Metrotown Station

Metrotown Station is an elevated SkyTrain station on the Expo Line in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. It is the second-busiest station in the SkyTrain system. The station is located on the south side of Central Boulevard, east of Willingdon Avenue.

History

Metrotown Station was built and opened in December 1985 as part of the original Expo Line of SkyTrain. The overhead walkway leading to Metropolis at Metrotown was added to the station in 1989 with the opening of the shopping centres. Originally, the bus loop was open-air and connect to the station via an at grade street crossing.^[2]

The station was originally designed as a suburban station serving residential neighbourhoods and local transit connections. It experienced a major traffic increase since the opening of nearby shopping centres, and the current passenger load and circulation already surpassed the design capacity of the station. As of 2011, Translink has established formal plans to retrofit and redesign the station to improve passenger flow and increase station capacity.^[3]

Services

• Metrotown Station is a major connection point for the TransLink bus routes in southern Vancouver and Burnaby.
• The station is connected via overhead walkway across Central Boulevard to a bus loop and Metropolis^[4] and Station Square malls.

• The Crystal Mall and many other retail developments are nearby on Kingsway, one block north of the station.
• Metrotown branch of the Burnaby Public Library is also one block away form the station.
• An ATM is available on the concourse level of the station.
• There is an A&W and Starbucks Coffee on the opposite end of the pedestrian overpass, near the mall entrance.

Station information

Station layout

Entrances

• East Entrance is located on the BC Parkway, north of Beresford Street and south of Central Boulvard. It can be found at the far east end of the platform. There is no elevator for this entrance, and no escalator is available between street and concourse level. The entrance is in close proximity to Bay 9 of the Metrotown transit exchange for connections to south Burnaby community shuttle services.

• East Entrance Mall Access connects bus loop, Metropolis, and Station Square shopping centres with the concourse level through a narrow pedestrian overpass. The overpass also contains a stair access to the north side of Central Boulvard. Although up and down escalators are provided by bus loop and shopping centres, the overpass is at a slightly higher level than the concourse of the station, which results in 3 steps of stairs the station entrance.

• West Entrance is an elevator-only access at the south side of Central Boulvard. The elevator connects street level directly with platform bypassing the concourse level. Ticket vending machines and validators can be found at street level. This entrance provides connection to HandyDart service.

Transit connections

Metrotown Station provides an partial off-street transit exchange on Beresford Street, and in front of the ground-level entrance to Metropolis shopping centre. Bus bay assignments is as follows^[5]:

References