BURNABY - After 25 years of service and 1.2 billion riders served, SkyTrain has reason to celebrate.

Grace McCarthy whose government under former premier Bill Bennett, was responsible for launching SkyTrain 25 years ago, joined Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Blair Lekstrom and Fleetwood-Port Kells Member of Parliament, Nina Grewal to celebrate the system’s silver anniversary. The event took place at the SkyTrain Operations and Maintenance Centre in Burnaby.

They were joined by TransLink CEO Ian Jarvis, SkyTrain president and general manager Fred Cummings and several past and present SkyTrain employees, including four who were honoured for reaching 25 years with SkyTrain.

Why It Matters:

By the numbers

• 108 - number of seconds between trains on the stretch between Waterfront and Columbia Stations (the combined Expo and Millennium Lines) during rush hours.
• 95.46% - on-time service delivery over the past 12 months (“on-time” means the train travels without a delay of more than 2 minutes; other transit systems don’t start counting a delay until it reaches the 5-minute mark).
• 250,000 - average number of passenger boardings on a weekday
• 20,000 - number of customers carried during the busiest hour (7-8 am).
• 12,000 - number of customers carried during that hour between Commercial-Broadway Station and downtown.
• five - equivalent number of freeway or tunnel lanes to the above (figuring the Alex Fraser Bridge, Ironworkers’ Memorial Bridge and George Massey Tunnel each carries 2,000 vehicles per lane, each vehicle carrying 1.1 - 1.2 persons).
• 15,000 - number of rides per hour the SkyTrain fleet is capable of carrying after delivery of the 48 new cars through 2009.
• 1.2 billion - total number of SkyTrain passengers since inception. This would form a lineup stretching from the Earth to the Moon and halfway back again. 
• 4,000,000 km - average distance logged by each of the original 114 Mark I cars (100 times around the Equator)
• 675,000,000 km - total distance logged by all 258 SkyTrain cars (more than 2 trips to the Sun and back).
• one - the equivalent number of round-trips to and from Antarctica logged by SkyTrains each day (480 trips to and from Downtown Vancouver, totalling more than 33,000 train-kilometres).

Quick Facts:

SkyTrain is the oldest and one of the longest automated driverless light rapid transit systems in the world.

The Expo and Millennium SkyTrain Lines connect downtown Vancouver with the cities of Burnaby, New Westminster and Surrey.

The Canada Line connects downtown Vancouver to the Vancouver International Airport (YVR) and the city of Richmond.

SkyTrain will be extended further northeast with the Evergreen Line linking the communities of Coquitlam, Port Moody and Burnaby.

Learn More at: 

Video: On Track, a SkyTrain project video from 1983! (buzzer.translink.ca)
Trans link schedule lookup (tripplanning.translink.ca)

Media Contacts:

Kate Trotter
Government Communications and Public Engagement
Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure
250 356-8241