VancouverTransit

Transportation Lore of Vancouver

These entries are to document @Cariad's look at the various lore about transit in Metro Vancouver.

You can find its new location at Cariad's personal blog:
https://cariadheather.medium.com

cariad@keigher.ca if you wish to contact me.


Cariad's Personal Website
cariad.keigher.ca/

This is now on my Medium

Expo 86 was Vancouver's "coming out" party and its theme was transportation. This of course coincided with the opening of what is now the Expo Line from Waterfront to its then terminus at New Westminster. However, there were a few rapid transit systems built for the exposition including one very useful monorail system.


Map of Expo 86 showing Stadium station having links to SkyTrain and monorail

During the event, a monorail platform was situated to the west of what was then Stadium station and it provided speedy service across the sprawling World's Fair. The entire length of the service spanned over five kilometres and it was vital in not only connecting the parts of the False Creek portion of the fair, but also back to SkyTrain itself which was a link to the Canada Pavilion at what is now Canada Place, next to Waterfront station.

Monorail going by a giant watch during the fair

The monorail itself had several other stops including two near what is now Yaletown-Roundhouse station on the Canada Line, inside of the Plaza of Nations near BC Place Stadium, one at the Cambie Street bridge, and one more just a block from Main Street-Science World (which would then have been just "Main Street" as Science World was simply "Expo Centre" during the fair).

Another shot of said Monorail as seen from above

One interesting thing about the monorail was that it was envisioned as a possible rapid transit system for Metro Vancouver as early as the 1950s (at some point I should write about this). However, when finally built, it simply hugged False Creek and after the fair was over, was dismantled and sent off to England where it became a staple of an amusement park starting in summer 1987.

Street car map as proposed by the City of Vancouver

The route it took however is still an option under consideration for a street car service (see green-coloured line above), but Vancouver City Council has been speaking about this idea for decades and it probably could be decades more before we ever see that happen even though as early as last year it had another report released on it.


You must log in to comment.