Surrey-Langley Skytrain project opening pushed from 2025 to 2028

LANGLEY (NEWS 1130) — The long-awaited Surrey-Langley Skytrain is facing major delays with the opening now expected in 2028.

Jonathon Cote is the mayor of New Westminster and chair of TransLink’s mayor’s council. He explains the original timeline was based on the SkyTrain project expanding to Fleetwood alone, however, now it will be fully expanded to Langley, “which means that a much larger project and involves a lot more.”

And the pandemic has also been a major cause behind the delay.

“The delay is the original timeline was set before the pandemic and no doubt the pandemic has had some significant challenges to TransLink as we work through the issues and the impacts to public transit,” Cote says adding the pandemic has even had significant impacts to the dynamics of public transit.

While Cote says construction inflation will need to be considered, the added benefit of combining the project with the Fleetwood extension with the Langley extension is there actually be a lot more cost savings.

“I think taxpayers are going to save money by that project actually being done in one phase as opposed to being broken up into smaller phases.”

The 16-kilometre expansion of the Expo Line will stretch from Surrey’s King George Station to 203 Street in Langley and costs about $3.95 billion.

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“I think it’s really positive that we have all three levels of government that are committed to this project and want to see it through. So, I think from everyone’s perspective we’d like to get the trains going as quickly as possible, because we know it’s a very needed transit expansion project in the Metro Vancouver region.”