What is the Broadway Subway Project doing at Cambie Street?
Our crews have relocated the Cambie Combined Sewer to make way for the future Broadway-City Hall Station additions. Now, excavation is underway for the connection between the southbound platform of the Canada Line and the future Millennium Line extension.
The work area is on the west side of Cambie Street between W. Broadway and 10th Avenue and will be excavated to 16 metres at the deepest point. Crews are excavating approximately 5,000 cubic metres of material at this location to make way for the new connection. Once complete, elevators, escalators and stairs will carry passengers from one line to the other under Cambie Street. This will create a seamless, quick underground connection for passengers with no need to exit the fare-paid zone.
The sewer is “combined” because it carries both sewage and water runoff from five Vancouver neighbourhoods to wastewater treatment facilities. As part of the city’s critical infrastructure, crews were unable to shut down the pipe. Instead, the team had to create a bypass system to move flows from the section being replaced and connect a new pipe. Once the tie-in was complete, the bypass system was removed. The new section is now fully in use.
Relocating the Cambie Combined Sewer included updating the pipe diameter from 1.8 metres to 2.4 metres. The Broadway Subway Project team opted to increase pipe diameter to better prepare the system for population growth and increased heavy rainfall due to climate change. To give you a sense of the increase in the pipe size, a person would now be able to stand up in the pipe without issue!
