A Broadway Subway tunnel boring machine has now reached South Granville

Tunnel boring machine Phyllis breaking through at South Granville Station on December 20, 2023. (Government of BC)

Where in the earth are Phyllis and Elsie?

The sister tunnel boring machines for the Broadway Subway — SkyTrain Millennium Line’s Broadway Extension — are now approaching the start of their home stretch.

On the evening of Wednesday, December 20, the tunnel boring machine named Phyllis reached the eastern wall of the pit for South Granville Station. It took just over a month for this latest four city block leg between stations; Phyllis resumed her journey westward from the pit of Oak-VGH Station to South Granville Station on November 16.

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Phyllis now has just four more city blocks of drilling to accomplish from Granville Street to Cypress Street, where the major track switch for Arbutus Station is located. After maintenance, she will begin the final journey to Arbutus Station.

Meanwhile, Elsie resumed her journey westward from Oak-VGH Station on December 18.

Phyllis is responsible for building the westbound tunnel, while Elsie is responsible for the eastbound tunnel.

In late 2022, both tunnel boring machines had a staggered launch at the tunnel boring staging pit in the False Creek Flats, which doubles as the volume for Great Northern Way-Emily Carr Station. Elsie was originally the first machine to begin boring, but Phyllis overtook her earlier this year to become the lead machine.

Both machines were originally expected to fully finish boring by reaching Cypress Street by the end of 2023 , but this completion milestone is now expected to be made sometime in early 2024. It remains to be seen whether the longer than anticipated boring timeline will impact the full completion and opening of the extension, which is scheduled for early 2026.

Construction updates provided by the Broadway Subway Project Office suggest crews are performing as much work as possible on the new subway stations while tunnel boring is in progress. Unimpeded construction work at each station and within the twin tunnels towards the state of full completion can only begin after tunnel boring is entirely finished, with the machines extracted from Cypress Street and the kilometres of conveyance and supporting equipment removed.

Currently, construction is most advanced on Mount Pleasant Station.

Including the short 0.7-km-long elevated guideway segment within the False Creek Flats, the entire $2.8-billion Broadway Subway project will extend the Millennium Line’s route by 5.7 km and add six subway stations.

On a one-train ride, the travel time from Arbutus Station to Commercial-Broadway Station will be 12 minutes, and to Lafarge Lake-Douglas Station will be about 47 minutes. During peak hours, trains will run every three to four minutes.

When the extension opens, the existing 99 B-Line will run a truncated route between the bus exchange at Arbutus Station and the University of British Columbia, until the future westward extension beyond Arbutus to reach the campus is completed — possibly in the early 2030s.

As for the $4-billion, 16-km-long Surrey-Langley extension of SkyTrain Expo Line, major construction work is expected to begin sometime in the first half of 2024 for an opening in late 2028. This will mark the first time two major separate SkyTrain construction projects overlap in timelines. It will add eight elevated stations to the regional network.

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