Where Vancouver's five leading mayoral candidates stand on extending SkyTrain to UBC

Four of Vancouver’s top five mayoral candidates support extending SkyTrain to the University of British Columbia (UBC), but their commitments differ on how to advance the long-awaited project, which ultimately depends on the provincial government taking the leading role and the federal government providing a funding contribution.

Only TEAM for a Livable Vancouver mayoral candidate and former city councillor Colleen Hardwick is opposed.

Ahead of the civic election on Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026, Mayor Ken Sim of the ABC Vancouver party, Vancouver Liberals mayoral candidate Kareem Allam, Green Party of Vancouver mayoral candidate and sitting city councillor Pete Fry, and Vote Vancouver mayoral candidate and sitting city councillor Rebecca Bligh have backed the extension through campaign platforms or recent interviews.

Their approaches range from advocating for senior government support to having the City of Vancouver push for a binding project timeline.

Although the OneCity Vancouver and COPE parties are not fielding any mayoral candidates in this election, they are running candidates for City Council, and both parties also explicitly support bringing SkyTrain to UBC.

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The planned extension would continue the Millennium Line west from Arbutus Street to UBC’s Point Grey campus. It is a separate project from the Millennium Line’s Broadway extension currently under construction, which is expected to open in late 2027 and terminate at the new Arbutus Station. From the Millennium Line’s new western terminus at Arbutus, passengers will take a truncated 99 B-Line route for the remaining journey to campus — until SkyTrain is further extended.

The UBC SkyTrain extension would be roughly seven km in length, with stations at where West Broadway intersects with Macdonald Street and Alma Street, as well as the Jericho Lands development and the academic core of UBC — roughly at the intersection of University Boulevard and East Mall.

Vancouver Liberals’ Kareem Allam: YES

Since launching his mayoral campaign a year ago, among those running for municipal office, Allam has been — by a very wide margin — the most outspoken supporter of extending SkyTrain to UBC. He has repeatedly promised to make securing federal and provincial support for the project one of his top priorities as mayor, sharpening that message as the election enters its final stretch. He would press the provincial government to commit funding and establish a construction schedule.

Allam is linking his push to extend SkyTrain to UBC with a broader plan to bring young people back to Vancouver, arguing that stronger connections between the university and the city would help create businesses, jobs, and long-term career opportunities.

The Vancouver Liberals promise to pursue that funding with the next provincial government, TransLink, UBC, and First Nations. Allam argues that connecting the university’s research activity with Vancouver’s employment centres would support both economic growth and climate goals.

Alongside the SkyTrain extension, Allam proposes bringing the University Endowment Lands (UEL) under the City of Vancouver’s municipal jurisdiction, shifting responsibility for their municipal governance from the provincial government to the City. If elected, he would submit an amalgamation proposal to the provincial government on his first day in office. The UEL is currently an unincorporated area without an elected municipal council and is a separate jurisdiction from both Vancouver and UBC itself, with the B.C. Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs providing the area with municipal services.

Allam presents the SkyTrain extension and amalgamation proposals as complementary steps toward closer ties between Vancouver and the university area.

“UBC is the second-largest commuter destination in the Lower Mainland. I think it’s essential for the future of our economy and the future of our climate change priorities to connect UBC, the largest research centre in Western Canada, to Vancouver, the largest job centre in Western Canada,” said Allam.

“Vancouver is a place with tremendous potential, and that potential needs a place to grow. That starts with the UBC SkyTrain and a unified Vancouver and UBC. We’ll create an innovation corridor for the next generation of jobs.”

Allam also proposed pursuing a new agreement with the City of Surrey that would jointly advance SkyTrain to UBC and improved rapid transit along King George Boulevard, arguing that cooperation would strengthen both cities’ efforts to secure provincial and federal funding.

ABC Vancouver’s Ken Sim: YES

In a recent Coastal Front podcast, former Vancouver mayor Kennedy Stewart accused Ken Sim and ABC Vancouver of squandering his progress made toward extending SkyTrain to UBC, alleging that his successor failed to carry forward the partnerships assembled before the 2022 civic election.

“Ken Sim basically had a gift sitting on his desk to get that done, and he’s just botched it,” Stewart said during the podcast last month.

Stewart described an arrangement with then-Surrey mayor Doug McCallum to support each other’s SkyTrain extension priorities through TransLink’s Mayors’ Council. Under Stewart, the City of Vancouver would help advance the Expo Line’s Surrey-Langley extension first, with the City of Surrey, under McCallum, backing the subsequent push to further extend the Millennium Line to UBC.

According to Stewart, the UBC project had attracted support from First Nations willing to invest, a potential contribution of hundreds of millions of dollars from the UBC administration, and backing from Vancouver’s municipal government. He alleged that the change in Vancouver’s municipal leadership derailed that cooperation.

“Election hits, deal dies,” said Stewart.

Earlier this week, Vancouver Liberals mayoral candidate Kareem Allam subsequently endorsed Stewart’s account, claiming he had received briefings on the project during the transition between the two administrations. Allam was the campaign manager for Sim’s ABC party for the 2022 civic election, and he was also briefly the chief of staff for Sim’s mayor’s office from November 2022 to February 2023 — taking on the role right after inauguration. Both men have had a falling out ever since and are engaged in legal battles over other allegations.

“I can attest that what Kennedy Stewart asserts is true. I received those briefings during the transition between governments,” Allam said in a statement.

Allam also argued that Sim had failed to capitalize on regional support and senior government commitments to help fund planning.

In an interview with Daily Hive Urbanized earlier this week, Sim and ABC Vancouver city councillor and candidate Sarah Kirby-Yung flatly rejected Stewart and Allam’s criticisms and allegations, maintaining that they wholeheartedly support the extension and have continued pressing the provincial and federal governments to advance the project.

Sim said UBC SkyTrain was a very big topic during a meeting in Ottawa with Prime Minister Mark Carney about three months ago. The mayor said he described this SkyTrain extension as infrastructure with national importance, linking UBC with the region and connecting employment, research, and healthcare destinations along the Broadway corridor.

In October 2025, during a Vancouver City Council meeting, Sim successfully amended a member motion calling on the federal government to designate UBC SkyTrain as a “Project of National Interest” under the Prime Minister’s new federal Major Projects Office. That motion, originally put forward by OneCity city councillor and candidate Lucy Maloney, calls on the provincial government to expedite the completion of the project’s business case and detailed technical planning, and to commit to a clear timeline for both planning and construction. It also urges the provincial and federal governments to commit funding for the project in partnership with TransLink, UBC, and local First Nations.

Sim said his Ottawa meeting with Carney this past summer also included discussions about expanding local port facilities and Vancouver International Airport.

“This is a no-brainer, and we’ve been talking about this forever, and we totally support it,” Sim told Daily Hive Urbanized, emphasizing his support for UBC SkyTrain.

Kirby-Yung said the business case had been funded and was being reviewed, with its technical findings needed to establish the route and final costs. She said City officials have repeatedly sought updates from provincial ministers, but are still awaiting the release of the business case work — a critical move to take the next steps towards advancing the project.

“We are waiting like everybody else, and the answer, honestly, is a pinball back and forth between the provincial and the federal governments who say we’re waiting for the business case,” said Kirby-Yung.

“We’re committed, and his comments are just ridiculous,” she added, rejecting Stewart’s allegations.

Sim added that he would have preferred the UBC SkyTrain extension to proceed alongside the Millennium Line’s Broadway extension now under construction, as a single larger project, and maintained that his administration continues to lobby the provincial and federal governments.

Daily Hive Urbanized has extensively followed and reported in detail on Metro Vancouver public transit over many years, including UBC SkyTrain planning progress.

This project’s planning and funding history complicates Stewart’s suggestion that Sim inherited a UBC SkyTrain extension ready to proceed. By Spring 2022, very preliminary studies had examined potential routes, station locations, and costs, and the Mayors’ Council had endorsed an initial concept. At that juncture, there were no accurate construction cost estimates, as the technical details of the project had not been hammered out.

However, the full business case needed to support any federal and provincial funding for construction and final approval decisions remained completely outstanding. Political backing had advanced the proposal, while very substantial technical and financial questions still needed answers.

The distinction was evident in the federal government’s July 2021 announcement. Then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau committed up to $1.3 billion toward the cost of building the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension. For UBC SkyTrain, during that same announcement, the federal government’s initial commitment covered up to 40 per cent of the eligible costs for technical design and planning and business case work. The provincial government subsequently received a federal contribution of $14 million toward the approximate $40-million total cost of this design, planning, and business case work.

The City of Vancouver’s own records from the final weeks of Stewart’s administration in 2022 show the ball was with the provincial government. In its September 2022 briefing package for the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention, the City was still asking then-Premier John Horgan to fulfil the provincial government’s previously announced commitment to fund its 40 per cent share of the total planning and business case cost, and extend that commitment to construction costs. That request indicates that a provincial construction-funding commitment remained something the City was seeking shortly before the municipal election.

For government capital projects, especially for building major infrastructure projects such as a multi-billion dollar SkyTrain extension, the business case establishes what would be built, estimates construction and operating costs, assesses benefits and risks, and informs decisions about how to pay for the project. TransLink identifies completing that work as a necessary step toward securing project funding and approval. Technical planning and business case work was also fully completed before funding from senior governments was secured for projects like the Surrey-Langley and Broadway extensions. It was also performed for the proposed Burnaby Mountain gondola to Simon Fraser University’s main campus.

Support from neighbouring mayors, UBC, and First Nations helps build the political case, but it does not settle the actual engineering, cost, and funding questions involved in delivering a SkyTrain extension.

As previously reported by Daily Hive Urbanized, the provincial government took over UBC SkyTrain’s project leadership from TransLink in September 2022, including the responsibility for spearheading the detailed technical analysis, the business case, and developing a funding strategy.

Then in March 2023, the provincial government launched its bidding process seeking consultants to assist the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Transit in performing the necessary technical design and planning work to support the business case. At the time, it was stated that the contracted consultants would establish the baseline design for architectural, structural, geotechnical/seismic considerations, municipal roadworks, utilities, and SkyTrain systems and determine station locations, areas for elevated or underground guideways, tunnel entrance locations, cut-and-cover and tunnel boring construction segments, property impacts, construction staging areas, and traffic management. The contracted consultants were engineering firm Stantec and architectural firm Perkins&Will.

The provincial government also tasked the consultants to consider transit-oriented development and affordable housing as important aspects of their work on establishing the location and design of the stations. This specifically includes the possibility of integrating the stations at Macdonald Street and Alma Street into new developments, in addition to a review of other transit-oriented development possibilities on the Jericho Lands and at UBC.

Geotechnical investigations along the UBC SkyTrain route began in May 2024 and concluded in November 2024. A drilling crew extracted soil samples for analysis at 100-metre intervals along the entire route from Arbutus Street to UBC.

By Fall 2025, the provincial government confirmed it had completed a substantial portion of the business case work and was examining the financial framework.

The provincial government continued allocating money to plan the UBC SkyTrain extension in 2026, although a potential construction timeline remains absent.

During an exchange in the B.C. legislature in May 2026, Conservative MLA Harman Bhangu asked B.C. Minister of Transportation and Transit Mike Farnworth about provincial funding and when this extension could move beyond planning and toward construction.

“We have matched the federal government’s $14 million in terms of the planning. We’ve also added $5 million in this year’s budget for that work to continue,” said Farnworth.

Farnworth said the extension still needed to be included in a future TransLink investment plan. He reiterated that the public transit authority anticipated advancing it in the second half of its 10-year planning period — sometime in the first half of the 2030s — placing it among its medium-term priorities.

The minister said the provincial government would continue working with TransLink and the federal government to secure the major construction funding needed. However, his response did not provide a construction start date or an opening date, leaving those milestones unresolved despite the additional funding for design and planning work.

Construction funding in the range of billions of dollars remained highly unresolved before Sim took office, and that provincial planning continued well after the 2022 election, but Stewart has attributed a loss of momentum to the change in the City’s leadership four years ago.

The UBC SkyTrain extension was a key platform priority for Premier David Eby and the BC NDP during the October 2024 civic election. Advancing this project was also reaffirmed as a priority for the newly-elected provincial government in January 2025 in Eby’s mandate letter to the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Transit.

However, so far in the current provincial election campaign, with one week to go until the main voting day on Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026, Eby and the BC NDP have yet to include UBC SkyTrain in their platform. So far, they have committed to providing $250 million towards the $700-million cost of building TransLink’s proposed King George Boulevard Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line in Surrey, and creating legislation to provide TransLink with a major new revenue source.

Earlier this year, during the 2026 provincial budget announcement, the BC NDP-led provincial government announced it would slow down its capital spending as a measure to help reduce its forecast of staggering annual deficits and escalating provincial debt, driven partly by significant capital spending.

Green Party of Vancouver’s Pete Fry: YES

Green Party of Vancouver mayoral candidate Pete Fry explicitly supports the UBC SkyTrain extension, with an emphasis on establishing a firm schedule.

Under the party’s public transit commitments in their platform, the party wants to “set a binding timeline for rapid transit to UBC.” Furthermore, their platform refers to this project as the “UBC subway extension.”

That commitment calls for a timeline to be established, but the platform does not identify an opening year or explain how the schedule would bind the provincial government and TransLink.

Vote Vancouver’s Rebecca Bligh: YES

Vote Vancouver mayoral candidate Rebecca Bligh has also endorsed extending SkyTrain to UBC.

Her party’s transportation platform maintains that continuing the Millennium Line west of Arbutus Street would shorten trips and ease pressure on busy roads.

“The Broadway Subway shouldn’t stop at Arbutus,” the platform states.

“Vote Vancouver will extend the SkyTrain line to UBC to support those who live, work, and study in the area.”

TEAM For A Livable Vancouver’s Colleen Hardwick: NO

Colleen Hardwick’s TEAM for a Livable Vancouver is opposed to the project. She is proposing to reconsider the municipal government’s official support for extending SkyTrain to UBC, along with the transit-oriented development plans associated with the project.

The party’s platform calls for public consultation on that decision and suggests the City should use its influence at the Mayors’ Council to ensure the business case fully examines the extension’s viability and alternatives.

That position accompanies TEAM’s broader proposal to rescind the City’s Broadway Plan, Jericho Lands Official Development Plan (ODP), and the citywide Vancouver ODP. TEAM wants to rethink the planned high-density, mixed-use Jericho Lands project of dozens of high-rise towers with more low- and mid-rise buildings, while giving residents a greater role in shaping neighbourhood growth. Currently, it is assumed that the Jericho Lands would be anchored by its own on-site SkyTrain station.

Hardwick’s party is in favour of spreading transportation investment across Vancouver’s major roads through battery-electric bus transit options it considers more affordable to achieve. Its proposals include working with TransLink to increase bus frequencies, expand trolley buses and battery-electric powered bus service, restore previously cut neighbourhood and express bus services, and introduce smaller community buses in underserved areas. The stated goal is to put every resident within a five-minute walk of a bus stop.

TEAM also proposes bringing back streetcars on selected major streets where passenger demand would justify them, drawing on a review of the City’s 2019 streetcar feasibility study, which focused on potential local-serving routes along False Creek South and within the Downtown Vancouver peninsula.

Over the years, including during the 2018 and 2022 civic election campaigns and throughout her one term in City Council from 2018 to 2022, Hardwick repeatedly disputed the need for the SkyTrain extensions reaching Arbutus and UBC, and advocated for the alternative of street-level light rail transit (LRT).

However, TransLink’s technical assessments on bringing UBC rapid transit, released during her term in office, clearly show SkyTrain as the technology capable of meeting the corridor’s long-term ridership demand and potential, with street-level LRT being deemed a medium-term solution at best.

You might also like:
• UBC SkyTrain urged as a 'Project of National Interest' by Vancouver City Council
• Opinion: UBC SkyTrain must be Metro Vancouver's next public transit priority
• Opinion: Cut-and-cover tunnel construction should be considered for UBC SkyTrain to save money
• B.C. government completes first series of soil sample drilling for UBC SkyTrain planning
• UBC students lament '18th birthday' of long-promised SkyTrain extension
• Kareem Allam's Vancouver Liberals call for viaducts demolition, UBC SkyTrain, and the adoption of the B.C. Building Code