How many people will ride the Broadway Subway when it opens in 2026?

August 2022 construction progress on SkyTrain's Mount Pleasant Station as part of the Millennium Line Broadway Extension (Broadway Subway). (Government of BC)

It would be a gross understatement to state “many people” will ride the Broadway Subway — the SkyTrain extension of the Millennium Line between VCC-Clark Station and Arbutus Street — when it opens in late 2026.

Based on the provincial government’s ridership forecasts, the 5.7-km-long seamless extension of SkyTrain with six new additional stations serving the Central Broadway Corridor will see between 135,000 and 150,000 riders per day in 2026, between 143,000 and 163,000 riders per day by 2030, and between 167,000 and 191,000 riders per day by 2045. The figure for 2045 takes into account the eventual seamless extension to the University of British Columbia (UBC) west of Arbutus.

For comparison, in 2019, the entirety of the 19-km-long Canada Line with 16 stations saw about 130,000 riders per day. When the Canada Line first opened in 2009, it saw just over 80,000 riders per day for its first year of operations.

The 11-km-long Millennium Line Evergreen Extension with six new additional stations recorded about 40,000 riders per day in 2019.

For even further contrast that gives weight to “quality over quantity” when it comes to rapid transit design, this 5.7-km-long SkyTrain extension will have a ridership exceeding the entirety of the Portland MAX’s street-level LRT system, which saw a pre-pandemic ridership of 123,000 riders per day on 97 km of routes across five lines and about 100 stations.

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By 2045, as a result of both the Millennium Line Broadway Extension to Arbutus and the final extension from Arbutus to UBC, it is expected Commercial-Broadway Station’s ridership will reach 31,100 riders per day or 12 million annually — equivalent to Waterfront Station’s 2019 SkyTrain volumes of both the Canada Line and Expo Line services combined.

VCC-Clark Station would see 9,500 riders per day by 2045 — similar to Oakridge-41st Avenue Station or YVR Airport Station’s volumes in 2019. This station, currently mainly surrounded by low-density industrial uses, saw about 3,800 riders per day in 2019.

mount pleasant station skytrain broadway extension

SkyTrain Mount Pleasant Station design concept, April 2021. (Government of BC)

Great Northern Way-Emily Carr Station’s projected ridership is quite low at 1,200 riders per day even in 2045.

Mount Pleasant Station — located at the intersection of East Broadway and Main Street — would carry 2045 ridership volumes similar to 2019’s Surrey Central Station or Lougheed Town Centre Station. Its forecasted ridership is 14,600 riders per day.

The expanded Broadway-City Hall Station as the interchange nexus between the Canada Line and Millennium Line would see its ridership grow from 15,000 riders per day in 2019 to 19,700 riders per day in 2045 — equivalent to the volumes of Granville Station or Vancouver City Centre Station in 2019. This 2045 figure accounts for the number of passengers through the street entrance going through the fare gates; it does not account for the sheer number of passengers transferring between both SkyTrain lines through the underground corridors without going through a fare gate.

Diagram showing the interchange hub between the Millennium Line and Canada Line at Broadway-City Hall Station. (Government of BC)

Cross-section diagram of Oak-VGH Station on the SkyTrain Millennium Line Broadway Extension (Broadway Subway). (Government of BC)

Oak-VGH Station’s ridership is expected to reach 9,000 riders per day by 2045 — similar to the 2019 volumes of Oakridge-41st Avenue Station. The station will be located at the intersection of Laurel Street and West Broadway, just footsteps from Vancouver General Hospital.

South Granville Station would have 14,700 riders per day by 2045. Such a volume is similar to Joyce-Collingwood or King George Station in 2019. This station will be located at the intersection of Granville Street and West Broadway.

The Millennium Line’s interim westernmost terminus of Arbutus Station is projected to see 6,300 riders per day by 2045 — equivalent to 2019’s Gateway Station or King Edward Station. The 2045 figure for Arbutus Station will be lower than the 2026 opening figure, as the forecast assumes the UBC SkyTrain extension will be fully complete at some point before 2045 — eliminating the need for passengers to transfer at Arbutus Station onto a truncated 99 B-Line for the remaining leg to UBC. It is expected Arbutus Station and the truncated 99 B-Line service will have enough capacity to handle 10 to 20 years of ridership growth, with the 99 B-Line reaching capacity during peak hours on opening day in 2026.

arbutus station skytrain broadway extension

SkyTrain Arbutus Station design concept, April 2021. (Government of BC)

Cross-section diagram of Arbutus Station on the SkyTrain Millennium Line Broadway Extension (Broadway Subway). (Government of BC)

With a cost of $2.8 billion, this relatively short subway extension is the single most expensive public transit project in BC to date, but the ridership demand is overwhelming — it already exists, it is proven.

Prior to the pandemic, there were about 100,000 boardings per day on the various bus routes on Broadway, including about 55,000 on the 99 B-Line. As of Fall 2021, ridership on the 99 B-Line recovered to about 30,000 per day, and there is every reason to assert that ridership has grown significantly as of Fall 2022.

And there is so much potential for ridership growth. The Broadway Plan, approved by Vancouver City Council this past summer, provides the framework for significant densification of residential and employment spaces around the six new stations — enough to accommodate 50,000 additional residents and 40,000 additional jobs over 30 years, within an area of about six sq km, with the greatest densities, achieved through height, closest to the stations. This is in addition to the Cambie Corridor Plan’s conservative growth estimates of 50,000 additional residents and 9,000 additional jobs through the early 2040s around the spine of the Canada Line between King Edward Station and Marine Drive Station.

The Broadway Extension will effectively serve as the skeleton for the southward expansion of downtown Vancouver; collectively, downtown Vancouver and the area of the Broadway Plan are designated as the region’s Metro Core.

broadway extension skytrain millennium line extension ridership forecast 2045

2045 ridership forecast for the stations along the SkyTrain Millennium Line Broadway Extension (Broadway Subway) route, with permitted densities/heights for stations under the Broadway Plan also shown. Click on the image for an expanded version. (Perkins&Will)

Map of the SkyTrain Millennium Line Broadway Extension. (TransLink)

When the new subway is combined with the existing SkyTrain routes of the Expo Line, Canada Line, and Millennium Line, it will create a circular SkyTrain network coverage within Vancouver’s central areas. In particular, Mount Pleasant will become one of the region’s best-served districts/neighbourhoods by rapid transit, with six SkyTrain stations within or on the border of the area.

The travel time of the new extension between Commercial-Broadway Station and Arbutus Station will be 12 minutes, with journeys to reach Broadway-City Hall Station for transfers to the Canada Line taking about six minutes from Commercial-Broadway Station.

But the Broadway Extension’s impact will go far beyond improving access and travel times to reach destinations within the Broadway Plan area and reducing travel times to UBC.

The Broadway Extension will provide Expo Line and Millennium Line passengers from East Vancouver and the suburban cities with an alternative way to reach downtown Vancouver by transferring onto the Millennium Line at Commercial-Broadway Station to reach the Canada Line at Broadway-City Hall Station. This is important as the Expo Line segment between downtown Vancouver and Commercial-Broadway Station is by far the busiest section of the region’s entire SkyTrain system, and the network effect of the new subway provides overall systemwide capacity relief and much-needed redundancy during service interruptions. SkyTrain will become more resilient from the growth of its network.

For Expo Line and Millennium Line passengers from East Vancouver, it also makes other destinations along the Canada Line — Cambie Corridor, Richmond, and Vancouver International Airport — more accessible by significantly reducing the travel time to reach Broadway-City Hall Station for a transfer. The same can be said for Canada Line passengers transferring at Broadway-City Hall to reach other destinations on the Millennium Line and the Expo Line.

broadway city hall station millennium line skytrain

SkyTrain Broadway-City Hall Station design concept, April 2021. (Government of BC)

Broadway-City Hall Station on the SkyTrain Millennium Line Broadway Extension (Broadway Subway). (Government of BC)

In essence, upon the opening of the Broadway Extension to Arbutus, expect an immense “network multiplier effect” on ridership growth to a scale that has never been seen before with any previous SkyTrain extension.

The network multiplier effect would be even greater if the Broadway Extension reached UBC by 2026 in one go, but the current rate of planning for the extension west of Arbutus to UBC sets an opening for the early 2030s as the best possible scenario. Forecasts expect Millennium Line ridership between Arbutus Station and UBC will reach 130,000 riders per day by 2050.

On a one-train ride between Lafarge Lake-Douglas Station in Coquitlam and Arbutus Station, the travel time will be 47 minutes, without any need for transfers. Trains will arrive every three to four minutes on the Broadway Extension during peak hours starting in 2026.

It was also previously estimated the SkyTrain journey between Arbutus Station and UBC would carry a travel time of about 10 minutes.

This means the future SkyTrain journey from UBC to Lafarge Lake-Douglas Station would take under one hour.

With some transfers, not including some transfer wait times, it would also take 33 minutes from UBC to Richmond-Brighouse Station, 29 minutes from UBC to Metrotown Station, 40 minutes from UBC to Columbia Station, 50 minutes from UBC to King George Station, and 72 minutes from UBC to the Expo Line’s future Langley Centre terminus of 203 Street Station.

1477 west broadway vancouver south granville station tower pci developments

Artistic rendering of the tower concept above the future South Granville Station at 1477 West Broadway, Vancouver. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/PCI Developments)

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