B.C. government finishes soil sample drilling for UBC SkyTrain planning | Daily Hive

B.C. government completes first series of soil sample drilling for UBC SkyTrain planning

Foundex crews performing geotechnical borehole drilling work for the UBC SkyTrain project's soil sample analysis, as seen on West Broadway near Trafalgar Street in August 2024. (Google Maps)

“I’ve seen some drilling machines on Broadway for months in Point Grey and Kits… Any chance that’s for the new subway?” wrote a University of British Columbia (UBC) student in an email to Daily Hive Urbanized in early February 2025.

As it turns out, it does relate to the new subway — not the current construction project of building SkyTrain Millennium Line’s Broadway extension to Arbutus, but the future westward extension of the Millennium Line from Arbutus to the UBC campus.

When it comes to drilling machines, this was not about tunnel boring machines. It should also be noted that the tunnel boring process for the current project of building the subway to Arbutus reached full completion in April 2024, with the two machines disassembled and extracted from a pit near the future Arbutus Station.

This refers to specialized small drilling machines that bore downward from the surface to extract soil samples for geotechnical analysis. The work was conducted for the future UBC SkyTrain extension project, as confirmed to Daily Hive Urbanized by the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Transit.

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Upon inquiry, the Ministry told Daily Hive Urbanized these field investigations first began in May 2024 and ended in November 2024, with the equipment of geotechnical drilling company Foundex removed from the corridor in December 2024.

Such geotechnical drilling to extract soil samples from boreholes was performed along the proposed route and station locations.

The analysis of the soil samples will provide critical information for the planning, design, and engineering solutions needed to achieve the extension to UBC. Vancouver and other areas of the region are known for having a thick layer glacial sediments from the last ice age, and there are also other localized conditions along the route, such as historic streams that were buried for development.

UBC SkyTrain Extension route and alignment planning map. (TransLink)

ubc skytrain geotechnical drilling borehole foundex

Foundex crews performing geotechnical borehole drilling work for the UBC SkyTrain project’s soil sample analysis, as seen on West Broadway near Trafalgar Street in August 2024. (Google Maps)

This geotechnical work also supports the ongoing business case planning work to support the project. The Ministry told Daily Hive Urbanized an expected completion date for a business case will be made available once determined.

“The planning phase for the UBCx program is currently in its early stages,” the Ministry told Daily Hive Urbanized in an email this week.

“The Province is working with all project partners, consisting of federal, regional, and local governments, First Nations, UBC, and TransLink to collaboratively advance the planning work, and to provide the necessary resources to deliver a project business case.”

The Ministry also previously told Daily Hive Urbanized in February 2024 the UBC SkyTrain’s business case planning work, including these geotechnical studies involving borehole drilling, will cost about $40 million. The federal government is covering $14 million of these early costs.

In March 2024, Daily Hive Urbanized reported the Ministry was seeking a contractor to to complete highly detailed technical work that will be used to form the business case supporting the project, including geotechnical studies involving borehole drilling for soil samples at 100-metre intervals along the entire route between Arbutus and UBC.

Pre-construction geotechnical analysis was also conducted for the current and relatively recent projects of the Expo Line’s Surrey-Langley extension, the Millennium Line’s Broadway extension to Arbutus, and the Millennium Line’s Evergreen extension.

Daily Hive Urbanized also previously reported that Foundex crews had been conducting intermittent geotechnical drilling work beginning in 2015 to support the business case for the Millennium Line’s Broadway extension to Arbutus. Additional geotechnical analysis work was carried out after the project’s construction contractor was selected in July 2020, until major construction on the six-km-long extension — featuring six subway stations — began in Spring 2021.

Foundex crews performing geotechnical borehole drilling work for the SkyTrain’s Broadway extension project’s soil sample analysis, as seen on West Broadway near Heather Street in 2017. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

There was an effort to double down on geotechnical testing for the Broadway extension after the major tunnel boring issues encountered during the construction of the Evergreen Extension’s two-km-long tunnel, made evident by the sinkholes and delays.

From Arbutus Station, the Millennium Line’s westward extension to UBC is roughly seven-km-long. There are four proposed stations at Macdonald Street (on West Broadway), Alma Street (on West Broadway), the Jericho Lands development site, and the academic core of the UBC campus on University Boulevard.

This roughly mirrors the bus stop locations of the existing 99 B-Line service, with the major exception of Sasamat Street in West Point Grey Village. Instead, the City of Vancouver and TransLink have recommended an on-site station for the Jericho Lands development site, which is located northeast of the existing retail district on West 10th Avenue.

The on-site Jericho Lands station supports the immense residential uses and density planned by the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

Based on the 2024-approved policy statement, Jericho Lands will have dozens of high-rise towers reaching up to 49 storeys, as well as a range of low- and mid-rise buildings, generating about 13.6 million sq. ft. of total building floor area — containing 12.6 million sq. ft. of residential uses and at least 500,000 sq. ft. of commercial uses. This translates into about 13,000 new homes for up to approximately 24,000 residents and employment spaces for about 3,000 jobs. Later in Spring 2025, Vancouver City Council is expected to approve an Official Development Plan supporting this project.

December 2023 conceptual artistic rendering of the Jericho Lands. (City of Vancouver)

December 2023 master plan of the Jericho Lands. (City of Vancouver)

General potential area of the subway station footprint of the Jericho Station on the Jericho Lands. (City of Vancouver)

jericho lands mst clc vancouver concept june 2023

June 2023 revised concept of the Jericho Lands. (MST Development Corporation/Canada Lands Company)

While the rough potential station locations have been identified, the route and alignment (underground, at-grade, and/or elevated segments) have not, which will be determined by the geotechnical analysis and business case.

In April 2022, TransLink identified various permutation options for the route and alignment, such as potential routings beneath West 8th Avenue in the West Point Grey neighbourhood for the segment that serves the Jericho Lands before running the extension through the middle of University Golf Course, or running an elevated extension along University Boulevard’s median west of Blanca Street.

TransLink at the time also recommended that the final westernmost approach towards the UBC campus should be underground, with the UBC Station located underground beneath the current UBC trolley bus loop site on University Boulevard next to the UBC Student Next building.

Instead of an elevated guideway and station, a tunnelled approach and subway station in the middle of the campus would mitigate the impacts to health sciences research buildings with sensitive technical equipment, and the usability of the significant public spaces in the area. As well, the below-grade solution would conceal the front and rear track switch crossovers, a reversing tail track to allow for the efficient turnaround of trains, and long side storage tail tracks to allow for up to five trains to be stored overnight. This is due to the distance of UBC from the nearest SkyTrain yards in Coquitlam.

Over the years, UBC’s administration has suggested bringing the extension’s terminus to the south campus (Westbrook Village), providing the university with two stations, but this would likely significantly add to the project’s cost. This was not recommended by TransLink.

Shortly after making these recommendations, in September 2022, TransLink handed over the project’s jurisdiction to the Ministry to advance detailed technical planning work.

translink ubc skytrain route options april 2022

TransLink’s route and station location options for UBC SkyTrain, April 2022. (TransLink)

TransLink’s recommended route and station locations for UBC SkyTrain, April 2022. (TransLink)

Sasamat Station vs. Jericho Lands Station route options for UBC SkyTrain, April 2022. (TransLink)

UBC SkyTrain route options for a second station reaching south campus, near Wesbrook Village. (TransLink)

Highly conceptual artistic renderings only for illustrative purposes of UBC Station of the UBC SkyTrain extension (UBC).

As previously reported by Daily Hive Urbanized in March 2024, the current technical planning contractor will perform detailed technical analysis on TransLink’s previous planning work of identifying its preferred route. The contractor will establish the baseline design for architectural, structural, geotechnical/seismic considerations, municipal roadworks, utilities, and SkyTrain systems and determine station locations, areas for elevated or underground guideways, tunnel entrance locations, cut-and-cover and tunnel boring construction segments, property impacts, construction staging areas, and traffic management.

The provincial government also tasked the contractor to consider transit-oriented development and affordable housing as important aspects of their work on establishing the location and design of the stations. This specifically includes the possibility of integrating the stations at Macdonald Street and Alma Street into new developments, in addition to a review of other transit-oriented development possibilities on the Jericho Lands and at UBC.

No funding has been secured for building the UBC SkyTrain extension at this early stage. The business case is expected to refine the multi-billion-dollar construction cost estimate and support efforts to secure a federal contribution for a portion of the costs.

At the earliest, the UBC SkyTrain extension of the Millennium Line could be built sometime in the 2030s, at which point the truncated 99 B-Line service between Arbutus Station and UBC will be discontinued.

The current construction project of the Broadway extension reaching Arbutus is scheduled to open in Fall 2027.

In November 2024, major construction work began on the Surrey-Langley extension, which is scheduled to reach completion and open in late 2029.

For the first time ever, two separate SkyTrain extension projects — the Broadway and Surrey-Langley extensions — are undergoing major construction simultaneously, which will push the SkyTrain network length to just over 100 km. It remains to be seen whether construction on the UBC extension could begin before the end of this decade.

In January 2025, Premier David Eby’s mandate letter for Mike Farnworth, the new BC Minister of Transportation and Transit, included the key direction to “lead work to advance progress on the Broadway extension to UBC, including by working with the federal government, UBC, the City of Vancouver, First Nations, and all relevant government agency stakeholders.”

Also, in relation to this extension of SkyTrain’s Millennium Line from Arbutus to the University of British Columbia (UBC), Farnworth will work with Ravi Kahlon, BC Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs, to “advance related government objectives on housing density and identify opportunities to achieve reduced carbon pollution and economic development.”

translink broadway subway future bus network changes.jpg

Map of the proposed 2027 east-west bus route changes in the Vancouver Westside due to the opening of SkyTrain’s Millennium Line Broadway extension to Arbutus. (TransLink)

translink ubc skytrain extension bus network

Map of the proposed bus route changes after the opening of the SkyTrain extension from Arbutus Station to UBC. (TransLink)

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