The new Capstan Station recorded SkyTrain's fourth-lowest ridership after a year | Daily Hive

The new Capstan Station recorded SkyTrain's fourth-lowest ridership after one year

Capstan Station on SkyTrain's Canada Line. (Kenneth Chan)

Throughout 2025, the new Capstan Station — completed as an infill addition to SkyTrain’s Canada Line in Richmond — saw a total annual ridership of 589,000 boardings.

This was the station’s first full calendar year of operations after it opened for service on Dec. 20, 2024. It also recorded 13,000 boardings between Dec. 20 and 31, 2024, according to TransLink’s new statistics.

For 2025, it averaged 1,700 boardings per weekday, 1,600 per Saturday, and 1,300 per Sunday/holiday.

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Overall, based on annual boardings in 2025, Capstan Station ranks as the 51st busiest station on the entire SkyTrain network of 54 stations — or the fourth least busy, just behind the Millennium Line’s Sperling-Burnaby Lake Station (574,000 annual boardings), the Canada Line’s Sea Island Station (346,000 annual boardings), and the Millennium Line’s Lake City Way Station (261,000 annual boardings).

It will likely take some more time for riders to familiarize themselves with the very existence of Capstan Station, which was built to serve the new Capstan Village neighbourhood. The area is expected to reach full completion later this decade, with over 6,000 new homes — built by developers Concord Pacific, Polygon, Pinnacle International, and Yuanheng — within a 10-minute walk of the public transit hub. Over 16,000 people could live in these developments.

Furthermore, several sizeable new hotels will open in very close proximity to Capstan Station, totalling just under 500 guest rooms. This will begin with the Spring 2027 opening of Marriott’s Le Méridien Richmond Pinnacle Hotel immediately northeast of the station.

skytrain canada line capstan station opening day december 20 2024

December 20, 2024, opening day of SkyTrain Canada Line’s Capstan Station. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Capstan Station is one of four potential infill station locations on the Canada Line. Its implementation was spearheaded by the City of Richmond, which raised over $32 million from Capstan Village developers to ultimately cover more than half of the project’s final cost of $62.2 million, representing a $10 million increase over the estimated budget when construction first began in 2021. TransLink covered the remaining cost.

Construction faced extensive delays, significant technical complications, and required extensive scheduled service disruptions for the Richmond segment of the Canada Line — far beyond what was originally planned.

It marked only the second time in history that an infill SkyTrain station — adding a new station on an already operating segment of SkyTrain line — has ever been attempted, following the late 2003 opening of Lake City Way Station.

December 20, 2024, opening day of SkyTrain Canada Line’s Capstan Station. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

The station design offers greatly enhanced architectural and functional features compared to the original 2009-completed Canada Line stations, such as both up and down escalators, larger circulation spaces throughout the station configuration, and the Canada Line’s longest platform lengths — reaching 52.5 metres — to future-proof ridership growth and the potential eventual use of longer trains with a third car.

The overall end-to-end travel time on the Canada Line between Waterfront Station and Richmond-Brighouse Station has increased slightly ever since Capstan Station’s opening.

Overall, the Canada Line saw 42.6 million annual boardings in 2025, which is a slight increase from 42.1 million boardings in 2024. However, there was a slight decrease in ridership on SkyTrain’s combined Expo/Millennium network — falling from 106.9 million in 2024 to 104.2 million in 2025.

The public transit authority has noted that there was an overall decrease in ridership on Metro Vancouver’s public transit network in 2025 due to a population growth slowdown, including fewer young adults riding the system.

Last year, the Canada Line averaged 127,600 boardings on weekdays, 102,100 boardings on Saturdays, and 86,800 boardings on Sundays/holidays.

Ridership on the Canada Line will soon trend upward from the reinstatement of a major destination on the Cambie Corridor — the opening of the highly anticipated new Oakridge Park mall (Oakridge Centre redevelopment) on May 28, 2026. The extensive upgrades and expansion of Oakridge-41st Avenue Station will be completed this summer.

As well, starting in Fall 2027, the entire SkyTrain network will see a massive ridership boost, when the Millennium Line’s Broadway extension to Arbutus opens — establishing a new regional interchange hub between the Millennium Line and Canada Line at Broadway-City Hall Station.

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