Calls to Bring the Olympic Streetcar Back to Vancouver

Vancouver's mile-long street car was built for the Olympics and ran for only 60 days, but some of the city's residents want that service back.

1 minute read

March 9, 2018, 11:00 AM PST

By Casey Brazeal @northandclark


Streetcar

Terence Cheung / Wikimedia Commons

Some of the prestige of hosting the Olympics has been lost in the storm of scandals that follow the games. Aside from doping and corruption, many look at what is built for cities that host the games and see waste.

In Vancouver, one Olympic feature that was taken out of service after the games is the streetcar. "Specifically, it’s the 1.8-km (1.1-mile) Downtown Historic Railway, also known as the Olympic Demonstration Line," Sandy Smith writes for Next City. The streetcar cost about $6.5 million to build and only ran for 60 days, Smith reports and, while there are transit services that might seem redundant, including a city bus, some feel it’s wasteful to let the streetcar sit unused.

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