Starting on Friday, Feb. 28, 2025, SkyTrain passengers transferring between the Expo Line and Millennium Line at Commercial-Broadway Station will no longer need to exit the station and use the East Broadway pedestrian crosswalk.
TransLink announced today that this extremely inconvenient street-level detour will end on Friday, and passengers can use the reopened west pedestrian overpass to reach the north side of the station complex directly. This also means the staircase and elevator for this overpass north of East Broadway will be reopened.
However, the escalators for the west overpass will remain temporarily closed, as construction crews are still working on completely replacing the two escalators. But the public transit authority states crews have now made it possible to reopen the staircase and elevator much earlier than originally planned.
The west overpass has been temporarily closed since late September 2025, when construction on replacing the set of escalators first began. These new replacement escalators are expected to reach completion and open in Fall 2025.
Accessibility changes at SkyTrain Commercial-Broadway Station due to the closure of the Expo Line’s north escalators, as of October 2024. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)
Accessibility changes at SkyTrain Commercial-Broadway Station due to the closure of the Expo Line’s north escalators, as of October 2024. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)
Although TransLink’s official detour route through the station is at street level, many passengers have been observed walking through the Expo Line’s stopped inbound trains to access the recently built east pedestrian overpass, avoiding the need to descend to street level.
Both overpasses are also used to reach the 99 B-Line and other destinations in the area, with thousands of passengers typically using these elevated crossings on a daily basis. Commercial-Broadway Station is SkyTrain’s third busiest station.
In September 2024, TransLink also reached completion on its replacement of the escalators reaching the Millennium Line platforms at this station, following a lengthy escalator closure that first began in December 2023.
Newly completed replacement escalators reaching the Millennium Line platforms at SkyTrain Commercial-Broadway Station, as of September 2024. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)
All four escalators at the station on the north side of East Broadway were built over 20 years ago for the 2002 opening of the original Millennium Line, which transformed this station into a major regional interchange hub.
According to TransLink, these new escalators will be more durable, feature variable speed options for power saving, and are easier to maintain and will minimize future downtime. The cost of replacing all four aging escalators is $10.5 million, and are a part of the ongoing program to replace aging escalators across the system.
More passengers are expected to change between the Expo Line and Millennium Line starting in Fall 2027, when the Millennium Line’s Broadway extension to Arbutus opens. Upon the opening of the subway, the 99 B-Line will no longer reach Commercial-Broadway Station, with its route truncated between UBC bus exchange and the new Arbutus Station.