Quote:
Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut
If it's just a feeder route replacing the 16/50, no problem... but if we're serious about the streetcar being a SkyTrain relief line on a high-density corridor, #1, 3 and 4 are going to be trouble. 41st-49th might need grade separation too.
|
As you noted above "The contract stipulates light rail". When the Downtown streetcar was first floated as an idea, it was in the 1990s when Portland was proposing their city centre streetcar that eventually opened in 2001. That runs in mixed traffic for the entire route.
There was serious consideration of the Arbutus corridor as a possible route as an alternative to Cambie for the rail connection from Richmond, (probably in a tunnel built as cut and cover) but the complications of getting the right-of-way from CP, and the potential for future development along a more major arterial favoured Cambie. At the time there were more jobs, and existing residents associated with an Arbutus alignment than a Cambie alignment. (CP only sold the Arbutus right-of-way to the City in 2016, having been thwarted in their idea to abandon it and develop it by the City introducing the Arbutus Corridor ODP in 2000, that designated it for transit or recreation use only.)
The $1.1bn estimated cost to create the streetcar that was calculated by consultants in 2021 was just for the Downtown lines, ending at Arbutus. To reinstate track south from Arbutus to the Fraser River would cost more. As far as I know there's never been any suggestion by the City that the route should be anything other than a streetcar, and it's not seen as a 'relief line' for the Canada Line - that's just something dreamt up here.
Threaded Mode