Cost of Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension balloons to $6B

The Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension will cost $2 billion more than planned and its anticipated opening has been pushed back another year, provincial officials said Thursday.

The updated estimates on cost and timeline came as the Transportation Ministry touted progress on the project, announcing all of the contracts for its construction have now been awarded.

The price tag of the expansion is now estimated at $5.996 billion, up from the $4.01 billion outlined in the 2022 business case for the project.

"The Surrey Langley SkyTrain project is being delivered during a time of significant market challenges in British Columbia, across Canada and around the world," the statement from the ministry said, adding the cost has been updated to reflect factors including "rising inflation costs and key commodity escalation, supply-chain pressures and labour-market challenges."

The opening date has been pushed back from late 2028 to late 2029, a move also being attributed – in part – to the "current market climate."

Transit advocates say the effects of the setback will be felt beyond the Fraser Valley.

"Riders in the South of Fraser, especially on the Surrey side, have seen so much overcrowding on the buses, so this just means more overcrowding for 502 riders,” said Denis Agar, executive director of Movement: Metro Vancouver Transit Riders. “The buses they were going to be able to shift away from Fraser Highway when the SkyTrain was done, they won’t be able to that for another year, so that means more overcrowding.”

The ballooning costs are something Agar says is being studied by researchers.

“In Spain and Italy, places with similar labour laws and wages, they manage to do it for a quarter of the cost (per) kilometer,” he said.

B.C.’s transportation minister disagreed with the comparison, pointing to similar financial pressures in other jurisdictions.

“It’s not dissimilar to what we’re seeing around the country, or across North America or in Europe,” Minister Rob Flemming told CTV News in an interview Thursday.

The new timeline and major price increase faced backlash from political leaders, including Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke.

"Four months ago, the province said, when we asked, (that) this was on time and on budget,” Locke said. “They should have actually put the shovels in the ground when they said they were going to do this. This isn’t new, we started this in 2018.”

"I think Brenda Locke should be happy that the provincial government is such a reliable partner, don't forget that we are majority funder of this. TransLink, the transportation authority of Metro Vancouver, could not deliver this project in the middle of the pandemic, we took it over,” Flemming said in response to Locke’s remarks.