There's still no timeline to build the SFU Burnaby Mountain gondola
However, the exclusion is because the 2025 Investment Plan is primarily focused on providing an interim solution to address TransLink’s fiscal cliff — not only to prevent major service cuts but also to support service improvements to address overcrowding from growing ridership.
Until 2028, when new provincial legislation is approved to provide the public transit authority with unspecified new types of revenue sources, TransLink is hiking fares, parking taxes, and property taxes as an interim measure for addressing its fiscal cliff. The provincial government has also come forward with $312 million in additional operating subsidies to cover the remaining shortfall from 2025 to 2027.
“This Investment Plan is focused on addressing our operating shortfall, reducing overcrowding, and expanding service for customers,” TransLink spokesperson told Daily Hive Urbanized today.
Furthermore, due to the public transit authority’s ongoing financial issues, there will be no Investment Plan for 2026.
Mountain confirmed that after the 2025 Investment Plan, which is expected to be finalized by TransLink’s board of directors and Mayors’ Council in late April 2025, the next Investment Plan will be created in Spring 2027.
Assuming the gondola is included in the 2027 Investment Plan and is fully funded, this pushes the project’s potential implementation toward the end of the decade at the very earliest.
SFU Burnaby Mountain gondola route map. (TransLink)
Artistic rendering of the SFU Burnaby gondola lower terminal building next to SkyTrain Production Way-University Station. (TransLink)
However, he notes that the gondola remains an overarching capital plan project within TransLink’s broader 10-year Access For Everyone Plan, which includes not only the gondola but also the UBC SkyTrain extension, a doubling of bus service, up to nine new BRT lines, and potential rapid transit for the North Shore.
“The Burnaby Mountain Gondola remains a priority in our Access for Everyone Plan, and we will work to secure funding for the project,” continued Mountain.
Daryl Dela Cruz, a co-founder of the Build the SFU Gondola advocacy group, also known for his previous advocacy for the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension, says the apparent delay comes as a disappointment against the growing need for new and improved services to reach the university.
Currently, according to Dela Cruz, 16 articulated buses are dedicated to the No. 145 Production Station/SFU bus route — one of the primary bus routes to the campus and the bus route that will be replaced by the gondola. Even though buses depart every four minutes during peak hours, students, faculty, staff, and residents often face long waits up to four buses.
As well, these buses are prone to breaking down due to the heavy wear-and-tear up the steep mountain. During snowfall, the buses are inoperable, forcing the university to close the campus.
The peak of Burnaby Mountain, where the campus is located, is 1,214 ft. above sea level.
Conceptual artistic rendering of the design of the SFU Burnaby Mountain gondola cabin. (TransLink)
Conceptual artistic rendering of the towers for the SFU Burnaby Mountain gondola. (TransLink)
Fly-through view simulation inside a cabin on the SFU Burnaby Mountain gondola. (TransLink)
Moreover, with a capacity for 3,000 passengers per hour per direction, the gondola provides long-term capacity that exceeds the peak hour capacity of the 99 B-Line, which is the busiest bus route in Canada and the United States. Each one-way gondola trip would take just seven minutes, with large cabins fitting up to about 30 passengers — similar to Whistler Blackcomb’s Peak 2 Peak Gondola — arriving every one minute during peak hours.
“Decades since its conceptualization, the SFU/Burnaby Mountain Gondola (BMG) has still not gotten to the construction stage even as other projects like the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain (SLS) have gotten moving in this region, and another gondola (the Blue Grouse Gondola at Grouse Mountain) has even been fully built. In the absence of the BMG, students and faculty continue to face the crowding and reliability issues of the existing 143 and 145 buses, which are at their limit,” said Dela Cruz.
“This setup at SFU and Burnaby Mountain has been unchanged for years, does not offer any room for growth, and is simply not reliable. A gondola system is purpose-built for climbing up mountains, and the shovels need to be on the ground for the BMG today, not in another three years.”
As of 2022, TransLink estimated the gondola project will carry a construction cost of about $210 million. Following years of significant market inflation in construction costs, this figure is now likely outdated.
Although a delay is apparent, there continues to be planning progress for the project, such as the transit-oriented development strategy agreement reached between TransLink, the City of Burnaby, and SFU earlier this year in exchange for the major investment. As well, also earlier this year, a public consultation on new and improved bus services contemplated how the bus network would be reconfigured from the opening of the gondola.
Route of the Burnaby Mountain Gondola between Production Way-University Station and the SFU Burnaby campus, with the transit-oriented development areas around both terminal locations. (TransLink/City of Burnaby)
As for the region’s other major rapid transit project benefiting a major post-secondary institution, detailed technical planning work is well underway for SkyTrain Millennium Line’s westward extension from Arbutus to the University of British Columbia (UBC) campus. In 2024, contracted crews completed some of the preliminary geotechnical analysis work, involving drilling boreholes along the entire UBC SkyTrain route to extract soil samples for analysis to support the project’s business case.
In January 2025, Premier David Eby’s mandate letter to the new B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Transit made a specific emphasis to advance progress on the UBC SkyTrain extension. Other projects, such as the gondola and the BRT, were not specifically highlighted.
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