B.C.’s long-awaited Evergreen Line opening has been delayed once again. The line is now expected to be operational in early 2017. The tunnel interior work and systems installation will continue into summer 2016. Train testing is expected to begin in the tunnel in the fall of 2016.

The tunnel boring for the Evergreen Line is now complete but this is the second delay for the opening of the line. It was first scheduled to be open in summer of 2016, but was pushed back to fall, 2016.

Alice, the tunnel boring machine, drilled a single two-kilometre tunnel starting east of Barnet Highway in Port Moody to south of Kemsley Avenue in Coquitlam. The tunnel is an integral part of Evergreen Line project that will link Burnaby, Port Moody and Coquitlam to the existing SkyTrain line serving Metro Vancouver. Boring the tunnel was the most complex and technically challenging part of the Evergreen Line project.

“Celebrating the completion of the tunnel boring work today is a great milestone for the project and for the communities this line will serve,” said Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Todd Stone. “The Evergreen Line project is more than 75% complete, and the work to finish the line, including the tunnel, is well underway. Once Evergreen is complete, B.C. will have the longest, fully automated rapid transit network in the world.”

EGRT Construction is responsible for building the elevated and at-grade guideways, the two-kilometre bored tunnel, seven stations, power substations, train-operating systems and roadworks, as well as a vehicle-storage and light-maintenance facility.