Vancouver's Gondola Dreams May Be Too Expensive To Come True

A proposed gondola service linking Vancouver’s Skytrain line to a rapidly growing university campus community atop Burnaby Mountain, in the east end of the city, represents a clean, efficient and cost-effective transit service, according to a new business case analysis prepared by CH2M Hill last fall and released Wednesday by Translink, the regional transportation authority.

But agency officials say they haven’t figured out how to finance the upfront capital costs – an estimated $120 million – as well as a $10 million differential in the long-term operating expenses, meaning the much-publicized project has yet to get a green light to replace an increasingly crowded shuttle bus service. “On pure financial terms, the [gondola] is more expensive to operate than the bus service,” says Translink manager of infrastructure Jeffrey Busby. “The issue of how to cover that gap hasn’t been addressed.”