Evergreen Line Update

In case you haven’t already heard. It looks like the Evergreen SkyTrain is funded, sort of. The federal government has now committed $416.7 million to the project, but TransLink still needs to come up with $400 million from somewhere. As we all know, TransLink is broke. Anyway, you can read the whole story at the Tri-City News:

The line construction is being managed by the province “and we want to get this project going as quickly as possible — and so does the province,” said James Moore, MP for Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam.

Campbell vowed the province will build Evergreen “on time” and the work will create 8,000 direct and indirect jobs as well as take 60,000 cars off the road by 2020 by carrying up to 10,000 passengers an hour.

PS: Cost per km of this SkyTrain line is now $127m. Calgary’s new 8.4km West Light Rail Line, which has large sections of tunneling and elevation, is only $83m per km or 65% less costly then the Evergreen SkyTrain. It is slated to start construction this year.