Normally, I wouldn’t use my site to plug a manufacturer’s products, but with some recent discussions here about the relative merits of ICTS/Skytrain and streetcar/LRT technology for Scarborough, I have to make an exception.

LRT is well established all over the world, and Bombardier uses its market presence to great effect in their promotional material.  The jumping off point is a press release for the “Olympic Line” in Vancouver, a streetcar line (and that’s the term Bombardier uses) that will operate during the 2010 winter games using cars loaned by the Brussels system.

But it gets better:  more details are on Bombardier’s Vancouver 2010 Streetcar page which proclaims “The Streetcar Returns to Vancouver”.  You can view the information, photos and videos in the pulldowns yourself.

If anyone thinks that Bombardier might be ashamed of its streetcars, that it needs a Toronto ICTS line to justify its existence as a major vehicle supplier, well, just look at this site.  This is not just a Vancouver page, but a catalogue of Bombardier’s technology, almost all streetcars, worldwide.

Toronto, that “world class city”, lost decades in transit progress to an attitude typified by former megamayor Mel Lastman who said “real cities don’t use streetcars”.  We have a lot of catching up to do.