Evergreen Line Rail Project, Vancouver, Canada

The Evergreen Line project is an 11km new rapid transit line that will connect Douglas College Station to Lougheed town centre in the city of Coquitlam. Translink owns the project and the new line will be operated by British Columbia Rapid Transit. Construction is scheduled to begin in early 2011 and is expected to finish within four years.

The Evergreen Line will be a fast and frequent SkyTrain service covering the distance between the Douglas College Station and Lougheed Town Centre in 13 minutes. It will pass through four stations – Coquitlam Central, Ioco, Port Moody and Burquitlam. At Lougheed town centre, the line will integrate with regional transport to connect with the Millennium and Expo Lines.  The trains will run every three to five minutes. The ridership is expected to reach 70,000 passengers a day by 2021.

The project aims to ease the increasing traffic in the north-east sector, which will reach its road capacity by 2021 if alternative transport is not provided. The system is designed to meet peak passenger capacity of 10,400 in 2021. It is also expected to remove 60,000 cars a day from the roads and offset greenhouse gases up to 60,000t a year by 2020.

The estimated cost of the project is C$1.4bn. The federal government and Translink will provide $417m and $400m respectively. The provincial government will contribute $573m, which will include $173m to be sourced through private funding.

Evergreen Line route

The Evergreen Line project will extend north from the Lougheed town centre along the North and Clarke Roads on an elevated track. A 2km tunnel will be bored at Como Lake Avenue, which will emerge near Barnet Highway north of Clarke Road in Port Moody.

The rail line will be adjacent to the Canadian Pacific Railway right-of-way and at grade through Port Moody. It will continue to the West Coast Express Station in Coquitlam, along Pinetree Way finishing at Douglas College.

The Evergreen Line project was first considered in 2002 when the Millennium Line was completed. However, it was halted because of rising costs. Since then, the completion date has been postponed twice to 2009 and later to 2011.

As of June 2010, the project was already six months behind schedule due to a funding gap of $173m. Adding to the debt, Translink did not allocate any funds for the project in its 2011-2013 transit plans.

The station designs are currently under review with the municipalities. The environmental impact assessment has been completed and the procurement process is also underway.

Construction

The Evergreen Line will run on an elevated structure, in a tunnel and at grade. The elevated section, which will form 50% of the alignment, will be a concrete horizontal guideway beam supported with columns or pillars.

The tunnel forms 20% of the alignment and will be bored with the help of two tunnel boring machines.

The remaining 30% of the at-grade guideway will be constructed from cast-in-place or from pre-cast concrete segments with adequate ground improvement measures.

Infrastructure

A maintenance facility will be upgraded at the Edmonds Station on the Expo Line in Burnby to facilitate storage and maintenance of light vehicles.  Park and ride facilities will be provided only in selected stations.

The project is expected to have eight stations, but so far only six have been identified. The two other stations will be considered depending on the affordability, increase in riders and land usage. 

The stations on the new line will be designed to meet the standards of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design.

Signalling and communications

Automatic train control and security installations will be integrated with the existing SkyTrain network.

It involves construction, software development, procurement, equipment installation, testing and commissioning.

Evergreen rolling Stock

The trains will operate on 1,435mm standard gauge at a top speed of 80km/h. The fleet will be Bombardier mkI and II trains.

MkI is the first generation vehicle with 41 seats and a capacity to carry 130 passengers. The second generation mkII has fewer seats with wide aisles providing adequate space for standing passengers, wheel chairs, strollers and bicycles. The trains have 33 seats and a capacity to carry 145 passengers.

The mkII trains feature LED maps and video cameras.