Olympic Line

I wish I could give it more stars, but it fails on two major things that could have given it a better rating.
1– Its a showpiece and not an actual functioning transporter. Do not take it if you are trying to get to work. Sometimes they run only one car, sometimes two. No one knows when, and there is no schedule.
2– How can they spend that much money and then take it away after only two months? I mean really. Why even bother. I have noticed that over the past month many of us who work near Granville Island will use it as a convenient connector to the train station at cambie. Now it will be gone in a month. Thanks for playing ego games and showing off for the tourists and leaving us locals with the bill and no train.
For any good to come out of this they need to hurry up and get this line extended to science world to connect to the other train line and put in a regular tram service. Redeem yourself translink!

Well, for what taxpayers paid for it, it’s pretty. Nice seats for small bums, narrow, lots of wood accents, and, good gravy, actual handholds for the standees.
But … it is so slow! And I’m rather impatient. I’d like take my bike down there, ride alongside, and see if I can beat the streetcar to Granville Island.
Overall, not a very practical or useful transportation option for the locals. To be at all useful, it ought to extend at least to the Science World area, which I realize isn’t practical with the present security barriers for the athletes village. Stick someone in front who knows where the accelerator is, and then let’s talk about this streetcar thing.

It’s a quick and easy way to get from the Olympic Village Skytrain station to Granville Island…
Hopefully the plans to bring back the streetcar — full time — by the Summer of 2010, as well as to extend lines for streetcar service all the way to Stanley Park come to fruition!

* Grumpy taxpayer update *
This «wonderful» use of funds has resulted in an accident in the first month of operation:
I’m glad nobody got hurt at least. But what a waste of funds!

I played tourist for a day on Sat and decided to ride the Bombardier baby! I figured I probably wouldn’t even get close to the streetcar come Olympic time so it was now or never.
I waited about 20 minutes to get onto a super clean and efficient mode of transportation. It was smooth and sleek and not like any streetcar I was ever on in Toronto. This was definitely for show.
There are no stops, it simply goes from Olympic villiage to Granville Island and takes an entire 6 minutes from start to finish.
Very limited seats and accomodates more passengers who can stand in their wide cars.
It was great to try it out but it is definitely a one-​trick pony. I mean I did the Granville Island public market shopping thing but it wouldn’t be a regular event. I am sure tourists will love it and so will the venders at Granville Island when they shop too.
If indeed it does end up expanding to Gastown in the future, it is more geared towards tourists rather than us Vancouverites and personally I would rather have more skytrain routes installed but that’s just me.

An easy and convenient way to travel to Granville Island from the Olympic Village station. A sleek and modern Bombardier car, with nice fake brown leather cushioned seats. There’s two streetcars running, and a large covered station at each end.
Clean and bright inside, with large windows to enjoy the view. The ride is about ten minutes, a smooth and enjoyable ride. Easily accessed by people of all ages.
Cool idea, but not sure if it was really worth all the money invested for what we get out of it. Hopefully either they extend this whole streetcar idea, with a longer track, so it actually becomes more useful.

OK it’s not much now but the City has the right of way all the way to Gastown, if it goes in it will run from GIsland to Gtown, that will be incredible. That was the whole reason for setting it up on the short run in the first place, it was to run to Science World (or Sochi Place as it is now known) but the security through the Athletes Village was a problem. 5 Stars becuase maybe we will see it developed after the games to a real peope mover.

hahahahaha when I heard they spent nearly $ 500,000 per 100m length to build… a railroad I thought there had to be SOMETHING special about it. Alas, its the same old railroad, with a new olympics approved coat of paint! Granville Island used to be an industrial sector and the railroad would have been very vital to them, Im sure it didnt cost them close to $ 2 million dollars. Add two concrete platforms and a rented train, and this project becomes such a rip off. If they truly wanted to amuse the tourists they could have just paid 20 athletes $ 500,000 each to run the same 100m length in a big marathon… or they could have bought a school or something. Maybe even an SRO. I dont know, its a lot of cash, except its free for me to ride… and Im still not using it.

The Olympic Line is one of our city’s latest projects aimed at wowing the world during the Olympic Games. It fails miserably.
One of the good things about this streetcar project is that it’s free to the public — sort of. At 8.5 million in tax payer’s money, we’d best make the most of it. The rail cars, borrowed from Belgium, will be returned in March, according to the website.
The track extends a mere 1.8 km, an easy stroll. In fact, rather than wait ten minutes for the return trip, I hopped off at Cambie and wandered back on my own power.
I understand, according to the website, that the terminus near Cambie and 2^nd, houses a skytrain station for the Canada Line. Not being a regular passenger on the Canada Line, I was oblivious, as were the other passengers who stared, baffled, when we came to the stop in the «middle of nowhere». Perhaps, signage pointing to the skytrain station would be useful. If there was any, I didn’t notice it and neither did others on the street car.
I’m concerned about this demonstration project and if it will, in fact, lead anywhere. I am reminded of the monorail project in Seattle — a disconcerting thought, to say the least.

It’s a fun idea, but not really necessary. It seems to me like it’s because the people that made the train, Bombardier, is a Canadian company. Good thing this is temporary… it’s not worth maintaining, when buses can take you between Granville and Camble.
I like street trams. I would be fine if this is a pilot project, and years later, they come out with a tram that serves a useful area. If this project is all there is, come on… it’s not long enough to be impressively helpful for Olympic traffic, and I’m sure we didn’t wow any visitors from metropolises.