Derek Moscato, a previous Price Tags contributor (here’s an issue he did on No. 3 Road), is a regular contributor to the Province. Here’s his latest column on the Vancouver streetcar proposal.
… given Vancouver’s transit crunch, you have to wonder why it’s taken so long to resurrect the streetcars — and why TransLink bosses and other civic leaders mostly continue to overlook one of the best ways to ease congestion in the city core and beyond.
I thought the City was still looking for funding for Phase Zero.
I think the main problem with the streetcar(preventing agencies from jumping on board) is the route, which sets it up to be a merely a feeder system for Skytrain and the Canada Line, and simply a “sexier” means of transport than buses.
The streetcar route provides a longer more circuitous route to the same end-points as will the Canada Line – the only exceptions being Granville Island (a big plus) and in the future, Stanley Park (also a big plus).
Streetcar riders will feed into the Olympic Village Station, Main Street Station, Waterfront Station and Yaletown Roundhouse Station, but given the close proximity of those stations to each other, the distances between those rapid transit stations are, arguably, walkable. i.e. South East False Creek is within easy walking distance of both Main Street Station on the east and Olympic Village Station on the west.
Without fare integration, would a rider pay two fares, or walk or bus it to the rapid transit station and then pay to ride Skytrain or the Canada Line, or pay to ride all the way around False Creek (instead of under it)?
One interesting note wrt Portland’s streetcar is that it is FREE within the downtown core.
I love how he turns the column into a competition with Portland and Seattle. If anything gets to the people of Vancouver, it’s our frienly rivalry with other Northwest cities.
As Ron pointed out, one of the main issues of naysayers is that the streetcars will simply do what the trolleys do, except for more money. Which is true. I do believe that’s been Translink’s stance as well, pointing out it’s not part of the regional plan, and that the streetcar would steal riders from buses. Stupid Translink, always trying to feed passengers into their planned systems, rather than provide real transportation options. What TS fails to say is that all the trolleys, buses and Community Shuttles that could be removed from Downtown could be put into use in other places.
While it may not be rapid transit, I do think a streetcar system would be fantastic for Vancouver, and far better than the new trolleys. The estimate was only 100 million for the whole 3 phases of the system… what… about the cost of 2 B-Lines? It wouldbe an obivous tourist draw during the summer season, and would benefit greatly from 2010. I do like how the City is shoehorning it into production, literally forcing Translink to do something about it.
Now, while I may live South of the Fraser, and strongly believe a lot of money needs to start being invested down here, I would wholeheartedly support the Streetcar. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: maybe if we stop throwing billions at SkyTrain technology that still has yet to pay off it’s debt, then we would’ve had money for proper transit SOF and a DownTown Streetcar!