Organizers of a petition to advance the SkyTrain extension to UBC’s main campus hope the momentum built by public support will influence decision makers beyond the Endowment Lands.
Solomon Yi-Kieran, the UBC Alma Mater Society’s (AMS) vice president of external affairs, said the petition – launched in early summer 2025 – amassed over 15,000 signatures.
Since then, they have succeeded in having their case for the SkyTrain extension presented to lawmakers in Victoria and Ottawa.
“In November, I was able to get (Nanaimo- Lantzville) MLA George Anderson (Parliamentary Secretary for Transportation and Transit) to read the petition in the Legislature during Question Period,” Yi-Kieran told The Campus Resident, adding they also held a meeting with Minister of Transportation and Transit and Port Coquitlam MLA Mike Farnworth.
Yi-Kieran said they also went to Ottawa in February, discussing the petition with “MPs from all parties”. Discussions in the nation’s capital were held with the pacific caucus of the Liberal Party – which represents 20 Liberal MPs from B.C. – who expressed disappointment over the project’s delay, according to the AMS VP.
The B.C. government first expressed its support for a Millennium Line expansion to UBC in 2008, with a completion date in 2020. The federal government has since committed $14 million toward the planning of the UBC extension.
“On January 14, we held an 18th birthday party for the UBC SkyTrain to mark 18 years since the project was first promised,” Yi-Kieran said. “We had cake, birthday hats, and speakers outside of Broadway City Hall SkyTrain Station.”
A pro-SkyTrain rally was also held on campus last October and was attended by Vancouver City Councillors Lucy Maloney and Sean Orr. The event prompted the councillors and Yi-Kieran to write and submit a motion to city council.
The motion, passed in the same month, calls on the provincial and federal governments to make good on their original commitments, advance the project, and release a business case.
Yi-Kieran said the petition, the motion, and the “birthday party” have brought the UBC SkyTrain extension “back into the spotlight of political discourse.”
“Now, we need to continue lobbying and pushing at the AMS level, the university level, and the municipal level to get this project over the finish line and see shovels in the ground,” they explained.
A 5.7 km Millennium Line SkyTrain extension to Arbutus Street is reaching completion, with an opening scheduled for fall 2027, giving further momentum to Yi-Kieran and the AMS’s efforts.
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