Metro Vancouver’s Millennium Line celebrates 20 years of service
Metro Vancouver’s Millennium Line celebrates 20 years of service
It’s been 20 years since the Millennium Line became a fully connected service linking with TransLink’s bus network on September 3, 2002.
SkyTrain’s Millennium Line is Metro Vancouver’s second rapid transit line, built following what is now known as the Expo Line, and opened in stages from 1986–1994. Its official opening took place on January 2, 2002 with trains running from Waterfront Station in Vancouver, sharing tracks with the Expo Line to Columbia Station in New Westminster, then diverging northeast to Braid Station. The line from Braid Station to Commercial–Broadway Station opened on September 3, 2002. Lake City Way Station followed opening on November 21, 2003, with the current terminus of VCC–Clark Station opening on January 6th, 2006.
Today, the Millennium Line operates from VCC–Clark station in Vancouver to Lafarge Lake–Douglas station in Coquitlam, linking Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam, and Port Moody.
A lot has changed in 20 years
Since its opening in 2002, SkyTrain’s Millennium Line has undergone a significant operating pattern change in preparation for the opening of the Evergreen Extension, an 11 kilometre extension completed in 2016. And in 2018, the service pattern changed to simplify the way Millennium Line trains move through Lougheed Town Centre Station creating faster and more reliable travel.
Get to know the Millennium Line
In honour of its 20th anniversary, here are 20 facts about the Millennium Line:
1 | The line was opened in 2002 and was named in recognition of the new millennium.
2 | Each of the 13 original stations were uniquely designed by prominent B.C. architects.
Check out this station tour brochure for an overview of each of the stations!
3 | About 50 tonnes of concrete was required to construct the average column
4 | The concrete required for all of the columns of the new line could fill SIX Olympic sized swimming pools!
5 | More than 500 columns support the guideway along the original section of the Millennium Line.
6 | Almost 6,000 pre-cast guideway pieces, each measuring over three metres long were used during the guideway construction.
7 | If placed end to end, these guideway pieces would stretch the length of 190 CFL football fields!
8 | Good lighting and open spaces were the most frequent requests among community station design initiatives.
9 | The guideway construction used an overhead cantilever truss system. A technique that had never been used in B.C.
10 | As part of the Millennium Line project, SkyTrain added 60 Mark II cars to the fleet
11 | When opened in 2002, Commercial Drive Station was a separate station from its next door neighbour, Broadway Station on the Expo Line.
The two formally united into Commercial-Broadway on September 7, 2009.
12 | The Broadway Subway Project will extend the Millennium Line west to Arbutus Street adding six new stations.
The extension is 5.7 kilometres long, and all but 700 metres of it will be underground
13 | The Millennium Line has 17 stations (6 under construction)
14| SkyTrains on the Millennium Line operate at speeds of up to 80 km/h
15| The Millennium Line almost wasn’t SkyTrain at all!
In 1995, the BC government had announced a light rail line to run along Broadway and Lougheed Mall to Lougheed Town Centre. The switch to SkyTrain technology came in 1998. Ironically, when the Evergreen Extension was first proposed, light rail was also considered for that route too!
16 | Travel from one end of the Millennium Line to the other is three-zones
17 | The Millennium Line connects with the West Coast Express at Moody Centre and Coquitlam Central Stations
18 | The Millennium Line operates in four cities; Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam, and Port Moody.
19 | The “Snake Hill Tunnel” that takes trains into Port Moody is 2.14 kilometres – currently the longest tunnel on the Expo/Millennium Line.
This title will pass to the west section of the Millennium Line when the Broadway Subway extension opens, with a tunnel of 5 kilometres to Arbutus.
20 | The Evergreen Extension stations were the first on the Expo/Millennium Lines to have real time train display information.
Still hungry for more Millennium Line content? Check out this great primer on the building of the 13 stations and over 21 kilometres of track that made up the original Millennium Line.
Sarah
I story on how the Millennium Line came to be and the players evolved would be a good follow up. During Phase 2 of Expo Line property for what is now the tunnel at the start of the line was obtained to extend Skytrain. In the 90’s the transportation planners were against Skytrain and advance the T line as an at grade LRT. The T line combined the Millennium and Evergreen Line.
In early 1998 I was in a meeting to discuss giving up the Right of way obtained in Phase 2 as it would never be needed because we were done with SkyTrain. A few Months later the Premier Glen Clark announced that the Province was building the Millennium Line using SkyTrain technology. We started with a black felt pen on a map showing the Proposed route and 4 years later there was a 21 km operating line. These days it takes longer than that to get the Preliminary design done. It also needs to be noted that of our $1.167B budget we still had about $70m that the Provence used to start the Squamish highway project.