Transit users frustrated with Surrey-Langley SkyTrain delay

Some transit users aren't welcoming news that the budget and timeline for the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension are off track.

Once completed, the 16-kilometre extension will allow travellers from Langley City to reach Surrey Centre in about 20 minutes and downtown Vancouver in just over an hour, according to the B.C. Ministry of Transportation. But the project's timeline has now been delayed by a year to 2029.

Standing near a bus stop at the Surrey Central Station, Ishika Dhakal said she lives in Fleetwood but works in Vancouver. She said her current commute can take up to an hour and 50 minutes, so the delay is frustrating.

"I'm actually very sad," Dhakal said.

Meanwhile, Denis Agar, executive director of the Metro Vancouver Transit Riders, said the delay will continue the issue of overcrowding for those using public transit in the area.

"That's another year where the buses that run along that street don't get freed up so that means less overcrowding relief for people on all the other routes that connect to the SkyTrain," Agar said.

Theextension's expected cost has also grown by 50 per cent from $4 billion to $6 billion.

Transportation Minister Rob Fleming attributed the issues around timeline and budget to changes since the project's business case was completed two years ago, such as higher interest rates, rising inflation costs and labour-market challenges.

However, B.C. United and the B.C. Conservativessaid they arethe result of the NDP's"gross incompetence." B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad and Elenore Sturko, the MLA for Surrey South, have also called for a full audit of the project.

"For both the people in Langley, the people [in] Surrey, this is a gut punch," Rustad told CBC News.

"Every project that the NDP has done has been over budget. Nothing has actually been delivered yet. Everything is behind schedule."

However, Fleming said over 90 per cent of transit projects are on time and on budget. He also questioned how the opposition would pay for big projects while cutting taxes.

Some experts say construction costs on big-ticket items are currently rising faster than the projects themselves.

"This is actually, in summary, a normal part of engineering that we're trying to do the best we can, giving the client comfort," said Gord Lovegrove, an associate professor at the UBC School of Engineering in Kelowna.

"But in this environment, post-COVID, all bets are off the table. We're looking at 40 to 60 per cent typical capital cost increases."

Marco Chitti, a transportation researcher at New York University, says other projects across the country are experiencing similar delays and cost overruns. A big issue stems from the pandemic-related supply chain disruptions, he said.

"I'm not surprised at all because that's what's happening everywhere in Canada for the last two to three years."

He said that Canada has also lost a lot of its capacity to handle complex projects.

"We haven't done much for 20 years, and so on, now everybody is doing a lot of this," Chitti said. "We have passed from building almost nothing to building really a lot of stuff, so the industrial sector in Canada is not very up to the task."