The other night we were watching Global News ^[1] and at the end of the hour, there’s always a cutesy, heartwarming, human interest story. That day, it was about some City of Vancouver construction workers who were digging a trench along Kingsway ^[2] to put in a median. They had come across wood over a foot down, under the road and concrete. The human interest story dude shows up, says – WOW this is a part of the old Interurban route of the Lower Mainland, and a history lesson begins.

In 1891, Tramway Co. car #13 made the inaugural run between Vancouver and New Westminster on what is widely recognized as North America’s first true railway of this type. [VancouverHistory ^[3]]. Until February, 1958 ^[4] the BC Electric Railway had an inter-urban trolley that went from downtown Vancouver, South Vancouver, Richmond or through Burnaby, New Westminster, over to Surrey, Langley and all the way out to Chilliwack.

I thought, “How neat!” especially since they’ve revived part of the electric trolley system around False Creek. You can hop on during tourist season and get a lovely tour. There are plans to go ahead and extend the line further into downtown and Kitsilano as well. For now, if you’d like to try it out. For now, the seasonal demonstration line is currently operating on weekends and holidays between Science World Station and Granville Island Station, from 12:30-4:30, until October [TransitMuseumSociety ^[5]].

So all is well. The construction workers unearthed a bit of local history and viewers of the News Hour got a brief lesson — or so I thought.

I started doing a little Googling and from what I found, the old Interurban went no where NEAR Kingsway in Vancouver. It just crossed it in Burnaby near Central Park and a bit in New Westminster.

I’ve seen maps before and I was able to find these online. You can clearly see that the rail lines, although they run almost parallel to Kingsway, do not run along it. Map 1 ^[6], Map 2 ^[7]. Now cross reference that with the Kingsway construction ^[2] on the City of Vancouver site, Map ^[8].

So although the lovely human interest story instigated this mini research and probably informed a lot of people about the trolley systems of yore, I believe it was historically inaccurate. From the images on the news, what they thought were wooden railroad ties (over a foot under the concrete) could have just been a part of the old road or perhaps another line (?)

I think it’s fairly obvious that I am not a historian nor do I even work for the City of Vancouver (in construction or otherwise). But I thought it would be neat to uncover this claim and discover a little more on my own about the efficient transit system we used to have, especially in comparison with the one today ^[9]. Feel free to share any more info or let me know if I’m completely off base, I love this stuff, thanks!

Edit: Just looked up the historical area ^[2] in which the road work is taking place, Kensington-Cedar Cottage ^[10] did start to build up once the Interurban came out that way, but the stop was on 18th & Commercial, not along Kingsway.