Downtown Streetcar Study

Vancouver’s Downtown Streetcar Network project is innovative in that it involves inserting a streetcar system into a 21st century urban transportation environment. Its purpose is to link a number of activity centres in the downtown area that have expanded beyond reasonable walking limits by providing a seamless transportation network integrating the streetcar with other transit services such as Seabus, Skytrain, West Coast Express and bus services. This will provide several various benefits for adjacent communities, including improved transit service, increased economic growth potential and reduced pollution levels. This feasibility study, which has the support of TransLink, has three components: a Downtown Streetcar layout design study, a transportation study and a market research study. When fully implemented, the study foresees up to 27 kilometres (km) of track – seven km in downtown Vancouver (between Granville Island and Stanley Park) linked to another 20 km routes throughout the City servicing three to four million riders per year. A novel management approach is proposed; one that will enable a board of stakeholders to oversee the streetcar’s design and construction. In all, the experience and knowledge gained from this study can be applied to other communities across Canada and the unique structure of the board of stakeholders being considered can be used as a template for other municipalities interested in new approaches to managing multi-level, large-scale civic oriented projects.