Caen Opens Its New 16km, $373 Million Tram/LRT System
The new 16.2 km tramway in Caen, France has opened after a nineteen month build.
Granted the new tramway has used the the previous trouble prone, 15.7 km, TVR rubber tire guided bus line, which opened in 20o2 and abandoned in 2017.
The Euro €260 million (CAD $373 million) tramway opened six weeks earlier than forecast and now carries over 64,000 passengers a day. The previous TVR guided bus system carried 42 thousand passengers a day.
The Caen tramway operates three Lines and serves 37 stations.
Twenty of the twenty-six, 33 metre Citidis 305 are used at one time, providing a 10 minute service throughout the day on the three line system.
The 26 vehicles cost €52 million ($73.3 million) and the OHE and substations were reused from the previous TVR operation.
And just to think, Metro Vancouver is spending $4.6 billion to build 12.8 km the dated Movia automatic Light metro system.
I remember back in 2003-2004 a colleague of mine was convinced that the TVR Rail Guided Bus System and Bombardier’s, Rail Guided Bus would eliminate most LRT Systems within 2 decades.
Between 2003 to 2005, there was a proposed inter-provincial transit link between downtown Ottawa and downtown Gatineau (old downtown Hull) that would use the Bombardier Rail Guided Bus System. I remember the reaction was not very positive because all it did was eliminate cheaper standard diesel buses and standard diesel articulated buses, which jammed up both city cores, with very expensive Articulated Trolley Buses that looked like trains but couldn’t hold anywhere near as much as a train and yes, these buses would still get stuck in snow just as much as our existing articulated buses did. On top of that, the project required a very large fleet of these lookalike Articulated Trolley Buses which would still have clogged both downtown’s in the National Capital Region during peak periods. Hardly an effective solution.
I remember a comment about these vehicles, they were “a solution in search of a problem”. The solution that is being proposed now, is an LRT Line from the Alymer Sector in western Gatineau, using one of our inter-provincial road bridges and the disused, Prince of Wales Railway Bridge, which was formerly owned by the CPR but now, owned by the City of Ottawa.
Look at that picture, an LRT Line directly in front of people’s houses. I wonder, how many people complained about construction and line testing noise? I also wonder, how many politicians wanted a Skytrain line and viaduct there instead of the 3 line LRT network?
Zwei replies: if anything, the TVR was noisier and I do not think SkyTrain was an option.