On December 2, we celebrate the five-year anniversary of the Evergreen Extension, which took the SkyTrain’s Millennium Line into Port Moody and Coquitlam.

The opening of the extension heralded a new era for SkyTrain services around the region, as the Expo and Millennium Lines were untangled and reconfigured into the routes we know today, allowing for greater operational flexibility, with the lines now running largely independently of one another.

The opening of the line also provided more direct interchanges with another service, the West Coast Express. This made the Tri-Cities area a key transfer hub and allowed for customers to be flexible in how they moved through the region.

Right up until the pandemic hit, the line proved to be popular with our customers, with the extension seeing a 19 per cent increase in ridership over its first three years from 2017 to 2019. During the busiest periods, the segments between Lougheed Town Centre Station to Burquitlam Station would see an average weekday boarding of 32,000.

As we start to reconnect, ridership is quickly returning to this portion of the Millennium Line, with ridership at 57 per cent of pre-pandemic levels and creeping ever upwards.

From the archives

The Buzzer‘s past Evergreen Extension coverage

• Evergreen Line extension station names announced
• A first look at the Evergreen Extension of the Millennium SkyTrain Line
• (Video) Evergreen Extension is opening December 2, 2016
• First responders prepare for the opening of the Evergreen Extension
• Welcome to the Evergreen Extension! A sneak peek at Moody Centre Station (Photos)
• The Evergreen Extension is now open!!!!!
• More Evergreen Extension Moments from opening day on December 2, 2016
• Ivan Chan Photography explores the Evergreen Extension
• Evergreen Extension off to a strong start!

Videos