Perfect. I'll just speak to what you have in front of you then.
Again, thank you, and I'd like to take a moment to introduce the City of Surrey to the committee. We're a city of 520,000 people and growing very fast. In fact, we are one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, and approximately 1,000 new residents arrive each and every month to the city. We'll be growing from our current population of 520,000 people to over 850,000 in the next 25 to 30 years, surpassing Vancouver as the most populous city in British Columbia.
We're also a young and diverse community, both culturally and in economic terms. One-third of our population is under 19, a growing trend that will support our good public transit system.
On slide 2, we can show graphically what our community is. We're in the lower mainland of the Vancouver area. There are 21 municipalities in Metro Vancouver, and Surrey is the largest at over 315 square kilometres. That's bigger than Vancouver, Burnaby, and part of Richmond combined. We're well-connected to the Asia-Pacific gateway, and to the U.S. border, having the U.S. border in the southern area of our community, with the second-busiest truck crossing in the nation.
This context highlights the significance of immediate infrastructure needs facing Surrey and the Metro Vancouver area, and the necessity for meaningful partnership with senior levels of government. Municipalities need the provinces and the federal government to support and move forward on growing infrastructure for our community and for the nation as a whole. The investing in Canada plan provides a framework for that collaboration, and the early funding of projects in Surrey has already flowed and has been very beneficial.
Slide number 4 is an overview of our project which is focusing on the Surrey light rail project, but I'd also like to highlight a number of infrastructure projects that have recently been completed or are currently under way with support from the federal government. Those are identified as the stars on your map, on slide 3, and include the Museum of Surrey expansion, the Surrey Art Centre upgrade, and the Cloverdale Athletic Park and field house construction. We'd be happy to speak to those later on if there are specific questions.
We'd like to highlight our light rail project, which is shown in red. The first phase of our 27 kilometres is 10.5 kilometres and that is in the upside-down “L” shape that you see on the map; and the long section going from the northwest to the southeast is the second extension, 16.5 kilometres, and that goes from Surrey into the township of Langley and the city of Langley as well.
The mayors' council vision calls for construction of the 27 kilometres to connect our communities with both Langleys but also our town centres in Guildford, Newton, and city centre.
Our last slide basically talks about our collaboration with TransLink that we've been doing for quite a number of years now. I also want to highlight what's happening in our community as far as expansion is concerned. We'll be able to serve an additional 200,000 people who will be within walking distance once the light rail project is completed. Since 2006, Surrey and TransLink have collaborated on planning and delivering the light rail early works program funded through PTIF for phase one.
To date, contracts have been let on three early works projects and the fourth one is being tendered. The three early works projects under construction right now include the Bear Creek Bridge replacement, which is replacing a bridge on a six-lane road; extension of the trunk storm sewer at 104th Avenue, valued at about $7.5 million; a new water main in another location to free up space in the road corridor for the light rail project, valued at $2.9 million; and finally, our fourth project, which is relocating some BC Hydro transmission towers, estimated at a cost of about $2.83 million.
These projects are critical to the smooth transition and cost-effectiveness of delivering our larger light rail project, which we're hoping to go out for concession on later this year, and then for the project to start in 2019.
In summary, the construction of the early works is well under way and all the projects are scheduled to be completed by the end of 2018, which will put us in fine form to go on and build the first 10.5 kilometres of the light rail project.
We're happy to answer any questions you may have on our project and where we're at, at this time.
Thank you.