Yes to Streetcars. No to cars.

Absolutely and without a doubt we should keep it. I rode it several times and am thoroughly impressed with the quality and convenience.

Furthermore, and aside from the tentative plans, we should buy another. The second should circle the Granville-Davie-Denman-Robson corridor. Cars should not be allowed on those streets and sidewalks should be widened to allow for cafes, restaurants and people to stretch their legs. Then we will be well on our way to a more livable city.

I gave up my car more than a decade ago. There's no going back for me. I have a feeling that if more people would agree and choose a streecar over their current auto, if transportation were available. And before we ask if this is affordable, we should ask the same question about cars and all of the roads and upkeep necessary to keep them running.

Of course, we know the answer about cars: which is an obvious: NO!

Keep it. Build it. Ride it.

Keep it. Keep it running between Olympic Village Station during the summer, and extend the line to Science World through Chinatown and then through Gastown and the waterfront to Stanley Park.

After that begin a line from Granville Island to
East Bouvelard using the old Arbutus line.

jeez, just run some crappy

surface trains on the available track (screw the "creme de la creme" snots). Anything that will pull a few cars,. We're broke now anyway.

absolutely keep them!!

absolutely keep them!! sustainable and accessible transit is something our city is sorely lacking... plus look at the success of similar street cars in European cities... I say pay for it now as we are going to have to start phasing out cars pretty soon anyway... not much oil left eh?

lose it - they are the worse

lose it - they are the worse system possible for urban areas.

I lived in Toronto for 7 excruciating years and can say with full authority they are a hindrance to both the physical movement of goods and people but also a massive, never-ending drain on finances.

1. Tracks are permanent in the ground and need to be serviced every few years - I saw the same area done twice in TO over the course of time spent there.

2. When one breaks down all traffic is blocked on the street backing up not only traffic in the immediate area but also other streetcars on that route. Our Intelligent Bus system in Vancouver does not produce this energy draining, time-destroying disruption on a daily basis.

3. All those beautiful bikes with thin racer wheels will be totally useless. Expensive garbage as even with mountain bike tires the tracks are tricky to deal with. In fact it will get much more difficult to use any sort of people powered transportation once tracks are installed.

I, as someone who enjoys risk and played on inner city streets as a child and wears spiked bracelets while roller-blading on the street was one of the few.

4. They are expensive to maintain requiring maintenance and custom parts on a scale not required for most bus systems.

5. Just look at the TTC in Toronto who have to beg every year for more and more money from ALL levels of government.

6. So why are they being pushed by lefties? They produce a lot of work for unions. Remember earlier when I mentioned seeing them doing it twice while I was there? It's like a make work project for the where otherwise there would be none.

It forces everyone to live in the slow lane and brings a level of easternification to Vancouver that is simply unacceptable. Enough, the Olympics are over, we must reclaim the city for our own unique ways.

The rest of you are more than welcome to migrate away and live in the Toronto of your dreams.

Extend it the other way!

We need to look at extending it through Kerrisdale and out to Marpole. Marpole lost it's B-line service, so they should have something else to rely on. The Kerrisdale business' could benefit being on a new line. To pay for it all we need to do is to charge a land development fee on new construction along the line. Developers will be whiling to pay for it since people want to live near transportation. As we saw during the Olympics, if there are choices people will use them. It could be a win win.

Urbanities in the West

With all the 'full authority' that personal anecdotes can muster:
http://www.edmonton.ca/transportation/ets/urban-lrt.aspx

Even in the US of Autosaurs :
http://ddot.dc.gov/DC/DDOT/On+Your+Street/Mass+Transit+in+DC/DC+Streetcar/DC+Streetcars+Arrive+in+US

(western states):
http://www.seattlestreetcar.org/

or here:
http://www.trimet.org/max/index.htm

or here:
http://www.lightrailnow.org/news/n_tuc_2006-05b.htm

Or keep heading further west ...
across the Pacific and down a bit:
http://www.yarratrams.com.au/desktopdefault.aspx

or so far west you end up East again:
http://www.hktramways.com/en/home.html

or here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMqX-9a73T8&feature=related

and here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcpxSgAtsLM&feature=related

and here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSw_2We3XTA&feature=related

Still more?
http://www.metrolink.co.uk/futuremetrolink/index.asp

But not in Vancouver?
Perhaps some people don't get out much beyond the mountains.

Dump it

It's been running for three summers already as former Councillor Herbert's contribution to tourism transport. It's a nice idea, but its ridership is too low, its costs too high, and the chance of increasing transit use in the city nonexistent.

Keeping it would be akin to similar mistakes such as building the RAV line at 85,000 riders per day (if you cancel all buses that could go along the route) when the next line needed was Evergreen/UBC at more than 140,000 riders per day.

Let the City run it as a tourist attraction, just as they have done for the past few years. I've ridden it a couple of times with out-of-town visitors, and it's delightful, but remarkably impractical for anyone except certain False Creek residents.

Think of it like the little ferries in False Creek, and let private business run it.

With careful planning,

With careful planning, streetcars could be a great success. Thankfully, there are lots of wide streets in downtown Vancouver that could easily accomodate both a reduced number of car lanes and dedicated streetcar lanes. The other way to go is to make the street a pedestrian/streetcar zone only. In any case, the streetcars should run at a reduced speed when in downtown shopping areas.

The main thing to be careful about is to avoid having the streetcar line become a barrier. If the line is too separate from the rest of the street, it becomes a wall that discourages the natural flow of foot traffic from one side to the other, and is aesthetically displeasing to boot. In Saarbruecken, Germany, the streetcar killed a successful shopping street in this manner. (The street chosen was quite narrow. With a double track and a one-way motor vehicle lane with no traffic calming or reduced speed limit, the two sides of the street are now separated by three lanes of steel, and shoppers no longer cross back and forth with ease like they did before.)

I don't think the argument about bikes getting slotted into tracks is valid since 1) bikes wouldn't share the streetcar lanes if they were dedicated (could be slightly raised to separate them more from other traffic) and 2) this presupposes that Vancouver cyclists are totally useless as opposed to ones in Europe and other parts of the world!

Of course they should and

Of course they should and expand it, but I doubt the SkyTrain lobby will allow it though.

Think of it like the little

Think of it like the little ferries in False Creek, and let private business run it.
========================

There is far too much private business running things in this province and country as it is.

Duh......................

Does anyone in Vancouver realize that LRT/streetcar made SkyTrain obsolete about 20 years ago and only Vancouver pursues SkyTrain light-metro?

What the streetcar really is, is LRT for it is operating on a reserved rights-of-way, or a rights-of-way for the sole use of the tram. Streetcars, as the name states, run on streets.

No to Debunk Micheal T's myths:

1. Tracks are permanent in the ground and need to be serviced every few years:

Untrue, tram tracks in the streets last 30 to 40 years, only where there is tight curvature, will the tracks need earlier servicing.

2. When one breaks down all traffic is blocked on the street backing up not only traffic in the immediate area:

Vastly overstated. The reliability of LRT/streetcars is greater than SkyTrain, if one does breakdown, it is coupled to the next car an towed to a siding or the shops with minimal delay. With crossovers every few KM. ensures streetcar operations with minimal disruptions.

3. All those beautiful bikes with thin racer wheels will be totally useless.

Untrue, unless one wants to pedal their bikes on streetcar tracks. In Europe and the USA a resilient rubber like material is inserted in the flange-way to prevent this from happening.

4. They are expensive to maintain requiring maintenance and custom parts on a scale not required for most bus systems.

Completely false. Modern streetcars are cheaper to maintain than buses and parts are easily obtainable. With modular cars most parts can shipped to the manufacturer for refurbishment and a new part put back with minimal delays.

5. Just look at the TTC in Toronto who have to beg every year for more and more money from ALL levels of government.

So, this is true with every other transit agency in Europe and North America. Streetcars are cheaper to operate on transit routes, when ridership exceeds about 2,000 persons per hour per direction.

6. So why are they being pushed by lefties? They produce a lot of work for unions.

Laughably untrue. In fact streetcars reduce the numbers of drivers, maintenance and management personnel by a factor of four! One streetcar (1 driver) is as efficient as six buses (6 bus drivers) and for every tram or bus operated one needs at least 4 people to drive, maintain and manage them. Do the math.

It forces everyone to live in the slow lane and brings a level of easternification to Vancouver that is simply unacceptable.

Laughable untrue. Cities that operate streetcars/LRT are seen a prudent and farsighted, while cities operating buses are seen as dowdy and inefficient.

Ral streetcars

From RFV. Modern streetcars is the most built 'rail' transit mode in the world.

http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/on-street-light-rail-streetcars-trams-how-would-it-look/

http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/track-facts-modern-light-rail-track/

http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/how-green-is-my-rapid-transit/

Broadway light rail.

From Rail For The Valley.

http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/to-ubc-from-bcit-and-picinics-in-the-park-by-tram-the-light-rail-committees-broadway-light-rail-project/

How Safe Is Light Rail?

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:yOmWKlUFK90J:www.americandreamcoalition.org/transit/Lightrailsafety.doc+LRT+%2Baccidents+%2Btexas&cd=17&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

Absoluutely Grumpy!

And I like that they inconvenience autos, which means the auto user may say I'll take the streetcar next time ( a simple form of congestion tax-use publuic transit).

Strteetcars also allow for a better transfer network than looping bus routes.

Actually snert.......................

LRT/tram is the safest public transit mode in the world.

http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/light-rail-transit-the-safest-way-to-go/

SkyTrain kills 2 to 3 times more people annually than Calgary's LRT, yet both systems carry about the same ridership.

freebear

Buses are infinitely more flexible.

YEEEEEEEEESSSSSS!

A streetcar route is long overdue for downtown Vancouver & the westside. Something like this that links our major tourist destinations would be fabulous for residents and tourists. The train is beautiful, and I understand its very cost effective. We need to invest seriously in sustainable, accessible transit now and make our city more pedestrain friendly.

Redirect Funds From Highways

The money is there, it just needs to be redirected from highway expansion projects.
The Port Mann Bridge cost $3.3 billion. The South Fraser Perimeter Road is set to cost $1 billion.

Past is past

Street cars do really appeal to older man in overalls and choo-choo hats but they are slow and expensive. I rode the one to Graville Island a few times and while a novelty, it was about as fast as walking. Well not that slow but I could have ridden my bike faster.

Perhaps the most successful experiment in transit during the Olympics was closing the curb lanes on Broadway to parking. Electric buses zipped along at excellent speed, faster than any choo-choo ever could. Keeping said lanes permanently closed would cost absolutely nothing. There would be no need for a subway to UBC. As for the shops on the streets, well, they would get used to it. Most of their traffic is walk in anyway.

Building choo-choos is really cool for men in said choo-choo hats but it would involve tearing up a ton of streets, spending a pile of money and choking traffic to end up with what we already have: electric mass transit. Buses are infinitely more flexible than street cars.

This is a no brainer. KEEP IT.

YES YES YES. The track is available, the thing is built, it just needs drivers committed.

Toronto's streetcars are wonderful and Vancouver should have something similar where it can.

response to MichaelT

I lived in Toronto for nearly ten years and loved and still love the streetcars. I don't know where you lived but I NEVER experienced problems with street cars. They operate as smoothly as buses, are more charming than buses, and are cleaner than diesel buses (which is what Toronto operates). Streetcars also perform better than electric buses, in my experience. Vancouver only recently upgraded its electric buses and although they are better than the old clunky ones that used to break down constantly (i.e. come off the wire), they aren't nearly as smooth or enjoyable as streetcars.

Yes please!

I adore the streetcar and I would love for its route to be extended downtown.

@Waxy, I think the idea of a loop on Denman-Robson- Granville-Davie is genius. Vancouver should consider a fareless square like in Portland.

Holland

Oh, that's the place where, for the most part, the highest hill is a dike. canal bridge or speed bump, is it not?

It's going in the wrong direction...

Rode the tramline during February, thing it's great, etc. But surely the best (and easiest) investment would be to drive the line out along the Arbutus Corridor. The railbed is there, there's a Kits and Kerrisdale population that would be served (and getting their cars off the road benefits all).

As others have observed, Vancouver once had an elaborate streetcar system, erased during the 1950s and the rise of the private auto. Walk down E.Georgia and you can still tell where the stops were: there's the vestige of a corner store wherever there was a stop. Streetcars build communities at street level. Skytrains (bless 'em) build condo complexes and shopping malls.

This just hasn't been thought through

I'm an advocate for transit and would like to see a streetcar system be developed in Vancouver, but keeping the Olympic line running would be a terrible way to get that process started. The line as it currently exists primarily benefits tourists travelling to Granville Island (much like the monorail in Seattle which shuttles tourists between the Space Needle and the Westlake Center Mall). The Olympic line is overkill for that purpose.

Does anyone remember the Transit Museum Society's Downtown Historic Railway? It's funding was cut just before the Olympics (along with the petting zoo, Bloedel Conservatory, Street banners, etc.) because the city is broke. And It performed the same basic function. Does anyone really believe that the new Olympic line will be able to (affordably) provide a better service than it did?

Expanding the system from this point would also be more difficult than has been suggested here. The previous line used to run all the way to Science World, but that portion of the track was torn out and never replaced when the Olympic Village was built. And the track that runs west from the Granville Island station can't be developed easily because, believe it or not, a Starbucks has been built on top of it. Take a look next time you visit Granville Island.

A couple other things to note:

The Olympic line is currently being driven by unpaid volunteers. Where is the money going to come from to change that?

Extra infrastructure will have to be built just to keep the line safe as it already exists. This wasn't really covered in the news (surprise) during the Olympics, but have a look for yourself.

Actually it was covered

The fender bender on the Olympic Line was covered by the two dailies. Jeep runs red light, hits tram.

Earlier that evening 3 people were horribly burned to death on Hwy 17, when a minivan ignored signs, etc. and collided head-on with a car.

http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=3431

Impressed, but...

I was really impressed by the street car and would love to see it implemented across Vancouver, but I would rather see a skytrain line to UBC. Out of the cities I've been in I've never been on transit as impressive as the skytrain.

I'm glad it was covered but

@Grumpy

Let's not use dismissive euphemisms like "fender bender" simply because no one was seriously hurt. The fact that there is no crossing gate to prevent cars from doing that is a problem, albeit a minor one.

And what exactly does the death of three people on Highway 17 have to do with the question at hand, "is the Olympic line worth having permanently?" Don't turn this into a debate about what form of transportation is superior.

I support the idea of LRT for the valley, but do you really think keeping the Olympic line running will help make that happen?

Remember the Vancouver trolleys?

We had a fine tram system in Vancouver back in the early 1950's but then like sheep got rid of it. Just doing what General Motors, the oil companies etc wanted. By all means bring it back and slap a surtax on the oil companies etc, to pay for it. They broke it - they can fix it.

lets get serious

We need to improve transit in the Tri-Cities area, in Surrey, and, yes, through Vancouver, particularly on the super-busy east-west corridors. So the Evergreen Line has to be built first, as promised so many times. But for Vancouver, I think we need to reconsider the preferred method of moving people, namely the computerized Skytrain and Canada Line: they are efficient but costly to build. Where they save operating expenses is by not requiring unionized, index-pensionable drivers, a not inconsiderable saving when you think of how many trains there are. We've already heard from UBC professor CONDON on the feasability of implementing a streetcar system at a fraction of the cost of tunneling from VCC - Clark to UBC.

To extend a streetcar line to Science World will be nice for tourists, but for this line to be really useful it has to go downtown via False Creek. And it could tie in to the existing, contested, right-of-way along the Arbutus corridor, thus serving the southwest of the city.

Serious about funding: a camera-based, license plate system as they have in London England and elsewhere, taxing each and every trip into the city. Tolls on the bridges. Not increased transit fares: that only hurts the poor.

One of the readers who commented above said that a streetcar is preferred by lefties who support unionized labour. I don't agree, although I understand the objection. While streetcars cannot be automated given today's technology, there is no reason not to suppose that in five or ten years we can have an automated, street-level system which recognizes imminent danger on the track.

Futhermore, a streetcar line along Broadway would benefit merchants. The Canada Line does little to build business along Cambie: everyone who is taking it is zipping between Broadway and 25th/King Edward, thus there is no added value to the merchants. Whereas a street level system would have more stops, encouraging movement into the commercial areas. It might mean we have to trade parking on Broadway for the streetcar line (it would probably be in the middle of the road, with one car lane and one bike lane on either side), but I think there would be a net benefit to the streetcar over parking access.

No transit system is cheap, and no large city is going to reduce car usage until it builds a system which is more efficient than using a car. While people still drive in New York, London, Prague, Moscow and Paris, to name but a few with great subways and streetcar lines, it is no disadvantage to use rapid transit. We've seen how many it can move over the past weeks.

So let's get serious about building a system that moves people!

Crossing gates?? Let's get real!

@ House.

Let us extend your logic that streetcar/road intersections need crossing gates.

Thus should we not put crossing gates at every light controlled road/road intersection in the province?

Why is a tram system, operating on-street need crossing gates; why should we treat it differently than a normal intersection?

The fact is streetcar/road intersections are about 10 times safer than road/road intersections.

No crossing gates needed!

more

more canada lines everywhere!!!.
then we will have the best city
drivers should pay much much more to drive and to pay for all the costs they create from using automobiles, like: hospital space,rehab,coroners,courts, police surveillance,emergency crews,street cleaning,traffic lights,road maintenance,bridges and hiways,etc,etc.

Who benefits most?

The provincial budget today cut services for everyone. The burden will fall disproportionately on the poor and middle income families. Particularly, the budget reduced an already miniscule housing budget.

Yes, a tram to move yuppies from the expensive condos that was the athletes' village to Granville Island would be very nice for them. (This is the housing that was supposed to be social housing but will not be - the people of Vancouver own it by default and it will all be sold as luxury condos to recoup the forced investment.)

Yes, a tram line would be nice. But at what cost, and to whom?

MichaelT

Forgive my ignorance, but it sounds like you've recently moved to Vancouver from elsewhere. If so, you probably don't know that transit mode is a hot button here - there are so many options, and the pocketbook of taxing authorities constrains all of them, and when forced to choose, our authorities inevitably seem to pick the most expensive, least effective, and most political option as a single solution, instead of a basket of opportunities, which has a lot of noses out of joint.

You would do well to educate yourself on the background situation here. It's not as simple as building a rail line so they will come. The situation in Toronto is as different from Vancouver as cheddar from chocolate.

Who will pay?

@ carfreecity

"more Canada lines everywhere!!!" With costs ranging from $125 million/km to $150 mil/km for the Canada Line, who will pay for Canada Lines everywhere?

How many schools and hospitals must close to achieve your dream?

Are we talking about the Olympic Line?

@Grumpy

Are streetcar/road intersections safer than road/road intersections? Sure, but just like your comment about deaths on HWY 17, it has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

Stop trying to make this a debate about anything other than whether or not it makes sense to keep the Olympic Line running.

Again, I'm with you on developing LRT, but keeping this Olympic Line is not the way to make that happen.

Light Rail is needed here; NOW.

This short track must be extended and hopefully in both directions. The public has been 100% supportive and we all have enjoyed this safe form of non polluting transit.
I would like it to extend into the City of Burnaby and if done gradually would advance safe,clean transportation for us all.

When motorists disobey road signals and signs...................

..............it causes accidents both on road/road and rail/road intersections.

It's not the tram that caused the accident, it was the auto driver disobeying the rules of the road; it wasn't Hwy 17 that caused the accident, it was the minivan driver disobeying the rules of the road.

The Olympic Line or former heritage streetcar line, wasn't a interurban or streetcar line, rather it was a BCE/CPR - GNR interchange track and was never electrified.

The current streetcar plans are puerile and amateur and I have a gut feeling the City Engineering dept. had a lot to do with it. THEY DO NOT WANT ON-STREET TRAMS!

We have to grow up and understand that any new streetcar line will replace a bus line, most likely a trolleybus line and this has many people worried.

LRT is not 'rapid transit' per se, rather the next hierarchy of public transport when buses can't economically handle ridership, as per the case on Broadway.

SkyTrain/Canada Line is a blunder, where we have squandered our transit money on a few 'showcase' metro/subway lines that really haven't done the job that TransLink would like us to believe.

Talk to transit experts outside BC and the refrain remains the same, "If SkyTrain is so good, why is Vancouver alone in building with it?"

We are just beginning to understand the benefits of streetcar/LRT in the region, but senor politicians like to cut ribbons on expensive and glitzy 'rapid transit' lines, in the firm belief that the more money one pours into metro, the more votes they get!

What the Olympic Line did, is give Vancouver a tiny glimpse of what has proven successful around the world. The world has come to Vancouver for 25 years, seen SkyTrain, and went home to build with streetcar/LRT.

Let's get on track!

If you're on the wrong road, there's nothing "progressive" about stubbornly continuing down that same road. Surely the person who turns back and gets on the right road is the more progressive. However, that takes two things: (1)a recognition that what you're doing now isn't working, and (2) a vision of where you actually want to be going.

In my opinion, the naysayers have nothing to offer--no solutions, no vision, no desire for any kind of change that might challenge their comfortable (and frequently ignorant)assumptions.

Vancouver made the wrong decision over 60 years ago when the streetcar system was scrapped. We can't change that, but we can own up to it and take steps to reverse it. We have a golden opportunity to make our city a better place to live for ourselves and for future generations.

Clearly, applying the same strategies over and over is madness--widening highways, building ten-lane bridges, and paving over Burns Bog belongs to mentality desperately perverse and self destructive. Yet, somehow the gigantic budgets of these mega-projects, which subsidize the automobile and trucking industries, are somehow justifiable.

It has already been demonstrated that with the same budget, we could replace the entire streetcar system we had, expand it and connect it to maximize the efficiency of SkyTrain and the Canada Line. Why wouldn't we do that?

Yes, bringing the streetcar back will be costly. When you correct a mistake, it's always expensive, but when you fail to do so....well, put it this way: would anybody seriously like to see Vancouver emulate Los Angeles?

Think about it. At roughly three times the cost of an articulated bus, a streetcar like the ones Bombardier and the City of Vancouver are showcasing would have double the capacity, last much longer, cost less to run, cost less to build than SkyTrain (aprox. 1/10th the cost). Non-polluting, these vehicles actually put power back into the grid, meaning that the net power use is less than a trolley bus (which in turn is much more efficient than a diesel). They also load and unload faster, because 20% of the side of the car is made up of doors--a bus simply cannot match that.

We need to act on this opportunity, and the sooner we do it, the better our quality of life will be. Love them or hate them, Torontonians know their streetcars, and recognize a great value when they see one. Toronto has just ordered 200 of these low floor streetcars, with an option to buy 400 more. That's serious inverstment in Canada's economy! Are we going to be left in the dust as Toronto goes 'greener' than Vancouver?

Surrey -Langley Interurban first!

They have the Interurban track waiting for it!
See www.railforthevalley.com

Not so sure about the U-shaped line proposed for Vancouver. Put buses on the route first and see how high the ridership is. That is what Jane Jacobs recommended, if I remember correctly.

I'd love to keep them...

... but I doubt it'll happen. Heck, a much faster / easier way to prioritize Public Transit in Vancouver would have been to keep the Olympic Lanes and turn them into (permanent) bus lanes.

But the city doesn't even have the guts to do this (and it could be done easily, just get some new signs and road markings and you're done). So I highly doubt we'll see a capital project like a streetcar line.

But hey, I like to dream too.

Not so fast...

@MichaelT

"1. Tracks are permanent in the ground and need to be serviced every few years - I saw the same area done twice in TO over the course of time spent there."

Part of the problem is that Toronto decided not to give separate right of way to the Streetcars, if they would be on conventional tracks instead of cemented in the replacement would be faster and cheaper.

"2. When one breaks down all traffic is blocked on the street backing up not only traffic in the immediate area but also other streetcars on that route. Our Intelligent Bus system in Vancouver does not produce this energy draining, time-destroying disruption on a daily basis."

Neither would a separate right of way for the Streetcar, instead here in Vancouver we got buses stuck behind cars on the road which delay them forever. We don't even have "smart" traffic lights that would give a bus priority treatment at intersections.

"3. All those beautiful bikes with thin racer wheels will be totally useless. Expensive garbage as even with mountain bike tires the tracks are tricky to deal with. In fact it will get much more difficult to use any sort of people powered transportation once tracks are installed."

Huh? I have lived in Toronto and grew up in Europe, yeah on intersections it can get a bit "confusing" but this can easily be rectified by clearly marking a bike path in those parts so that people are kept away from the "dangerous" areas.

"4. They are expensive to maintain requiring maintenance and custom parts on a scale not required for most bus systems."

Your toy buses don't count. The infrastructure to support a bus fleet is probably more complex than what needs to be done on a streetcar.

"5. Just look at the TTC in Toronto who have to beg every year for more and more money from ALL levels of government."

Because the TTC has been abandoned, both by city planners and all levels of Government, they LIKE the TTC as a marketing op but not as an operational expense.

"6. So why are they being pushed by lefties? They produce a lot of work for unions. Remember earlier when I mentioned seeing them doing it twice while I was there? It's like a make work project for the where otherwise there would be none."

No, they are pushed because if done right they are a boon to neighbourhoods and make public transit much faster and more convenient than any bus system could ever be, not to mention they don't pollute with their non existing diesel engines.

Snowrunner

You deal with all the businesses that will lose their street parking.

great idea

Waxy wrote:

"The second should circle the Granville-Davie-Denman-Robson corridor. Cars should not be allowed on those streets and sidewalks should be widened to allow for cafes, restaurants and people to stretch their legs."

That is a fantastic idea. Those are four of the finest cultural streets downtown, and the loop would not clog any of the streets used by cars for commuting (Georgia, Burrard, Beach Ave, Pacific). The loop is also within a few blocks of virtually everyone downtown and would be used heavily by West Enders to go downtown or to link up with the skytrain system. I could also see that loop becoming a trademark of Vancouver tourism.

Excellent move

While I may not be from Vancouver, I think keeping the Olympic Line would be a wonderful idea. Although a costly proposition at best, so is (or would be) adding a new SkyTrain line, such as the "Evergreen Line" Vancouverites I worked with at the games mentioned.

At any rate, it can only serve to better the Vancouver public transportation system, which compared to the system in my hometown of Calgary, is light years ahead.