At this point, it's unclear where all the money will come from to finance a subway line underneath Broadway in Vancouver.

But that hasn't stopped the city from issuing an optimistic projection.

Today, the vice president of Colliers Canada, Dave Taylor, tweeted a city timetable for getting to construction.

It suggests that public engagement and the final design development will take place in 2019.

By the fall of that year, construction could begin.

https://twitter.com/vancouvermrkt/status/859458625365975040

The TransLink mayors' council supports developing a Broadway subway from VCC-Clark Station to Arbutus and West Broadway.

In 2015, the cost was pegged at nearly $2 billion.

Much of the route is served by overcrowded 99B buses, which pass by at least 500,000 people every year.

Earlier this year, the province announced that it would match the federal government's $2.2-billion contribution to transportation in the Lower Mainland.

Under the funding formula, TransLink would have to come up with an additional $1.1 billion to cover the cost of projects listed in the mayors' council recommendations.

They include the Broadway subway and three light-rail lines in Surrey.

However, the B.C. Liberals have a promise dating back to 2013 that voters would have to approve any major transit expenditures in a plebiscite.

In the last plebiscite in 2015, voters soundly rejected a proposal to finance transportation infrastructure with a 0.5 percent hike in the provincial sales tax.