SkyTrain & Hotel Delay Meets International Soccer Play
Vancouver’s Broadway Subway, delayed to 2027, faces FIFA 2026 tourism boom. Hotel tax may fall short as rooms dwindle. Creative transit solutions needed! #SkyTrain #FIFA
Broadway Subway Project
By Elke Porter | WBN News Vancouver | May 17, 2025
Vancouver’s Broadway Subway Project, a dazzling $2.95 billion extension of the SkyTrain’s Millennium Line from Clark Drive to Arbutus Street, is strutting toward a fall 2027 debut, a smidge later than its planned 2026 bow.
Launched in 2020, this 5.7-km transit gem hit bumps like a 2022 concrete strike and tricky tunneling under the Canada Line. Tunnel boring wrapped in spring 2025, but the budget’s inched up from $2.83 billion, per the province’s December 2024 update. A small price for a transit masterpiece, right?
The timing’s a bit troubling with Vancouver hosting seven FIFA Men’s World Cup matches in 2026, expecting over a million out-of-province visitors through 2031, adding over $1 billion in spending and $224 million in provincial tax revenue.
But with hotel rooms—13,290 in Vancouver—snapped up faster than a free kick, the 2.5% Major Events MRDT hotel tax, approved in 2022 and active since February 2023, might not score as expected. Adding $12.50 per $500 nightly rate, it raised $29.2 million in 2023, aiming for $230 million by 2030.
With no new hotels until late this decade and rates soaring, revenue could fizzle, and costs might outpace projections. Mayor Ken Sim stays chipper, saying, “The hotel tax is a way of having guests fund it,” but extending it past 2030 is on the table. City council recently approved the new policy to help meet growing tourism demand as major international events, like the 2026 FIFA men’s World Cup, loom.
Key components of the new hotel policy include:
- Encouraging hotel development in the downtown core, including time-limited relaxations of restrictions on mixed hotel-residential projects in the central business district.
- Expanding upon 2024 Broadway Plan updates by permitting additional building height and density for hotel projects.
- Allowing greater density for hotels along commercial high streets citywide.
- Enabling existing hotels to renew and expand operations.
The subway will eventually zip commuters from VCC-Clark to Arbutus in 11 minutes, saving 30 minutes daily, linking to the 99 B-Line bus to UBC, with bike parkades at key stations. This will definitely make a difference for thousands of commuters who rely on transit on a daily basis.
Until 2027, Vancouver’s will need to work on conjuring up transportation tricks—pop-up shuttles, boosted bike-sharing, and a whole slew of trained Uber drivers. Sim wishes for a region-wide tax, but in the meantime Vancouver’s set to charm FIFA fans with creative pizzazz and a transit glow that’ll shine for decades.
#BroadwaySubway #VancouverFIFA2026 #SkyTrainExtension #TransitVancouver #FIFAWorldCup #MajorEventsMRDT #WBN News Vancouver #Elke Porter
Connect with Elke at Westcoast German Media or on LinkedIn: Elke Porter or contact her on WhatsApp: +1 604 828 8788
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