Bob Mackin
The Broadway Subway project continues to forecast that it will stay within the $2.83 billion budget, but the revised completion and service dates were quietly omitted from monthly reports.
In the June project status report from the Transportation Investment Corporation, schedule topped the list of five “yellow light” items on the project delivery dashboard, requiring near-term action. The extension of SkyTrain’s Millennium Line already announced a delay last November from late 2025 to early 2026.
“The start of piling activities was delayed at some construction locations. Recovery measures have been implemented by Broadway Subway Project Corporation (BSPC) and are being monitored closely,” said the most-recently released report. “A five-week concrete supplier strike in June 2022 delayed the completion of the base slab at Great Northern Way, which impacted the start of tunnel boring. As a result, project completion has moved from late 2025 to early 2026.”
The report for last October included the previous schedule, which targeted substantial completion for Nov. 27, 2025, service commencement on Dec. 27, 2025 and total completion Feb. 28, 2026. The reports from November through February showed the target for substantial completion had been postponed until Jan. 8, 2026, service commencement to Feb. 7, 2026 and total completion to March 30, 2026.
Beginning with the April status report, the dates were omitted and the red flag project schedule icons moved slightly to the right.
The project reported spending $32.5 million in June for a total to date of $1.18 billion, including $382.7 million from the federal government so far and $100.3 million from the City of Vancouver.
The 5 kilometre subway and 700 metre elevated guideway will connect six underground stations from Great Northern Way-Emily Carr to Arbutus.
The report said there were six non-conformity reports in June about health and safety issues and construction quality processes. Of the 319 such reports during the project, 291 files were closed and 28 remained open.
The project reported a lost time injury frequency rate of 0.21 to date, less than the 2021 WorkSafeBC rate of 0.90 for heavy construction.
Schedule was one of the five project dashboard items assigned a yellow light ranking. The remaining six were all green lights. None was red, which would have denoted requiring immediate action to resolve.
Notes within the dashboard said discussions were progressing with B.C. Infrastructure Benefits, the Crown corporation in charge of hiring and supplying unionized workers, about workforce and permitting requirements. Discussions were also ongoing with TransLink and Canada Line about integration with their systems and developer PCI. Targets had been achieved for Indigenous contracting, but discussions continued about project agreements and Indigenous art and cultural recognition at stations.
The second tunnel boring machine, nicknamed Phyllis, for Girl Guides of B.C. founder Phyllis Munday, broke through at Broadway-City Hall Station in late May. The June report said both tunnel boring machines were at the site under Cambie and Broadway.
BSPC is the design/build joint venture between Acciona of Spain and Ghella of Italy. Acciona is also working on the Site C dam and Pattullo Bridge projects.
In early 2022, Metro Vancouver fired Acciona from the $1.058 billion North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant in North Vancouver over project delays, sparking duelling lawsuits filed in B.C. Supreme Court.
Is Bad News In The Offing?
It has been too quiet, too long, on the transit front and with a provincial election looming, unpleasant news is being quietly whitewashed.
Hear no cost increase; speak no cost increase; see no cost increase of the Broadway subway seems the order of the day.
The pre inflation estimates just will not stand up today.
Also, TransLink has no great hopes for the Broadway subway, a subway that terminates nowhere, which planning is based on the original light rail planning terminating at Arbutus to use the Arbutus corridor for LRT.
Let us revisit Thales News Release which appeared in the rail transportation press last year.
Really?
7,500 pphpd is half the accepted capacity needed to justify building a subway!
Really, really?
A far cheaper surface operating tram or LRT could do the same job just as efficiently and being much cheaper to build and operated the City of Vancouver could have had up to ten times more light rail offering real transit alternative for Vancouver.
By the way, that $1.47 billion investment to increase capacity on the Millennium Line has not been apportioned to the cost of the Broadway subway as it would increase TransLink’s earlier estimated costs.
Just saying.
The following is from Bob Mackin’s The Breaker News
Broadway Subway’s revised service date disappears from project reports
Politely I have to disagree hear. With most projects like this, nearly all of the consumables (concrete and steel for example) have a supply price guaranteed for the planned, length of the construction project. So most of that has a fixed pre-inflationary period price.
HOWEVER, and its a big one. If new material has to be purchased outside of the original contract, current prices will prevail.
Another issue and one of the big issues if you are running late on a project, which they appear to be is that, if a great deal of new or the existing consumables have to be delivered outside of the agreed upon construction period completion date in the contract, that I mentioned earlier, current prices will prevail. Ottawa’s Stage 1 LRT project burned through its planned reserve funds because of the delay in construction. This started a nasty court case between the City of Ottawa and RTG, which with the exception of a few points, RTG (The Rideau Transit Group) mostly got its legal but handed to it.
What is really important here is the content of the actual contract and what it says. My guess is that until a confirmed final construction completion date is declared about the Stage 1 of the Broadway extension, the project’s final cost could go up moderately.
More important though is the expected cost the extension of the Expo Line to Langley. I doubt that very much of the supplies and consumables needed by the final construction contract winners (3 concurrent contracts, if I remember correctly) have had been ordered yet, before the inflation caused by the war in Ukraine took effect. Remember construction wasn’t planned to start before early 2024. They were most likely still negotiating for construction equipment and consumables with suppliers. This is where I expect a massive increase in capital costs to occur.
Zwei replies: The complete lack of hoopla of the Broadway subway indicates something is amiss.
I have been told privately by an advisor to the Surrey mayor and an advisor to the township of Langley mayor that the ultimate cost of the Langley extension would be around $6 billion as the viaduct across the Serpentine Valley will greatly increase the cost, hence the item in the Hive pondering taking the S/L money and continue the subway to UBC.
I also have been told some interesting news about the two projects but I have to wait until it is released to the media or the Mayor’s Council.