrain to UBC
January 31, 2020
By CCE
Photo courtesy City of Vancouver.
Vancouver’s municipal government, the University of British Columbia (UBC) and the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Development Corporation (MST-DC) have signed an agreement to help extend TransLink’s SkyTrain light-rail transit (LRT) network all the way to UBC’s local campus.
Following a memorandum of understanding (MoU) they struck late last year, the organizations have committed to advocate jointly for federal, provincial and regional support and funding for the further westward expansion of the Broadway Millennium Line, as quick and cost-effectively as possible, beyond its currently planned terminus at Arbutus Street. This would connect the LRT network to the western edge of Metro Vancouver, including the MST-DC’s ancestral Jericho lands.
“This agreement sets a new example for how city-building should work,” says Vancouver’s mayor, Kennedy Stewart, who plans to raise awareness of the project with the federal government while visiting Ottawa next month. “Building SkyTrain all the way to UBC is a regional priority that will not only help connect academic and health sciences with the rest of Metro Vancouver, but also put reconciliation into practice as we work with MST-DC.”
The daytime population of UBC exceeds 80,000 and it is reportedly the province’s third-largest employment centre. Of the 55,000 students, faculty and staff who live off-campus, about half pass through Vancouver on their way from other municipalities.
