SkyTrain's Commercial-Broadway Station escalators fully reopen after replacement work
The remaining escalators that have been closed at SkyTrain’s Commercial-Broadway Station for a complete replacement will reopen Friday, June 27, 2025. The maintenance project has been highly disruptive to the accessibility and capacity of the station.
But this reopening just ahead of Canada Day is about three months ahead of schedule, as the project was previously slated for a Fall 2025 completion.
- You might also like:
- Major expansion of Brentwood Town Centre SkyTrain station with more escalators opens
- Oakridge-41st Avenue Station to close early for seven weeks to enable construction
- New renderings of the design of SkyTrain Oakridge-41st Avenue Station's expansion
- First new generation SkyTrain begins real-world field testing on Expo and Millennium lines
These are the pair of escalators at the north end of East Broadway’s original west pedestrian overpass, which have been fully closed since September 2024 to enable the removal of the previous equipment and the installation of the brand new escalators. Initially, this involved a full closure of the west overpass, becoming a temporary, but major, inconvenience by forcing passengers to cross at street level.
But in February 2025, work progressed and a configuration was created to enable a reopening of the west overpass to reach the escalator and staircase, instead of the originally planned full closure through this fall.
Final preparations for the reopening of the west overpass escalators at SkyTrain’s Commercial-Broadway Station, as seen on June 26, 2025. (Kenneth Chan)
The reopened escalators form half of the overall project to replace the four escalators on the north side of East Broadway, which were built in the early 2000s to establish a connection between the Expo Line and the then-new Millennium Line. The project’s first phase of replacing the escalators reaching the Millennium Line platforms reached completion in September 2024.
The project’s total cost is pegged at $10.5 million.
According to TransLink, these new escalators are heavier duty and will more reliably support future ridership growth. As well, the equipment has smoother operations and emergency braking, a variable speed option for power savings, and improved access for maintenance, which will reduce downtime.
In 2024, Commercial-Broadway Station was the SkyTrain network’s third busiest station, recording nearly 6.8 million annual boardings, with averages of 20,600 boardings per weekday, 15,800 per Saturday, and 12,200 per Sunday/holiday.
Ridership at this busy public transit hub will further grow starting in Fall 2027, when the Millennium Line’s Broadway extension reaching Arbutus opens, with a substantial increase in interchange volumes between the Expo and Millennium lines. This includes the discontinuation of the 99 B-Line for the segment between the new Arbutus Station and Commercial-Broadway Station, which will further increase passenger volumes within the transit hub.
Over the past decade, TransLink’s escalator replacement work has primarily focused on overhauling more than three dozen original escalators at a number of stations on the Expo Line, with some of the most complex projects being at Granville Station and Burrard Station. In 2020/2021, the original escalators on the south side of Commercial-Broadway Station were also replaced.
- You might also like:
- Major expansion of Brentwood Town Centre SkyTrain station with more escalators opens
- Oakridge-41st Avenue Station to close early for seven weeks to enable construction
- New renderings of the design of SkyTrain Oakridge-41st Avenue Station's expansion
- First new generation SkyTrain begins real-world field testing on Expo and Millennium lines