Yellow Fever
October 14th, 2009, 06:37 AM
Brussels ships out trams for False Creek line
Loan of light-rail streetcars is an opportunity to show off a 'well-received' technology
By Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun
October 12, 2009
http://i471.photobucket.com/albums/rr71/yellowfever_2008/BT-PR-20091012-FLEXITY_Outlook_Brus.jpg
The city of Brussels on Monday shipped two state-of-the-art light-rail trams to Vancouver, on loan to use during the 2010 Winter Games on a refurbished 1.8-kilometre line along False Creek.
The vehicles, which were built by Canadian transportation giant Bombardier at its Bruges plant in Belgium, will operate 18 hours a day, seven days a week during the Olympic and Paralympic period between Granville Island and the Vancouver Athletes' Village.
The free service, dubbed the Olympic Line, is part of a City of Vancouver initiative to build a tourist-based light-rail service between Granville Island and the downtown core via the Main Street area. The city has spent $8.5 million so far building the demonstration portion of the line, on the former Canadian Pacific Railway right of way. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp, which operates Granville Island, contributed another $500,000.
For now the high-volume, high-density service is being limited to 60 days around the Olympics and Paralympics, and to enable its success, the Brussels public transport company STIB agreed to loan Vancouver two of its Bombardier "Flexity" low-floor trams.
The 32-metre cars are being shipped to Vancouver via Bremerhaven, Germany and are scheduled to arrive in early December. They will enter service Jan. 21, and are expected to carry upwards of 500,000 residents, tourists and athletes, according to Bombardier Benelux spokesman Guy Hendrix.
The south shore of False Creek is expected to be a major hub of activity during the Olympics, with Granville Island, the base for many Francophone hospitality houses, at one end and the athletes' village, the Russian pavilion, the Hockey Canada House and several provincial pavilions at the other end.
For Bombardier it is an aggressive attempt to promote the Flexity in North America. Bombardier currently has more than 450 of the cars in service in major European cities, including Brussels, Innsbruck, Geneva, Marseille, Valencia and Alicante.
Until recently, however, it had yet to make much of an inroad into car-dominant North America. In June, it signed a massive $850 million deal to supply the Toronto Transit Commission with 204 cars. They will go into service between 2012 and 2018.
But in Vancouver, which has virtually no light rail lines other than the False Creek demonstration project, the goal is much more modest.
"You have in Vancouver an historic line," Hendrix said. "It is meant for us to show off to the world a tram that is well-received in Europe."
For the Belgians, it was a chance to show off their mass people-mover with pride. "We are very proud that our Flexity Outlook tram with its art nouveau excellent design has been selected by our colleagues of Vancouver and Bombardier as an example of what a modern and efficient tram should look like and be," Hendrix said in a news release. "I am confident that being there with our tram in the middle of a worldwide event like the Winter Olympics will contribute both to the future success of the tram on the North American continent and to the image of Brussels as a city dedicated to public transport and sustainable mobility."
jefflee@vancouversun.com
Read Jeff Lee's Olympics blog at www.vancouversun.com/insidetheolympics
Loan of light-rail streetcars is an opportunity to show off a 'well-received' technology
By Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun
October 12, 2009
http://i471.photobucket.com/albums/rr71/yellowfever_2008/BT-PR-20091012-FLEXITY_Outlook_Brus.jpg
The city of Brussels on Monday shipped two state-of-the-art light-rail trams to Vancouver, on loan to use during the 2010 Winter Games on a refurbished 1.8-kilometre line along False Creek.
The vehicles, which were built by Canadian transportation giant Bombardier at its Bruges plant in Belgium, will operate 18 hours a day, seven days a week during the Olympic and Paralympic period between Granville Island and the Vancouver Athletes' Village.
The free service, dubbed the Olympic Line, is part of a City of Vancouver initiative to build a tourist-based light-rail service between Granville Island and the downtown core via the Main Street area. The city has spent $8.5 million so far building the demonstration portion of the line, on the former Canadian Pacific Railway right of way. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp, which operates Granville Island, contributed another $500,000.
For now the high-volume, high-density service is being limited to 60 days around the Olympics and Paralympics, and to enable its success, the Brussels public transport company STIB agreed to loan Vancouver two of its Bombardier "Flexity" low-floor trams.
The 32-metre cars are being shipped to Vancouver via Bremerhaven, Germany and are scheduled to arrive in early December. They will enter service Jan. 21, and are expected to carry upwards of 500,000 residents, tourists and athletes, according to Bombardier Benelux spokesman Guy Hendrix.
The south shore of False Creek is expected to be a major hub of activity during the Olympics, with Granville Island, the base for many Francophone hospitality houses, at one end and the athletes' village, the Russian pavilion, the Hockey Canada House and several provincial pavilions at the other end.
For Bombardier it is an aggressive attempt to promote the Flexity in North America. Bombardier currently has more than 450 of the cars in service in major European cities, including Brussels, Innsbruck, Geneva, Marseille, Valencia and Alicante.
Until recently, however, it had yet to make much of an inroad into car-dominant North America. In June, it signed a massive $850 million deal to supply the Toronto Transit Commission with 204 cars. They will go into service between 2012 and 2018.
But in Vancouver, which has virtually no light rail lines other than the False Creek demonstration project, the goal is much more modest.
"You have in Vancouver an historic line," Hendrix said. "It is meant for us to show off to the world a tram that is well-received in Europe."
For the Belgians, it was a chance to show off their mass people-mover with pride. "We are very proud that our Flexity Outlook tram with its art nouveau excellent design has been selected by our colleagues of Vancouver and Bombardier as an example of what a modern and efficient tram should look like and be," Hendrix said in a news release. "I am confident that being there with our tram in the middle of a worldwide event like the Winter Olympics will contribute both to the future success of the tram on the North American continent and to the image of Brussels as a city dedicated to public transport and sustainable mobility."
jefflee@vancouversun.com
Read Jeff Lee's Olympics blog at www.vancouversun.com/insidetheolympics