The long-awaited Evergreen Line is expected to be up and running before Christmas, the B.C. government announced Thursday.
Though an exact opening date hasn’t been set, the province said the $1.43 billion project is currently more than 90 per cent finished.
The government also revealed it’s investing an additional $5 million to build 150 new parking spaces at Lafarge Lake-Douglas Station in Coquitlam, where the SkyTrain extension will end.
“We want to make it as easy as possible for people to get out of their cars and use public transit,” Transportation Minister Todd Stone said in a statement.
Another 500 spaces were already included in the original plans for the project.
Construction on the Evergreen Line, which will connect Burnaby, Port Moody and Coquitlam to Vancouver, began in February 2013.
It was originally scheduled to open this summer before being pushed back to the fall and then to early 2017.
Officials blamed construction issues around the boring process, which led to sinkholes forming in nearby communities, for the last delay.
The B.C. government expects the Evergreen Line to carry 70,000 passengers and take 40,000 cars off the road per day by the year 2021.
