Months-long detour ends: Broadway at Main Street reopens after road reconstruction | Daily Hive

Months-long detour ends: Broadway at Main Street reopens after road reconstruction for subway project

Final preparations to reopen East Broadway west of Main Street, as seen on May 19, 2026. (City of Vancouver)

After nearly four months of full closure and detour to accommodate major construction work for the Broadway subway, the one-block segment of East Broadway between Main Street and Quebec Street will reopen to all vehicle traffic on the morning of Wednesday, May 20, 2026.

The provincial government first announced the reopening date early this month and reaffirmed it today, with the interim establishment of two vehicle traffic lanes or a lane in each direction.

There will still be some traffic impacts in the area through Thursday, as crews will begin removing the temporary traffic controls and traffic signals that have been in place since early this year to accommodate the East 8th Avenue detour route via Quebec and Main streets.

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Then, in July 2026, the block’s new permanent roadway configuration of four vehicle traffic lanes — two lanes in each direction — will open, instead of the original timeline of September 2026. As part of the City of Vancouver’s Broadway Plan, each of the station construction blocks on Broadway is being designed with wider sidewalks, plus two vehicle traffic lanes — down from the previous configuration of three, including a curbside parking lane.

broadway mount pleasant station road repaving may 5 2026

Paving of the new roadway of East Broadway between Main and Quebec streets, above Mount Pleasant Station, as seen on May 5, 2026. (Government of BC)

mount pleasant station broadway street design

New permanent road design for Broadway between Main and Quebec streets, above Mount Pleasant Station. (Government of BC)

The prolonged full road closure and detour was necessary to remove the temporary four-lane traffic bridge deck that spanned the block. This deck was first built in April 2022 to enable the continued flow of arterial road traffic while construction happened for Mount Pleasant Station beneath it.

Local businesses were extremely concerned about the potential additional impacts this would have on their operations and ability to remain open, and hoped to receive financial support from the provincial government.

The provincial government previously noted that a four-month full closure is a comparably less disruptive option than reducing the street to two lanes over 16 months, while work was performed on removing the deck.

This work involved not only the removal of the deck structure, but also covering and compacting the space above the station roofs with gravel and installing new permanent utilities. After these steps, crews began building the new permanent roadway design.

Forthcoming six-month full closure of West Broadway between Cambie and Alberta streets

There are four other temporary traffic deck bridges on Broadway, directly above the future Arbutus, South Granville, Oak-VGH, and Broadway-City Hall stations.

Earlier this month, the provincial government confirmed that only Broadway-City Hall Station’s deck structure — spanning two blocks between Cambie and Alberta streets, covering the subway station and major crossover track switch footprints — will require a full road closure and detour. Partial vehicle traffic lanes will remain open for all other stations during this deck removal and road reconstruction process.

The full closure of West Broadway between Cambie and Alberta streets will begin later this summer — after the FIFA World Cup, and lasting for about six months. There will be a detour in place via 8th Avenue, with more details to come when traffic plans are finalized. Without the full road closure, it would take 14 months, according to the provincial government.

The provincial government also announced today that a short, minor local street span of Arbutus Street between West 8th Avenue and West Broadway will be closed daily from 7 p.m. until 6 a.m., starting on May 19, 2026, for about two weeks. Furthermore, West Broadway will be reduced to one lane in each direction between Burrard and Yew streets. This relates to the removal of the deck structure over Arbutus Station.

Meanwhile, with significant segments of track and associated utilities now installed, testing of this six-km-long extension of SkyTrain’s Millennium Line is set to begin very soon. This extension is scheduled to open in Fall 2027, and it would be followed by the opening of the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension of the Expo Line in late 2029.

November 2025 construction progress on the tunnel for Broadway Subway. (Government of BC)

November 2025 construction progress on the elevated guideway for Broadway Subway. (Government of BC)

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