The Flexity Outlook streetcar that will be loaned to Vancouver
It was announced today that Bombardier Transportation will bring two modern, Flexity Outlook streetcars on loan from Brussels, Belgium to Vancouver for use during the 2010 Olympics. The streetcar demonstration project will run between January 21 to March 21, 2010. The official name of the project is The Olympic Line – Vancouver’s 2010 Streetcar.
The City of Vancouver put up $8.5 million, along with $500,000 from the CHMC (which owns Granville Island), to upgrade a stretch of railway for the modern, low-floor streetcar’s usage.
The Olympic Line will run between Granville Island and the Canada Line Olympic Village Station.
The route between Granville Island and Olympic Village station
That’s some sexy transit hardware.
Let’s hope that after investing $8.5 million, they fully extend the line so that it’s actually useful.
The $8.5 million include the CMHC contribution.
@ Sungsu. Yes, I believe so.
Also, Bombardier committed $2 million to the project. So that leaves the City’s portion at $6 million.
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Vancouver should have got Bombardier to build the new transit line from the airport too, not Siemens, then the cars would have been interchangeable with the other skytrain lines.
Fantastic. Imagine a line running from Stanley Park through Science World, Olympic Village, Granville Island, then down the Arbutus Corridor terminating in Marpole near 70th Avenue.
Just a single line and so much impact!
They should keep these after the olympics too, im sure they would always come in useful, plus they look really nice, might actually encourage people to use public transit.
They’re really just toys, not effective transportation. The capacity to move people (passengers per hour) doesn’t make them particularly cost-effective. That, plus the tracks, maintenance, etc., means they would be highly subsidized and no improvement on trolley buses.