---
title: "Solomon Yi-Kieran, Vancouver's youngest-ever councillor, will push for transit improvements"
description: "COPE City Councillor Solomon Yi-Kieran, who turns 21 the day before taking office on November 2, told Daily Hive Vancouver their first priorities will be a SkyTrain extension to UBC, covered bus stop benches, and dedicated bus lanes."
canonical_url: "https://voche.me/news/solomon-yi-kieran-transit-council-october-28"
last_updated: "2026-10-28T19:54:16.424Z"
---

[Solomon Yi-Kieran](/candidates/solomon-yi-kieran), who will become Vancouver's youngest-ever city councillor when the new council is sworn in on November 2, told Daily Hive Vancouver on October 28 that they plan to push for a SkyTrain extension to the University of British Columbia, covered benches at every bus stop, and dedicated bus lanes. Yi-Kieran ran with COPE Vancouver and won their seat with just over 60,000 votes.

Yi-Kieran turned 21 the day before the October 17 election.

"As a younger person, I use transit, and almost everyone I know uses transit basically daily. Most younger people cannot afford a car. Most younger people cannot afford to constantly be Ubering. And what you end up seeing is <span>

that

</span>

 transit is such an important thing," Yi-Kieran told Daily Hive Vancouver.

They said their interest in transit comes from two sources: their own daily use of the system and their father, who works as a bus and Handy-Dart driver.

## Transit as a political priority

Yi-Kieran told Daily Hive Vancouver they believe transit has not been treated as a priority by most elected officials because those officials are not transit users themselves. "Most elected officials <span>

follow

</span>

 the idea that it's only going to be the wealthy homeowners who vote, so they don't care about getting transit riders to come out and vote," they said.

Their promise tracker at voche.me includes a pledge to bring a motion for covered bus stop benches within their first month on council, as well as commitments to extend bus lanes and push for lower-cost transit passes.

## Work before the election

Before running for council, Yi-Kieran was involved in student politics at UBC, where they studied history. They led a campaign for the UBC SkyTrain that gathered 15,000 petition signatures and organized a protest outside Broadway-City Hall Station marking the 18-year delay of the project. They also worked with Councillors Sean Orr and Lucy Maloney on a unanimous council motion for the City to re-endorse the UBC SkyTrain.

Yi-Kieran grew up in both Canada and China, living in Victoria, Courtenay, Nanaimo, Vancouver, Tianjin and Kunming, and is fluent in Chinese.

The new council meets for the first time on November 2. Voters can track whether Yi-Kieran acts on their transit commitments at [/candidates/solomon-yi-kieran](/candidates/solomon-yi-kieran).

## Sitemap

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