First tunnel boring machine arrives at Broadway

Dec 25, 2023

Another breakthrough on the Broadway Subway's tunnel boring has been achieved, with the tunnel boring machine named Elsie arriving at the underground pit of the future Broadway-City Hall Station for SkyTrain Millennium Line.

Elsie broke through the east wall of the pit for Broadway-City Hall Station at Alberta Street on Friday afternoon — a feat achieved in 41 days, after she resumed digging on March 4 from the west wall of the pit for Mount Pleasant Station at Quebec Street, which represents a distance of four city blocks or about 1.3 km.

Between Mount Pleasant Station and Broadway-City Hall Station, over 900 tunnel liner rings were installed by Elsie.

Elsie is one of two tunnel boring machines for the project, and she is specifically responsible for building the eastbound tunnel. She first began boring from the pit for Great Northern Way-Emily Carr Station on October 7, and arrived at Mount Pleasant Station's pit on January 22.

April 14 video of Elsie arriving at Broadway-City Hall Station:

The pit for Broadway-City Hall Station spans two city blocks between Alberta Street and Cambie Street. The east block closest to Alberta Street will be used as the footprint for a major crossover track switch, while the west block closest to Cambie Street will be used for the Millennium Line station concourse, platforms, and corridors reaching the Canada Line platforms.

At Broadway-City Hall Station, construction crews will now begin the process of slowly moving Elsie towards the western end of the pit to prepare her to resume digging towards Oak-VGH Station. This process of moving Elsie to the other side of the station is expected to take weeks, with crews also using this downtime as an opportunity to perform regular maintenance on the machine.

When Elsie resumes drilling from the west wall of the pit for Broadway-City Hall Station, she will be diving beneath the Canada Line tunnel under Cambie Street. The Millennium Line's Broadway-City Hall Station is the deepest of the six new subway stations being built, with a depth of more than 20 metres (almost seven storeys) to allow the Millennium Line tunnels to be safely built under the Canada Line tunnel.

Before breaking through Oak-VGH Station, Elsie will reach the halfway point in tunnelling towards Arbutus Station.

Construction progress on SkyTrain Millennium Line at Broadway-City Hall Station, as of February 15, 2023. The east wall at Alberta Street is shown. (Government of BC)

Construction progress on SkyTrain Millennium Line at Broadway-City Hall Station, as of March 17, 2023. (Government of BC)

Construction progress on SkyTrain Millennium Line at Broadway-City Hall Station, as of March 17, 2023. (Government of BC)

The second tunnel boring machine, named Phyllis, responsible for building the westbound tunnel, is not too far behind.

Phyllis began boring from Great Northern Way-Emily Carr Station's pit on November 29, and broke through Mount Pleasant Station on March 18. She is expected to resume drilling soon for a breakthrough at Broadway-City Hall Station later this spring.

Both Elsie and Phyllis are expected to completely finish their tunnelling before the end of 2023. The machines will be extracted from Cypress Street, which is the eastern end of the two-block-long Arbutus Station pit. Similar to Broadway-City Hall Station, the west block closest to Arbutus Street will be used for the station concourse and platforms, and the east block closest to Cypress Street will be used as a major track switch, allowing trains to reverse direction from the terminus station.

The construction of the underground multi-level station structures will quickly progress after the machines pass through the pits.

Tunnel boring machine Elsie at Mount Pleasant Station on March 3, 2023, before resuming her drilling towards Broadway-City Hall Station. (Government of BC)

Construction progress on SkyTrain Millennium Line's Broadway Extension's elevated guideway in the False Creek Flats, as of March 16, 2023. (Government of BC)

There is also significant progress on the construction of the short 700-metre-long elevated guideway in the False Creek Flats between the existing VCC-Clark Station and the tunnel entrance just east of the future Great Northern Way-Emily Carr Station.

Upon opening in early 2026, as a major interchange transfer hub between the Canada Line and Millennium Line, the expanded Broadway-City Hall Station will quickly become one of SkyTrain's busiest stations.

From Arbutus Station, the $2.83-billion, 5.7-km-long Millennium Line Broadway Extension will enable travel times of only 11 minutes to VCC-Clark Station, 12 minutes to Commercial-Broadway Station, 32 minutes to Lougheed Town Centre Station, and 47 minutes to Lafarge-Lake Douglas Station in Coquitlam.

For the remaining journey to the University of British Columbia campus, passengers will board a truncated 99 B-Line service starting from the bus exchange at Arbutus Station, until the Millennium Line is further extended westward to reach the campus.

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