Wednesday 3 February 2010

The Toonerville Trolley

Not exactly. But I just don't get the chance to type Toonerville Trolley nearly often enough. The story is quite comical however.

As an advocate for improved public transit it grieves me to criticize the Olympic Line.

This rail line has existed, more or less, forever. On summer weekends a vintage Vancouver tram was operated by volunteers between Science World to the entrance to Granville Island.

The powers that be have grand plans to eventually extend the line to run all the way to Stanley Park as part of our transit network. In the meantime it was decided to operate a demonstration line during the Winter Olympics.

What we have is a five or six minute 2 km ride. It would probably be quicker but one train has to pull off and stop to let the other pass.

The two streetcars, built by Canada's own Bombardier (they're really fancy), are on loan and were shipped to Vancouver from Brussels and will be shipped back again. The old section of track was pulled up and the wooden ties were replaced with concrete sleepers.

Cost: $8,000,000.00

You have to laugh or you'd cry

4 comments :

Virginia said...

Your tax dollars at work, W. Ante up! THat said, the transit system here in B'ham is like a horse and buggy in comparison. Actually it IS! :)
v

Anonymous said...

Ouch. It'll look good on TV, though.

WV: Outtax. Really.

Chuck Pefley said...

Cute! More than a few were whistling a Tune when this deal got signed off on. Egad! 8 million for a 2km demo? Well, long live the Olympic Games ... but not in my version of Toonerville, thank you very much.

Lucky you, Wayne!

Anonymous said...

Well, I guess the bureaucratic waste isn't just here in NY, but at least you have nice public transit like this, we still can't even seem to agree on it.