Tunnel-boring machine breaks through at future Broadway-City Hall station

VANCOUVER — There’s a flurry of activity beneath the streets of Vancouver.

Elsie, one of two tunnel-boring machines in use for the Broadway Subway Project, broke through into the future Broadway-City Hall Station on April 14.

The Broadway Station will be the busiest and largest station for the Millennium Line SkyTrain extension, states a news release. It is also the deepest station at more than 20 metres underground so the new tunnels can travel underneath the Canada Line.

Elsie left Mount Pleasant Station for Broadway-City Hall Station on March 4, meaning the journey from station to station took roughly 44 days.

Before beginning to dig toward the Oak-VGH Station, Elsie will undergo cutterhead maintenance. So far, Elsie has excavated more than 1,300 metres of tunnel and installed more than 900 concrete tunnel liner rings.