By: Niveja Assalaarachchi, News Writer
On May 6, the BC government announced the latest detour developments along Broadway in Vancouver. A road closure and a subsequent road detour is set to occur in July on West Broadway between Cambie street and Alberta street. These changes will last for about six months after the FIFA World Cup. Vehicle traffic will be rerouted to West 8th street between Alberta and Ash Street. Due to this road closure, businesses in the affected area will have reduced traffic, with sidewalk accessibility and limited parking.
This road closure is a result of the Broadway Subject project: a $2.9 billion provincial project that will extend the Millennium Line from its current terminus at VCC-Clark station to Arbutus Street and Broadway. The project has faced numerous setbacks with an original project completion date of 2025 being pushed to the fall of 2027, as a result of construction issues.
The provincial government shared in a statement that the closure is necessary in speeding up road reconstruction along the corridor, claiming that the detour “will reduce disruption from 14 months to six months.”
The Peak reached out to Rania Hatz, who is currently serving as the executive director of the Cambie Village Business Association, to understand what businesses in the area feel about the new road closure.
She shared that while businesses expected the road closure to come to their area, they were shocked at the timeframe of the detour. Hatz claimed, “There wasn’t any consultation, and nor was there any notice. We were given notice 20 minutes before the press conference about this. So there are people who renewed leases, not knowing that traffic would be diverted.”
Hatz critiqued the lack of consideration shown to businesses by various levels of government.
“These are people, this is their livelihood, this is their business. They get up every morning expecting to go to work and make some money for their families. We’re not talking the billionaires, we’re talking the ma’s and pa’s”
— Rania Hatz, executive director of the Cambie Village Business Association
She proposed that the municipality could offer a tax break to properties affected by the road closure. She noted that this could allow property owners to lower their tenants’ rents as a form of relief to businesses in the area. “We’re not talking about compensation since they’re not wanting to do compensation [ . . . ] but at least they could stop charging them money.”
In a statement to The Peak, the City of Vancouver said that it “is supporting the province to help make this pending closure efficient to reduce the overall duration of road reconstruction of the Broadway Subway Project.” The city also highlighted two tax reliefs, targeted land assessment averaging and the development potential relief program pilot, on offer for “eligible light industrial and business properties.”
The BC Ministry of Transportation and Transit shared with The Peak that the building of each of these underground stations “requires a tailored approach to complete this phase of work, while minimizing impacts on the surrounding community and travelling public.” They added, however, that “this will be the final full closure of Broadway for the project.”
The Millennium Line extension will add five additional underground SkyTrain stations connecting to the new Arbutus terminus station: Great Northern Way-Emily Carr, Mount Pleasant, Broadway-City Hall, Oak-VGH, and South Granville. At Broadway-City Hall station, a new station will directly connect the Millennium and Canada Line for the first time.
