GVRD considers pushing skytrain out to UBC

The Greater Vancouver Region District board will voteFriday on a $1-million feasibility studyon extending the Millennium Line from Commercial Drive to central Broadway, and eventually out to UBC.

The Broadway West Millennium Line study was proposed by Translink as part of its 2008 transportation and financial plan. Malcolm Brodie,chair of the Translink board, said Wednesday the busy cross-town route needs the service.

"I'm sure that the study will show that a rapid transit line on Broadway going west is fully justified," said Brodie. "It's a very high traffic corridor. It has a high volume of people on that bus and certainly as a route it has congestion."

But while Translink is asking the GVRD to approve the $1-million study of the busy Vancouver corridor, work on the Evergreen Line, which is intended to connect Coquitlam, Port Moody and Burnaby to existing skytrain routes, has stalled.

Translink has asked the provincial government for additional funds to complete the Evergreen Line project, but the province won't provide the cash until after the Olympics.

Burnaby's mayor, Derek Corrigan, says that shows how the needs of Vancouver always jump to the top of the queue, while other municipalities in the region get left behind.

"It's very disappointing when they're moving on to [other] massive capital expenditure projects when clearly they're not even close to being able to fully fund the Evergreen Line to the northeast sector, and that line has been promised for, what, 10, 12 years now?"

Brodie says the Millennium Line expansion has been in the works for a long time, but that won't stop the Evergreen Line from going ahead.

"I do emphasize that our priority at this time is to get the Evergreen Line up and running, and to get that constructed," said Brodie.

Vancouver's Mayor Sam Sullivan said in a press release Wednesday that he fully supports the Millennium Line expansion study.