Each Newton commuter will take 5,000 commute trips from now to 2036. There are quick, easy ways for the city and province to significantly improve those trips, and soon.
For Immediate Release
Oct 20, 2026
Photo credit: Gavin Tadena
This morning, both the BC NDP and BC Conservatives promised to bring SkyTrain to Surrey’s Newton Town Centre.
This marks a rapid shift from Premier Eby’s commitment last week to the King George BRT. Incoming mayor Doug McCallum made SkyTrain to Newton a centrepiece of his winning campaign and the two leading provincial parties reacted quickly. Eby now says he is ‘ready to work’ with McCallum and discuss ‘what it would take’ with Prime Minister Carney, TransLink, and the Mayors’ Council to get a SkyTrain to Newton.
Surrey is a battleground that can decide this election. In 2024, the NDP’s one-seat majority came down to a 22-vote win in Guildford. City Centre and Newton were very close too.
We’ve been here before: Newton was promised LRT in 2018. Then Doug McCallum campaigned on a promise for a SkyTrain for Surrey instead which missed Newton completely. The money and political attention went east to a 16-km extension to Langley that won’t open until late 2029.
Eight years later, Newton is still waiting. Newton transit ridership is one of the highest in the region. The King George bus routes (R1, 321, 394) already carry 27,000 trips each weekday. However, buses do this without much priority, being largely stuck in the same traffic as everyone else. They crawl through congestion, are overcrowded and leave riders waiting. The 321 on King George has gotten 15% slower since 2019, one of the biggest speed drops in the region, and it remains one of the most crowded routes in the region. From our own engagements in Surrey, we’ve heard of riders complaining of overcrowded and unreliable, infrequent bus service.
King George BRT is a near-term rapid-transit solution that promised to provide much needed relief to Newton riders with dedicated lanes and a 40% travel-time reduction between Surrey City Centre and Semiahmoo Town Centre. It could be built and open within three years, extending all the way to South Surrey once fully funded. SkyTrain to Newton is exciting but realistically it will take a decade to be delivered. Consider BRT as Phase 1 while planning for the SkyTrain. Once the SkyTrain is done, the BRT will continue offering rapid service all the way to South Surrey.
The lesson from Scarborough
Scarborough is a part of Toronto that has many similarities to Surrey. They are far from downtown and often have to fight for equal treatment. When a Subway extension was finally proposed to Scarborough Town Centre, it would have involved a decade-long construction period where transit service would have gotten worse. TTCriders pushed for a temporary BRT while the Subway was being built. The Scarborough Busway opened three weeks ago, at a cost that’s less than one percent of the total Subway project.
Movement is calling on all provincial parties to:
- Ensure that transit has a sustainable funding source. What if we built a SkyTrain but didn’t have the money to actually run it. Without a new, stable revenue tool, our current transit system is set to face another funding crisis in about a year. In 2025, we faced a 50% cut in bus service and a 30% cut in rail service due to a funding deficit. We won’t be able to operate a new SkyTrain in Surrey without stable funding. Three of four major provincial parties have promised to solve this problem – the BC Conservatives are the only party that hasn’t explicitly committed to preventing a fiscal cliff at TransLink.
- Deliver the BRT to Newton and South Surrey within 3 years. Fund the BRT, honour the planning and engagement that has already been done, proceed with construction, and make sure it has priority lanes and signal priority. SkyTrain to Newton can be studied and planned but it cannot become another excuse to postpone rapid transit that Newton needs today.
- Don’t leave Guildford out. Guildford was also promised rapid transit alongside Newton in 2018, and is now set to lose its RapidBus. Movement wants to ensure that transit riders in Guildford also see service improvements once rapid transit to Newton is complete, instead of cuts. This should include frequent express service and transit priority. Similar corridors in other cities (like Seattle’s Madison Street) have all-day bus lanes.