two more years of hell on wheels

Roads ripped up for rapid transit

The Vancouver Sun

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

By William Boei

VANCOUVER - Construction of the Canada Line in downtown Vancouver shifts into high gear this week, and won't start winding down again for more than two years.

Work began on the Yaletown Station at Davie Street last spring, digging is now under way for the Vancouver City Centre station at Granville and Robson, and construction fencing starts going up this week in preparation for more excavations on Granville between Pender and Cordova.

For the next two years and a few months, three of the five blocks of the Granville Mall between Robson and Cordova will be fenced off and dug up.

Sidewalks on the mall will stay open, as will east-west streets. A temporary bridge will be built over the Canada Line trench at Hastings, and there will be traffic pattern changes on Cordova.

At Granville and Robson, the hole for the City Centre station is about 15 per cent dug and the whole block has been fenced in from sidewalk to sidewalk.

"We'll be down to the tunnel level by the end of January," said Steve Crombie, public affairs vice-president for InTransitBC, the consortium that's building the rapid transit line from Vancouver to Richmond and will operate it.

The tunnel-boring machine that's burrowing under downtown Vancouver left its starting point at Cambie Street and Second Avenue several months ago and is currently under False Creek. It will pass the Robson construction site some time next spring.

Major construction at Robson will be finished by the end of 2008 at which point the hole will be filled and the road rebuilt, although below-ground work on the station will continue for several more months.

The two blocks from Georgia to Pender will not be touched.

But on Granville north of Pender, an extraction pit will be dug for the tunnel boring machine, Granville at Cordova will be excavated for the Waterfront terminus station, and the stretch in between will be trenched for tunnel-building.

The boring machine will arrive at the pit about the end of March or early April, Crombie said.

Its cutting head will be hauled out of the pit and trucked back to Cambie and Second, where it will start its journey all over again to build the line's second tunnel. The extraction pit will be covered pending the machine's second coming.

Work crews began erecting construction fencing between Pender and Hastings Monday.

The next few weeks will see utility relocation, tree and street-fixture removal and piling work.

"The actual heavy excavation should start a few weeks from now," Crombie said Monday.

Once the hole is dug at the Granville-Hastings intersection, a temporary bridge will be built for east-west traffic.

At Cordova, the construction site will likely extend into the intersection, starting early next year.

"There's going to be a traffic pattern change on Cordova that's being worked on right now," Crombie said.

Parkades around Granville and Cordova will be able to stay open, although the one on the southeast corner will have to use its Cordova entrance only.

Lanes on either side of Granville in the construction area will stay open, but will likely be restricted to business loading and unloading only.

Structural work on the Waterfront Station should be completed in late 2008, at which point the road will be resurfaced. Inside work on the station will go on until July of 2009.

At the other end of downtown Vancouver, at Davie Street and Pacific Boulevard, months of messy piling work was expected to be finished today.

Permanent fencing with better sight lines will be built about the third week of November, but station construction will take all of 2007 and 2008. That should allow the road to reopen, but work will continue on the station entrance at Davie and Mainland.

- - -

Canada Line construction in high gear Granville Mall excavation is underway.

A. Waterfront Station

- Construction fencing goes up starting this week
- Excavation begins by mid-November
- Road restoration begins about the end of 2008

B. Boring machine extraction pit

- Excavation begins by mid-November
- Boring machine reaches extraction pit by the end of March
- Road restoration begins about the end of 2008

C. Robson Station

- Excavation has started, continues through January.
- Tunnel construction begins in May
- Construction ends by the end of 2008

D. Yaletown Station

- Piling work ends today.
- Excavation begins late November
- Construction continues to the end of 2008

-30-

New YVR link on schedule

Transit line going up 'right before our eyes'

The Province

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

By Andy Ivens

An air horn blared, assembled dignitaries cheered and concrete began to flow for the final elevated guideway column on the Vancouver-airport section of the new Canada Line rapid-transit line yesterday.

On time and on budget, the Canada Line is emerging "right before our eyes," as TransLink chairman and Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie noted.

Because of the rapid pace of construction, Brodie predicted the time until the Canada Line gets up and running -- scheduled for November 2009 -- "will go by very quickly."

In nine months' time, the four-kilometre Sea Island section of the line should be completed. It will then be used as the test track for the entire 19-kilometre line linking the airport and Richmond to downtown Vancouver.

The next phase of construction will see the guideway extended eastward over the Arthur Laing Bridge, under the Oak Street Bridge and on to the Bridgeport Station site.

Concrete segments weighing 39 tonnes -- each one unique -- are being cast at Canada Line's pre-cast yard in south Vancouver and transported to their locations.

A hybrid-design cable-stayed bridge will span the main channel of the Fraser River somewhere near the foot of Cambie Street. It's the first of its kind in North America.

"[The bridge] was a challenge," said Alan Dever, director of communications for Canada Line Rapid Transit Inc.

"It has to be high enough for the shipping [on the Fraser] and low enough for the planes [to pass over safely]."

The bridge will feature a dedicated bike path and a pedestrian walkway.

Steve Crombie, vice-president of public affairs for InTransit B.C. Ltd., said the YVR station "will be integrated with the look of the airport . . . You will see lots of glass that will make it transparent."

Crombie said West Coast native art will be incorporated into the station, in keeping with YVR's theme.

- Road closures on the Arthur Laing Bridge will begin next month. On 16 nights between Nov. 1 and Dec. 15, northbound, southbound or all lanes will be closed from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.