A third Evergreen Line station for Coquitlam's City Centre appears to be firmly on track after a $7-million boost this week from the federal government.
On Thursday, Tri-City MP and Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore announced the cash for the new Lincoln station - in Coquitlam Centre mall property at Lincoln Avenue and Pinetree Way - as part of a P3 Canada Fund project with Pensionfund Realty Ltd., a privately held real estate company that owns the mall.
Pensionfund, Coquit-lam's largest corporate taxpayer at $6.3 million last year, will donate a chunk of its northeast parking lot between Lincoln and Northern avenues for the station.
Money is also coming from developers building highrises in the area. To date, the city has less than $1 million in the Density Bonus Fund - City Centre Amenities that was set up last year to pay for the Lincoln station.
But density bonuses - a zoning tool that allows developers to build more housing units, taller buildings or more floor space than normally allowed in exchange for a public benefit - have been committed by Polygon and Onni, for example, for their planned towers at Windsor Gate and Westwood Street to the tune of $1 million each.
Because the station construction has yet to be publicly tendered, city officials were mum on how much Lincoln will cost to build.
But Port Moody Mayor Mike Clay told The Tri-City News after the press conference his city was quoted about $25 million to have a city-funded station at the west end of downtown Port Moody and was told it would require 15,000 more people living close by to justify it.
Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart said City Centre will continue to grow, with about a dozen more highrises planned.
Asked by The News about the need for three stations within four blocks of one another - Coquitlam Central will be located at the current bus loop at Barnet and Lougheed while the Douglas College station will be next to the Evergreen Cultural Centre at Pinetree and Guildford ways - he argued that a third station is needed to support that density not only to make public transit more accessible but to take cars off the street, reduce greenhouse gases and spur economic development.
Stewart said the Coquitlam doesn't want to see its rapid-transit line be like the Millennium Line, where surrounding growth hasn't progressed as anticipated.
Stewart also praised MP Moore for making the P3 project happen, with Ottawa's contribution to the $1.4-billion dollar Evergreen Line now standing at $424 million. "Without the help of the federal government, this collaboration may not have gotten off the ground," Stewart said. "The train wouldn't have left the station."
Stewart also promised that Lincoln Station will be open when Evergreen is running in the summer of 2016, making the stop "an integral part" of the City Centre.
Moore said he's pleased the line is now in the works. "For a long time, the Evergreen Line was talked about," he said. "It was theorized. It was debated. It went back and forth. It's moving forward now. Construction is beginning. Planning has been happening for a long time."
He added: "The [Lincoln] station is an important component of what the Evergreen Line will mean for the Tri-Cities. It will bring more rapid transit access to this fast-growing area and it will improve transit linkages and reduce traffic congestion here in this city centre of Coquitlam."
City-owned rapid-transit stations are not new. The city of Vancouver owns the Olympic Village station site and funded the station's construction to spur redevelopment of its lands and the neighbouring southeast False Creek neighbourhood.
