Two Videos, Two Cultures
Two videos arrived in my inbox this week, both about changing transportation for our changing cities – each a reflection of the culture they come from
The first: Bombardier’s new film – an ad, really – for the Vancouver 2010 Streetcar on the Olympic Line.
Slick editing, ambient sountrack, no narration. Sustainability is part of the sell: “The climate is right for trains.”
The other comes from Streetfilms:
Streetfilms funder Mark Gorton gives an over-the-top tour of Broadway’s car-free squares, boulevard-style blocks – and improved traffic flow. Personal, jagged and very New York.
Both are reflections of our fast-changing times. A few years ago neither project would have seemed all that likely. Whether from the bottom up or top down, the middle ground is moving.
your streetcars are a lot more impressive than our new pedestrian plazas…not that I care much about the drivers’ (unfounded) complaints…but they really serve little purpose for every day new yorkers and are basically a place for tourists to sit (no offense to tourists)
a new streetcar line, on the other hand..that’s real progress. that improves transport. that’s the kind of change that we need, but i doubt we’ll ever see
Oscar – that’s an interesting comment, because the streetcar line is being designed specifically for tourists and will serve tourist destinations. If it does receive funding post-Olympics, it might not be integrated into the regional transit system.
If they end up building from Denman and Georgia through the Downtown, that will be a pretty good amenity for the densest neighbouhood in Canada. Having lived in the WestEnd for several years, there were many rainy march afternoons when I would have loved rapid transit to connect up to SkyTrain or Downtown.
I agree that the streetcar built out to Phase 2+ would be a wonderful addition to the west end, but I just wanted to correct you that the West end isn’t the densest neighbourhood in Canada, not even Vancouver anymore. Downtown South is now the densest in the city, and Toronto has a couple of neighbourhoods that are now denser then either. Still it has impressive density.
Also the Streetcar line while it would be an obvious boom to tourists most riders would still be locals, as locals visit our tourist attractions more then tourists do. Not to mention the line would connect some of the densest neighbourhoods with each other.
To add to what Joe is said, the Downtown Streetcar will also connect Main Street SkyTrain station to the new Olympic Village SkyTrain station. Many people will likely choose to “cut the corner” and transfer from one line to another using the streetcar while bypassing the downtown core.
I think that the Downtown Streetcar, much like the SeaBus, will undoubtably see spikes in ridership during the peak tourist season but much like the latter it will be locals who make up the super majority of riders on an annualized basis.
In the long run the Downtown Streetcar will still largely function as a proof-of-concept for its potential expansion to additional points throughout the city, and region. The Arbutus corridor is a natural fit for an extension of the streetcar and it could follow the rails down to the Fraser, connect with the Marine Drive SkyTrain station and then on to the massive East Fraser Lands precinct that stradles the tracks. From there it could continue on to New West and meet up once more with SkyTrain at New West or Columbia stations. That would be some ways off and require a herculean feat of rail right-of-way negotiations but it also makes a whole lot of sense.