Vancouver Olympic Line Streetcar Service Starts Tomorrow

Running through the Athletes village with stops at the Canada Line and Granville Island, Vancouverites and our visitors, will have a chance to ride a brand-new-to-us form of transportation, the streetcar.



The actual cars are on loan from Brussels, Belgium, but the city has plans to increase streetcar transit options greatly in the coming years. One evidence of the future plans includes the sidewalk in the central meridian of Pacific Avenue, that will one day be home to another streetcar line.

Book Your Olympic Bus Network Tix

Today officially marks the start of the booking window for your Olympic Bus Network Tickets.

If you are or will be in the Metro Vancouver area during the 2010 Games and have tickets for events at Cypress or in Whistler then you can start to book your travel on the Olympic Bus Network.

It is highly advisable that you book this ASAP as there will NOT be parking at Olympic Venues.

Click here to read more.

Canada Line :: Video Tour

Here's a video of the Canada Line.

Canada Line Opens Today

In 30 minutes the official, inaugural rides of the Canada Line will begin.

This $2B rapid transit project, not officially tied to the Vancouver 2010 Games bid or budget, will modernize transportation along the North-South corridor from Richmond, Vancouver International Airport, and the City Center.

Congrats Vancouver.



Picture from News1130.com of Dignitaries riding the train earlier today.

New Translink Website

For the 2010 Olympic Games all attendees are going to be encouraged to use public transportation to get to and from events.  The Greater Vancouver Regional District's (GVRD) transportaton authority, Translink, has updated their website.

Click here for more info.

City to Host Transportation Plan Open House

The City of Vancouver recently released its Host City Olympic transportation plan for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, which includes locations of Olympic lanes, parking restrictions, pedestrian corridors and more within Vancouver.

The City will be holding an open house on March 30, 2009 - with information booths and staff available - to answer any questions that residents and businesses might have about the plan, including details on how the downtown pedestrian corridors will function during the 2010 Winter Games.

Monday, March 30, 2009
4 - 7 pm

Main floor Promenade
Vancouver Public Library – Central Branch
350 West Georgia Street

More information on temporary changes to the City’s road network during the 2010 Winter Games is also available on the City’s Host City website at Vancouver.ca.

Massive 2010 Road Closures Expected

Read more here.

2010 StreetCar Images

At the end of July we first told you about the StreetCar that is planned for Vancouver in time for 2010 in another post.

Today we have pictures of the new StreetCar which can be viewed here.

The cars in question are manufactured by Bombardier though, an official supplier of Vancouver 2010 in charge of designing, engineering, and manufacturing the relay torch.

Also, of note is that the StreetCar trial will be quite short to begin with as the cars will simply be on loan from the Brussels Transportation Company.

The Way to 2010

Translink has put up a new section to their website titled "The Way to 2010".

The pages include an interactive map showing venues, the sporting events they will hold, and bus options to get there.

Read more here or visit the Translink page directly.

Olympic Tickets to Include Transit

Vancouver is a great city, but traffic has never been it's forte. VANOC is planning for this, and the fact that many of the attendees of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics will be from out of town and therefore without vehicles. Transit will be included in all tickets. Whether purchasers of the tickets use that public transit is another question, but in some cases they'll have no choice.

The average transit cost will be approx. $10. Most transit costs will range from $4-18 of the ticket price.

Those watching sport at Cypress will have to purchase a ticket on the Olympic bus network for $12 round trip.

Whistler spectators travelling from Vancouver will be paying $25 round trip.

Read more here.

Major Sea to Sky Rock Slide

Fortunately it appears that there have been no injuries in what is one of the most significant rock slides to hit the Sea to Sky Highway in more than 10 years. Tuesday evening around 11:20pm approximately 16,000 cubic metres of rock broke free of the cliff side and crashed on to a section of the highway and the neighbouring rail line.

A bus was travelling by the site as the rocks tumbled down. The bus driver heard and saw the rocks starting to come down and sped up as much as possible. The bus managed to escape without injury to its' passengers although the bus lost most of its windows and received punctures to the vehicles shell.

Initial reports claimed the highway would be shut until mid- morning on Wednesday but further investigation moved that estimation to a couple of days. The most recent estimation of the clean-up period is up to 5-days rendering the road completely shut right through the BC Day long weekend.

This will undoubtedly affect countless tourists in addition to the businesses that are supported by them and raises questions regarding contingency plans during the 2010 Whistler portion of the Olympic Games.

Fortunately during the 2010 Games the athletes will be housed in Whistler but if a slide a other major disaster occurs spectators will be largely out of luck. The vehicular alternative to the Sea to Sky highway is reportedly nearly an 8 hour detour. Planes do fly into Pemberton (30 minutes north of Whistler) and Boats can travel right up to Squamish.

Bottom line... stay near events you plan to spectate and keep your fingers crossed that the Achilles heel of the Vancouver Whistler 2010 Olympic bid does not come back to haunt them.

More from the Globe and Mail.

Sea to Sky Highway Updates or BC Highways.

Photo Credit : Rowan Palmer

Streetcar in time for 2010

The City of Vancouver has a streetcar trial which they plan to be in trial operation by early 2009 running from the Olympic Village through to Granville Island on the Southern shores of False Creek (Phase 0 on image below).
In time it is hoped that this will become a permanent mode of transport with travel through to Science World. Some dream of the service continuing through to the Roundhouse in Yaletown & Gastown with an eventual extension to Stanley Park though the latter is a definite long-shot at this point.

The streetcar will be a great 2010 bonus for persons renting homes along the SEFC corridor.

VANOC : 400,000 Additional Cars Expected on Road by 2010

VANOC and the City of Vancouver expect roughly 400,000 more car trips during the 2010 Olympics. This figure is technically only about 15% more trips than normal for the City which normally has about 3M trips per day. The Greater Vancouver Metro Area normally sees about 6 million trips per day.

One thing to note is that the increased traffic will likely be centered around venues and the downtown area which could increase the percentage traffic increase in local areas.

Here's some highlights of VANOC's plans to deal with the increased traffic:

• There will be no parking at Olympic venues. Everyone attending will have to travel by bus.
• The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games will operate an almost parallel bus system that will essentially double TransLink's bus fleet on Vancouver roads.
• There will be dedicated bus services from downtown Vancouver to ski venues such as Cypress Mountain and Whistler.
• At certain hours, the Sea-to-Sky Highway will be a bus-only route, although the road will not be completely closed to local traffic.
• Vancouver will clamp down on residents of the Hastings Park area who usually rent out their yards for parking during big events.
• Some traffic arteries in the city will have Olympics-only traffic lanes.
• Simon Fraser University and the University of B.C. will shift and extend their spring breaks to coincide with the Games, reducing traffic and freeing up capacity on TransLink buses and SkyTrain.

Full article from Vancouver Sun here.

Whistler Headache : Transportation

Whistler's primary concern regarding the Olympic Games is going to be transportation. The full-time, non-Olympic transit system in the resort municipality consists of 25 buses. During the Winter Olympics that number within the resort area will swell to 125.

And these numbers do not include the substantial amount of buses that will probably be used to transport people up and down the Sea to Sky highway from Vancouver. Buses may ultimately be the only vehicles, other than emergency, allowed on the to be completed thoroughfare as to achieve the 1hour 30minute time frame quoted for the IOC during the bidding for the 2010 games.

These concerns were addressed at the primary Whistler civic consultation meeting held last night.

Other issues that Whistler will be dealing with and continuing to work out right up until the Opening Ceremonies include accommodation and security.

New Seabus in Time for 2010

TransLink, British Columbia Transportation minister Kevin Falcon and Malcom Barker of the Washington Marine Group announced on Monday a signed agreement for a new $25M SeaBus.

The third SeaBus will join the other two in service between North Vancouver's Lonsdale Quay and Downtown Vancouver's Harbour.

Malcolm Barker said the ship will be of the greenest of green vessels and "will be built on time and on budget" in Victoria.

The vessel will initially go into service Summer 09 alleviating one of the existing SeaBuses so that it may undergo a refit. The refit will be completed in time for the 2010 Olympic Games allowing for peak service every 10 minutes vs. the current closest interval of 15 minute between ships.

North Vancouver RFPs for Public Outdoor Amenities

The City of North Vancouver has posted a bid notice on their website of expressions of interest with regards to five public outdoor amenties. The sites include the Burrard Dry Dock Pier, Shipbuilder's Square, Waterfront Park, Kings Mill Walk, and Civic Centre Square.

One of the more obvious fits might be for cruise ships to be used as floating hotel rooms for visitors to the Olympic Games. These could be docked at Shipbuilder's Square or the Burrard Dry Dock Pier. The floating hotels would offer excellent views and great access to transit.

The complete PDF from the City of North Vancouver's website can be found here.

Canada Line Baby Step

What was originally dubbed the RAV line and eventually named the Canada Line had a major milestone yesterday, April 1st, 2008. On a small section of track from the River Rock station to the Airport a train was run in the first of many testing phases.

Each train, built by Hyundai, will hold approx. 400 passengers seated and standing. The trains are a fixed length and cannot have passenger cars added to them so to increase capacity more trains will have to be added.



Each section of track will have to be tested to ensure no rubbing and to verify if any adjustments need to be made.

More from a Global TV News report: