Surrey mayor-elect Doug McCallum is fielding criticism about his promises to reroute the city's transit plans.

On Monday, the Surrey Board of Trade's Anita Huberman said McCallum's campaign pledge to build a SkyTrain line rather than the already approved light rail service would cost the city three times as much.

The mayor-elect, however, later told CTV News "that's not correct as far as the cost is concerned," adding that Huberman and the board "don't speak for the residents of Surrey."

"We've done the figuring," McCallum said. "The $1.65 billion that the federal government has committed to rapid transit lines in Surrey—we can build the SkyTrain along the Fraser Highway from our city centre through Fleetwood, Clayton and into Langley for that figure."

McCallum cited the Evergreen Line as evidence, saying it covers a roughly the same distance, uses similar infrastructure and would only cost $1.4 billion to complete.

In fact, the Evergreen Line is only 10.9 kilometres long and cost $1.43 billion to build.

TransLink estimates the 16.5-kilometre LRT line from Surrey to Langley would cost $1.95 billion and a SkyTrain along the same route would cost around $2.9 billion.

McCallum will also have to convince the Metro Vancouver Mayors' Council that abandoning the Surrey LRT in favour of a SkyTrain line is the right move despite the millions that have already been spent. But McCallum said he's confident he'll be able to overcome that hurdle.

"I don't have too much concern," he said, adding that he's heard Vancouver mayor-elect Kennedy Stewart would support the move.

"I think with the new mayors have that been elected to the transit board, I think they all understand that it's Surrey's turn. Surrey's waited for 30 years in the region to do it and all the other cities in the region have SkyTrain and I think they recognize it's Surrey's turn to have a SkyTrain along the Fraser Highway."

But not every Metro Vancouver mayor is so open to the idea.

"Over $50 million has already been spent on that project and I think it would be step backwards to pull the plug," said New Westminster Mayor Jonathan Cote, who was re-elected Saturday night. "The comparison saying SkyTrain technology can be built at the same cost as LRT is actually factually incorrect."

McCallum is disputing that number too, saying his understanding is that only $18 million have been spent to date.

Scrapping the LRT plan would send everyone back to the drawing board, but Ottawa says it intends to keep it's $1.65 billon on the table.

"The federal government will most usually go along with a plan that the region and the province agree to," said Ken Hardie, a Liberal MP for Fleetwood-Port Kells.

McCallum also sees his plan to replace the Surrey RCMP with a dedicated municipal force as attainable, despite contractual obligations and significant costs associated with the transition.

The mayor-elect said the city already owns much of the equipment and infrastructure used by Mounties, including vehicles and community police stations, and staff with the Canadian Union of Public Employees already run much of the administrative side.

McCallum added that the federal government only pays 10 per cent of police officers' salaries, while the city covers the other 90 per cent.

"The only change that we're looking at is in the officers and we have indication throughout the region that we won't have any problems getting the officers needed for the City of Surrey police," he said. "It will cost us a little bit more money for our police force, but the people of Surrey tell us very clearly they're willing to pay a little more to make their community safe."

The City of Richmond considered moving to a city police force back in 2016, but ultimately decided the costs would be too high and the process too complex.

McCallum won the Oct. 20 civic election by a margin of more than 20,000 votes over Surrey First's Tom Gill, who was considered a top contender for the mayor's chair.

McCallum, who previously served as the city's mayor between 1996 and 2005, will take the reins from outgoing mayor Linda Hepner, who announced back in April she would not seek re-election.

With files from CTV Vancouver's Michele Brunoro and Allison Hurst