The Dunsmuir Tunnel is a
subway tunnel below Dunsmuir Street in
Vancouver, British Columbia
Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...
, Canada. The tunnel is used by the
Expo Line of
Metro Vancouver
The Metro Vancouver Regional District (MVRD), or simply Metro Vancouver, is a Canadian political subdivision and Corporation, corporate entity representing the metropolitan area of Greater Vancouver, designated by provincial legislation as o ...
's
SkyTrain rapid transit system. It is located
downtown
''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...
and has
Burrard and
Granville stations built within the tunnel. The western tunnel portal is located midway between
Waterfront and Burrard stations, while the eastern portal is adjacent to
Stadium–Chinatown station.
History
The tunnel was originally built by the Northern Construction Company to connect the
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway () , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Canadian Pacific Ka ...
railyards on
Burrard Inlet
Burrard Inlet () is a shallow-sided fjord in the northwestern Lower Mainland, British Columbia, Canada. Formed during the last Ice Age, it separates the City of Vancouver and the rest of the lowland Burrard Peninsula to the south from the coa ...
and
False Creek
False Creek () is a short narrow inlet in the heart of Vancouver, separating the Downtown Vancouver, Downtown and West End, Vancouver, West End list of neighbourhoods in Vancouver, neighbourhoods from the rest of the city. It is one of the four ...
at a cost of $1.6 million. It opened on July 17, 1932, and was built to a height of and a depth of below street level.
The tunnel's original east portal was located further south than the current portal, easing trains into the False Creek yards on a gentle southward curve. It was clearly visible until about 2005, where it was almost completely hidden next to an outdoor storage area behind
Costco
Costco Wholesale Corporation is an American multinational corporation which operates a chain of membership-only big-box warehouse club retail stores. As of 2021, Costco is the third-largest retailer in the world, and as of August 2024, Cos ...
. The original portal was destroyed in 2011 to make way for a new development, but there remains an abandoned section of tunnel, unused by SkyTrain.
The tunnel was taken over by
BC Transit
BC Transit is a provincial Crown corporations of Canada, Crown corporation responsible for coordinating the delivery of public transportation within British Columbia, Canada, outside Greater Vancouver. BC Transit is headquartered in Victoria, Bri ...
in the early 1980s when the SkyTrain system was built in conjunction with
Expo 86
The 1986 World Exposition on Transportation and Communication, or simply Expo 86, was a world's fair held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada from May 2 until October 13, 1986. The fair, the theme of which was "Transportation and Communicatio ...
. Because the tunnel is only wide enough to accommodate a single railway track but with sufficiently high clearance, a superstructure was built inside the tunnel to carry the westbound SkyTrain track above the eastbound track. This results in the two stations within the tunnel having a
split platform configuration.
See also
*
List of tunnels in Canada
References
External links
Vancouver Tunnels
{{Bridges of Greater Vancouver
Expo Line (SkyTrain)
Railway tunnels in British Columbia
Buildings and structures in Vancouver
Tunnels completed in 1932
Tunnels in Greater Vancouver