The opening of the brand-new Capstan Station on the SkyTrain network appears to be imminent, as the years-long construction safety fencing along the edge of the platforms has now been removed.
Construction crews are now working on the final finishing touches on the station’s public plaza areas, and while trains are still zooming through the station during the Canada Line’s operating hours, local residents tell Daily Hive Urbanized there have been overnight tests of the train’s stopping pattern at the platform in recent weeks.
Although the opening of this new infill station on the Canada Line is anticipated soon, it marks a major delay, as it was originally scheduled to open in 2023, before being postponed to mid-2024. Construction first began in September 2021.
When inquired, TransLink told Daily Hive Urbanized that the construction of Capstan Station faced “significant challenges” relating to the site’s unstable soil and changing site conditions that arose partly from surrounding work by other construction projects within the Capstan Village area. Capstan Station is located at the northeast corner of the intersection of No. 3 Road and Capstan Way — roughly mid-way between Bridgeport and Aberdeen stations.
These various construction challenges led to the need to perform structural upgrades to the station, which further impacted the project’s timeline, insurance costs, construction process, and construction costs. This was compounded by the previous pandemic-related supply chain issues.
September 2024 construction progress on SkyTrain Canada Line’s new Capstan Station. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)
The periods for crews to safely perform some of the most challenging and substantial parts of the construction process were also limited to overnight hours, which also necessitated numerous and much longer than anticipated periods of early nightly closures of the Canada Line’s segment between Bridgeport and Richmond-Brighouse stations over the last three years.
With all of these challenges combined, TransLink shared that the final cost for building Capstan Station is now about $62 million — representing a $10 million increase from the previously stated $52 million when construction began.
The funding commitment of $32.2 million by the City of Richmond, which spearheaded the project, remains unchanged. To fund the station, the municipal government collected a fee for every new home built in the Capstan Village neighbourhood since 2012; the area’s major developers include Concord Pacific, Polygon, Pinnacle International, and Yuangheng. The municipal government approached TransLink on advancing the project, after it had reached its revenue target in early 2019, years earlier than anticipated.
TransLink is covering the $10 million construction cost overrun, which increases the public transit authority’s share of the cost from $20 million to $30 million.
September 2024 construction progress on SkyTrain Canada Line’s new Capstan Station. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)
Capstan Station is one of four potential “future” stations on the Canada Line, including the subway stations of West 33rd Avenue and West 57th Avenue in Vancouver, and an additional elevated station to serve a future major eastward expansion of the terminal building of Vancouver International Airport.
Upon full buildout, major residential developments within the Capstan Village neighbourhood will be home to 16,000 residents in at least 6,000 homes within roughly a 10-minute walking radius from the station.
In pre-pandemic 2019, on an average weekday, over 37,000 passengers travelled on the Canada Line between Bridgeport and Aberdeen stations.
Capstan Station’s design is a significant design and future-proof improvement from other Canada Line stations, including more distinct architecture, both up and down escalators, a larger concourse, longer platforms reaching 52.5 metres to accommodate future three-car trains (as opposed to most Canada Line platforms being 40 metres), wider platforms for larger waiting and circulation spaces, retail space, and public art.
Construction is also underway on a major expansion of Oakridge-41st Avenue Station, with these upgrades tied to and largely privately funded by the developer of the Oakridge Park mall development. The completion of the first major renovation of an original Canada Line station is expected by late 2025.
Artistic rendering of Capstan Station on SkyTrain Canada Line. (Office of McFarlane Biggar Architects & Designers/TransLink)