Millennium Line
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The Millennium Line is the second line in the SkyTrain rapid transit system in Greater Vancouver, Canada. The line is owned and operated by TransLink.
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History
When the Expo Line opened in 1985, an extension to Lougheed Mall in east Burnaby was proposed. When the line was extended to Scott Road Station in Surrey in 1990, a spur track was built just east of Columbia Station in anticipation of such an extension. Finally in the late 1990s, the British Columbia government announced that an entirely new line would be built from Vancouver to Columbia Station via Lougheed Mall (served by Lougheed Town Centre Station), as the first part of a future line extending into Coquitlam.
The Millennium Line opened in 2002, with Lake City Way Station opening a year later in 2003. Millennium Line trains follow the Expo Line from Waterfront to Columbia, then loop back into Vancouver via a new route, terminating at VCC-Clark Station. There is a connection to Broadway Station on the Expo Line at the Commercial Drive Station. For a few months before full opening of the line, trains ran only as far as Braid Station in eastern New Westminster.
Route description
The Millennium Line tracks pass through a tunnel for about 1 km east of Columbia Station, then are elevated above the CN/BNSF right-of-way through eastern New Westminster. The tracks run through Coquitlam, south of the Trans-Canada Highway to Lougheed Town Centre. (There are currently no stations in Coquitlam.) From Lougheed Town Centre, the line is elevated, running down the middle or along the side of Lougheed Highway to just west of Brentwood Town Centre, where it picks up the CN/BNSF right-of-way again, being elevated until Renfrew Station, then travelling through the Grandview Cut to Commercial Drive and then on to VCC-Clark Station.
List of stations
From Waterfront to Columbia Stations, Expo and Millennium Line trains stop at the same stations.
Paired with Expo Line
- Waterfront (transfer to SeaBus, West Coast Express, and proposed Canada Line)
- Burrard
- Granville
- Stadium-Chinatown
- Main Street-Science World
- Broadway (transfer to Commercial Drive, also on the Millennium Line)
- Nanaimo
- 29th Avenue
- Joyce-Collingwood
- Patterson
- Metrotown
- Royal Oak
- Edmonds
- 22nd Street
- New Westminster
- Columbia (junction with the Expo Line to King George)
Millennium Line
Image:Vancouver Skytrain Rupert station train.jpg
- Columbia
- Sapperton
- Braid
- Lougheed Town Centre
- Production Way-University
- Lake City Way
- Sperling-Burnaby Lake
- Holdom
- Brentwood Town Centre
- Gilmore
- Rupert
- Renfrew
- Commercial Drive (transfer to Broadway on combined Expo/Millennium Lines)
- VCC-Clark
Future extensions
West extension
A long-term proposal exists to extend the line further west first along Great Northern Way on the ex-Finning land, with a couple of further possibilities:
- extension through the Mount Pleasant and Fairview neighbourhoods in Vancouver south of False Creek, serving the commercial and hospital area along central Broadway. The current terminus of this proposed route would be at either Arbutus, Burrard, or Granville Street toward the University of British Columbia main campus. Or;
- to a new station at 2nd Avenue and Cambie Street or Broadway and Cambie street to link up with the currently under construction Canada line
Evergreen Line
In Coquitlam, an extension of the Millennium Line from Lougheed Town Centre Station to Coquitlam Town Centre was proposed when the original Millennium Line was built, and the necessary junction tracks already exist at Lougheed Town Centre Station. At the present, however, there are plans to build a tram line (the Evergreen Line) instead of the SkyTrain line, which means that the junction tracks will remain unused.
See also
External links
- TransLink - The agency that owns and operates SkyTrain.
- Rapid Transit Project 2000 - The company responsible for building the Millennium Line