Second tunnel boring machine for Broadway Subway reaches South Granville

Tunnel boring machine Elsie breaking through at South Granville Station on February 8, 2024. (Government of BC)

There is now light at the end of the tunnel for the tunnel boring process of the Broadway Subway.

This past Thursday, February 8, Elsie — the name of the project’s second tunnel boring machine — broke through the east wall of South Granville Station’s pit at the intersection of Hemlock Street and West Broadway.

And last Friday, February 2, the tunnel boring machine named Phyllis resumed her digging process from the west wall of the pit of South Granville Station.

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Both tunnel boring machines are now performing the final leg of their tunnel boring process for this subway — a remaining distance of just four city blocks from Granville Street (the west wall of South Granville Station) to Cypress Street, where the machines will be extracted to the surface. Elsie is expected to restart her digging one last time from South Granville Station in a few weeks.

Preparations are already well underway to create the required extraction pits for the machines at Cypress Street.

The tunnel boring machines will end their journey just before Arbutus Station, which spans two city blocks, with the west block used as the footprint of the subway station and the east block closest to Cypress Street used as a major crossover track switch to enable trains to reverse direction from SkyTrain Millennium Line’s new westernmost terminus station.

Elsie and Phyllis began their tunnel boring journey with a staggered launch weeks apart in Fall 2022 from the pit of Great Northern Way-Emily Carr Station, which doubles as the tunnel boring staging area and where soil and rock from the boring process are removed.

broadway subway elevated guideway january 2024

Construction work reaching the finishing touches for the 0.7-km-long elevated guideway between the existing VCC-Clark Station and the future Great Northern Way-Emily Carr Station. (Government of BC)

great northern way emily carr station transition box

The elevated-to-tunnel portal transition just east of the future underground Great Northern Way-Emily Carr Station. (Government of BC)

Elsie is responsible for boring the eastbound tunnel, while Phyllis is responsible for the westbound tunnel. Elsie was originally the lead tunnel boring machine, before being passed by Phyllis at around the mid-way digging point at Broadway-City Hall Station in late Spring/early Summer 2023.

Tunnel boring reaching Cypress Street was originally scheduled to reach full completion by late 2023.

With the current rate of progress, if all goes as planned, tunnel boring should fully finish by early Spring 2024. The 5.7-km-long extension of the Millennium Line with six additional stations is expected to reach completion and open in 2026.

According to the latest progress updates by the provincial government’s Broadway Subway Project Office, construction crews are well into the process of mining the underground passenger corridors that will directly link the Canada Line and Millennium Line platforms at Broadway-City Hall Station’s new interchange hub, making as much progress as possible on building the structures of the new subway stations while tunnel boring is still in progress, and preparing the finishing touches for the 0.7-km-long elevated guideway between the existing VCC-Clark Station and the future Great Northern Way-Emily Carr Station.

Gotta start educating transit riders I suppose… the diagram of the future Broadway-City Hall Station interchange between the Canada Line & Millennium Line is now plastered at the station entrance.

A game changer for getting around the region. #SkyTrain #TransLink pic.twitter.com/NWHcwV0uHW

— Kenneth Chan (@iamkennethchan) January 21, 2024

broadway-city hall station canada millennium underground pathways

Mining work to build the underground passenger corridors for the interchange hub between the Canada Line and Millennium Line at Broadway-City Hall Station, January 2024. (Government of BC)

The first concrete columns built for the platform level structure of Arbutus Station, January 2024. (Government of BC)

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. Trains will run every three to four minutes during peak hours, and every eight to 10 minutes during late night.

When the $2.8-billion 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.

Later in 2024, major construction work will begin on the $4-billion, 16-km-long SkyTrain Expo Line Surrey-Langley extension, which will add eight stations to the system by 2028. This will represent the first time two major separate SkyTrain extension projects overlap in construction timelines.

New aerial flyover footage of each of the Broadway Subway’s 6 new stations, showing construction progress as of late summer.

Tunnel boring has also resumed from Broadway-City Hall Station to Oak- VGH Station. #SkyTrain #vanpoli #vanre https://t.co/BRTdOtpyID pic.twitter.com/fsD3sOnCXH

— Kenneth Chan (@iamkennethchan) September 22, 2023

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