The City of Vancouver laid out its case this week for a $2.8-billion rapid-transit line that would run underground along the Broadway corridor, arguing that despite the hefty price tag, a subway is more efficient and less disruptive than streetcar service.

“Light rail doesn’t meet the people-moving needs of the corridor,” said Jerry Dobrovolny, Vancouver’s director of transportation.

The city’s push for a subway line tunnelled along the corridor comes after years of talk on how best to relieve passenger congestion along the region’s second-busiest travel corridor, after the downtown core, and the most heavily used bus route in North America.

Serving the University of B.C. and the central Broadway business district (spanning from Main to Burrard streets), the route sees about 160,000 daily transit trips.

During peak morning hours, some 2,000 passengers at Commercial and Broadway are passed by with over-crowded buses failing to meet demand.

About half of the transit users are coming into the city from elsewhere in the region.

Meanwhile, commercial and residential development plans along the corridor itself are expected to only increase the pressure.

“We can say with some certainty that the current intolerable situation is going to get much, much worse,” said Dobrovolny.

The city’s vision calls for a bored tunnel that would run underground from Vancouver Community College, what is now the end of the Millennium Line, to UBC.

Dobrovolny said modern technology means the upheaval to businesses and residents that marred the construction of the Canada Line will be significantly minimized.

“We’re talking about a bored tunnel through the corridor and a bored tunnel does not cause disruptions to the surface except at station locations,” he said.

A surface-level light-rail line, by contrast, would have “tremendous impact” to the area, particularly west of Arbutus Street, where the corridor narrows.

Under that model, the city said the entire corridor would have to be dug up from building face to building face. Trees and sidewalks would have to be removed, over 90 per cent of current parking lost and drivers restricted on where they can turn at just about every intersection.

“It’s the cut-and-cover without the cover,” Dobrovolny said.

Ultimately, it comes down to the ability to move people, and city staff say a subway service is better able to handle congestion as ridership grows.

Existing council policy supports a staged construction approach with the initial subway line running west to Arbutus Street.

The second phase would see the line continue on to UBC, with new stations, at a cost of about $50 million each, built in as needed.

Costs of phase one of the project are estimated to be around $1.5 billion — a figure the city is hoping could prove more palatable to a cash-strapped regional transit authority.

TransLink spokesman Derek Zabel said while some kind of solution to Broadway corridor congestion a top TransLink priority, there are other needs across the region, including a demand for rapid-transit in Surrey.