Evergreen Line opening delayed again, pushed back to early 2017

The Evergreen Line opening has been delayed again. The line is now expected to be operational in early 2017.

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.

The tunnel boring for the Evergreen Line, which will connect Coquitlam, Port Moody and Burquitlam, is now complete and the Ministry of Transporation says train testing is expected to begin in the tunnel in the fall of 2016.

“Alice”, the name of 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.

“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 Todd Stone, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure. “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.”

WATCH: The boring machine, Alice, breaks through the final section of the tunnel.

Most of the stations for the new line are almost complete. There are seven stations along the project alignment: Lougheed Town Centre Station, Burquitlam Station, Moody Centre Station, Inlet Centre Station, Coquitlam Central Station, Lincoln Station, and Lafarge Lake-Douglas Station.

Translink estimates that when the line is operational, it will carry 70,000 passengers and remove 40,000 cars from the road every day by 2021.