Frustration in Surrey and Langley at new SkyTrain’s mounting cost, delays

The B.C. government revealed Thursday the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain line will cost just under $6 billion, with a forecast service date of late 2029. In 2022, the cost was $4 billion.

News that the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain line on B.C.’s Lower Mainland will cost 50 per cent more and come online a year later than initially forecast is being met with frustration..

The provincial government revealed Thursday the new line will cost just under $6 billion, with an expected service date of late 2029.

Former Surrey mayor Doug McCallum, whose council scrapped a previously planned light rail project in favour of the SkyTrain in 2018, said delays in getting shovels in the ground are to blame.

“It hasn’t started for six years, and in that time, inflation — we all know that’s skyrocketed,” he said.

“When governments announce these major infrastructure projects they need to start right away, like literally next month, then they will be on time and on budget. But they don’t.”

TransLink began planning for the project in 2018, but initial funding would have only covered one phase of the line to Fleetwood in Surrey.

In 2021, the federal government committed $1.3 billion for the project, and the province announced it would be built in a single phase. But construction on the first phase was delayed as TransLink grappled with ridership and financial challenges amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2022, the province released the business plan for the revised single-phase project, with an estimated cost of just under $4 billion.