Vancouver's Downtown Streetcar

For those of you that haven't heard, the City of Vancouver is planning a downtown streetcar. "Phase 0", aka the Olympic Line, will run from Granville Island to the Olympic Village during the games, and will be free! The full plan for the future streetcar system is right here:

Downtown Streetcar Design and Alignment Report

I think this is a great idea, but I don't think it goes far enough. Why does the Pacific Blvd. line terminate at Drake and Granville? Why does it go along Drake at all? Why doesn't the line serve the West End at all? The Sky Train does a great job of serving downtown overall, but the West End is served only by buses, which are often full - a streetcar line would be a great solution and would have an immediate ridership.

Also, despite being slightly more expensive overall (yes, the capital expense is higher, but operating costs are lower), the streetcar is proving to be a preferred transit choice, as it attracts much more ridership and spurs development in the area - Portland is a great example of this. The lesson they have learned is that streetcar lines, because they are a permanent investment, are much better at generating new development than buses. A bus route could change at any moment - but once tracks for a streetcar are in place, you know it's not going away.

The city also realizes that continuing the line down Arbutus Street (along an existing rail corridor) is also an option for the future, and one that makes a lot of sense. Connections to the Millennium Skytrain Line, both current (at VCC/Clark Dr.) and the future extension along Broadway to UBC make this line even more feasible.

Anyways, here's my proposal for the future streetcar line downtown:


Routing the streetcar like this puts ALL of the downtown peninsula within a 5-10 min. walk of either a streetcar stop or a skytrain station. Streets like Davie, Denman and Robson stand to gain big benefits from having the line along them - new development at higher density (4-6 storey buildings instead of the current 1-2 storey shops), more pedestrian traffic, etc. It might make sense to take a line along Granville street to South Granville as well, because it is still a major shopping and business street, with the B-line to the airport now gone due to the Canada Line.

The line down Robson Street would work great in conjunction with its gradual conversion to a pedestrian street, particularly in the already busy Jervis-to-Seymour section. The car traffic barely moves at busy times right now, and pedestrians are nearly squeezing off the sidewalks, so closing that section to cars makes a lot of sense. This route also takes advantage of streets that are already busy transit routes, so there is guaranteed to be ridership from day one.

And in the very long term, it may make sense to take the line right over the Lion's Gate bridge to West Vancouver - but I know that's really stretching it. Even better would be a tunnel continuing the Canada Line to Lonsdale to eliminate the Seabus, and then a dedicated streetcar along the north shore linking North Vancouver and West Vancouver...but that's a topic for another day.