Quote:
Originally Posted by Echowinds
There is a lot of redundancy with the current lines though, which makes such a line a luxury in many areas. For the people coming from the East needing to go to the CBD, the proposed eastern path up Main does exactly the same thing as the Canada Line.
In addition, the proposed streetcar, which although is nowhere as fast as a grade separated line nor having as much capacity, covers a substantial bulk of the Main Street area. For a local-serving point of view, a street car line is a lot cheaper for little speed loss (due to the fact the distance covered is small), while also eliminating a lot of bus lines.
To me, it makes more sense if the Main street line is completely cut out and instead swing east along Hastings. The Main street corridor is simply too close to the Canada Line (N-S corridor) for effective geographic spread. A far-future N-S corridor along Commercial-Victoria connecting the Hastings Line, Broadway-Commercial, and a potential line E-W along 41st/49th/Marine Drive makes more sense IMO.
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The Canada Line does nothing for commuters who are riding the Fraser or Kingsway buses, and most of Mt. Pleasant is ignored by the Canada Line and end up taking the Main St bus to the Expo Line. The 16th Ave station fills the large void left by the C Line - no station between King Ed. and Broadway - while the Main and Broadway station takes on the Fraser and Kingsway bus passengers who would otherwise get off at Main St Skytrain.
The Main St section would provide relief for the Expo Line at its busiest sections while also providing service to people in east Vancouver where the Canada Line is not an option.
The section of Main, between Hastings and Broadway is really very busy with buses and traffic. This is why the Kingsway Connector is/was being considered as well as a tram line. The problem with a tram line or street car is that there is no room on downtown streets for a street car, unless you run the street car exclusively up Main St. to connect with the Expo line. But that would just be moving sideways, not forward.