Trolleys on Cambie
Media Release from Citizens for Trolleys on Cambie
Trolley service on Cambie Street could help fight global warming
Global warming, operating costs, reliability of service, better utilization of resources, these are just a few of the topics being raised by the grassroots organization Citizens for Trolleys on Cambie during its public awareness campaign.
After the Translink board decision on November 17th to recant its earlier commitment to re-electrify Cambie Street upon completion of the Canada Line a group of Lower Mainland residents have come together to fight this decision.
Citizens for Trolleys on Cambie will be canvassing the Cambie Street corridor with leaflets and posters letting residents know what this decision will mean for them. Informal surveying done by the group shows a majority of residents weren’t even aware the post-Canada Line plans for Cambie Street had changed, and Translink was now proposing full time diesel bus service on the route.
Through this on the ground campaign and a parallel digital campaign the organization hopes to force Translink to maintain its commitment to the residents of Cambie Street. The money to re-electrify the street had already been budgeted before construction, and the group maintains it would cost the same amount to put wires back up than remove the large proportion of wires remaining.
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For more information on Citizens for Trolleys on Cambie, the campaign, and the business case for trolleys returning to Cambie Street please see our website at www.trolleysoncambie.ca
Stephen Rees's blog 
Who are these “Citizens for Trolleys on Cambie”? Their website doesn’t seem offer much beyond this criptic description:
Over half the founders of Citizens for Trolleys on Cambie don’t live in the Cambie corridor, some even live in other parts of the Lower Mainland. However they all recognize how this issue is one of regional significance.
Yowza
January 28, 2007 at 3:25 pm
I know only one name – but I am not sure that matters. The only qualification for membership, it seems to me, is a willingness to question a decision to take down the rest of the wires rather than replace the ones that were removed during construction (they cost about the same apparently) and run diesel buses on a street that until recently has had electric traction since it started here. It seems odd that one of the few cities in North America that has retained electric buses, which now seem to be a very good idea in terms of reducing both local air pollution and ghg emissions, should be actively reducing their use in a city where transit ridership has been growing rapidly.
Who they are seems less important to me than is this a Good Idea or not? And on the track record of the current administration here (provincial, regional and local) getting them to at least explain their decisions and stick to the commitments that they so readily endorsed verbally but do so little to support practically is a Very Good Thing indeed.
Stephen Rees
January 28, 2007 at 4:11 pm
[…] of course, is absolutely total nonsense. The campaign to bring back the trolleys on Cambie (also reported earlier here) […]
Cambie Street: Bike Lanes and Trolleys « Stephen Rees’s blog
June 8, 2007 at 12:29 pm