The real thing:
These leather straps, along with the leather seats, polished wood and halogen lights, make you feel you might be in a Mercedes if Mercedes did streetcars. And that’s the idea.
Bombardier obviously spent some bucks to bring us a taste of the way they do urban transportation where they really, really care.
When these Flexity streetcars borrowed from Brussels slide into the station at Granville Island in the shadow of the towering Granville Bridge, the constrast couldn’t be clearer. These trams represent the future, the bridge the past. And that’s what Bombardier and the City of Vancouver are betting on.
For those taking the streetcar on the Olympic Line when I rode it – a pleasant Friday mid-afternoon – the reaction was positive. There was standing room only. People had come from the North Shore and around the region. Everyone was impressed with the quality, the smoothness of the ride, the quiet glide.
But the fact that the City spent over $8 million to upgrade the tracks and that the streetcars 
are only running for the duration of the Olympics before they return to Brussels – with no plans or funding to continue this quality of service, much less expand the line – has drawn criticism, probably in part anti-Olympic sentiment, with the usual charges of “extravagance” and “incompetence” directed toward the City’s leaders by those who think all that money was spent for this one-time event.
Disclosure: as a City Councillor who has strongly supported the streetcar – including the original decision to buy the right-of-way as part of a larger vision of a streetcar line from Granville Island to Stanley Park – I’d argue that it’s exactly the right kind of decision for politicians to be making: both visionary and incremental, putting the money where our aspirations are, even if everything has not been thought through or the funding committed. That way lies process over product.
Already the Canada Line has changed transit culture in Vancouver. The streetcar pilot is linked it to at the 
Olympic Village Station on 2nd Avenue and the Cambie Bridge – a station that in its architectural modesty suggests that this is not yet a place that really, really cares. But functionally it’s fabulous. The link between the two lines, and the connections to False Creek South and the burgeoning Cambie rise to Broadway, is changing the mental maps of Vancouverites. Already commuters who live near Granville Island have integrated the streetcar into their routine, I’m told, and will be ready advocates for streetcar funding in the future. And that’s the idea.
I rode on it this saturday afternoon, it was pretty packed. I liked it, but it was very narrow. I hope wider trains will be ordered if they plan on making it perminant.
Gordon. It looks like I just missed you by possibly minutes. I took the street in the early afternoon too.
As I was asking one of the COV employees a question, a man butted in to say that it’s costing the City $150,000 a day to run this train. I suppose he’s referring to the $8 million spent to upgrade the track. I wish I had asked him how much it costs per year to maintain and build new roads. There will always be detractors.
In any case, I love the streetcars. It’s a shame it’s all temporary right now, but the tracks look great and just need to be twinned if we ever get a permanent streetcar.
Some day, Some day… I wish the day streetcars roam the lower mainland comes sooner. Have you heard anything about Abbotsford going ahead with a streetcar plan? Or increased service for the West Coast Express?
Besides the people spilling off of the skytrain a nice advantage is the parking beside the station. One the largest challenges for Granville island is parking. The streetcar reduces that frustration and brings more people to the merchants. I was there Saturday and it was dumping full trainloads every 10 minutes – 60 people – 10 dollars a piece – repeated numerous times a day. The economics start to make sense. There is a much lower barrier to stepping onto a streetcar then waiting for the bus in this particular geography.
The $8 million is a valid question. Will these track upgrades eventually be put to permanent use as part of a longer route?
I meant to add this point. I am told that on the open house day animal rights protesters were there to denounce the use of leather straps and seat coverings.