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 Bombardier image of Flexity model, unfortunately wrongly signed.

UPDATE 11:33AM — Bombardier has a website showcasing the new streetcars. “The coolest car in Toronto.”

The Globe and Mail is reporting that Bombarider has won the contract for the 204 streetcars to replace the CLRVs and ALRVs fo rthe existing legacy street railway network with its Flexity light rail model. Bombardier’s bid beat a rival bid from Siemens, which featured the Citadis Combino Plus  light rail vehicle model.

The contract, announced today, is worth $1.22 billion (excluding taxes) and includes an option for up to 400 more vehicles for the Transit City LRT and downtown streetcar expansion. The new streetcars will begin arriving in 2011, conditional on federal and provincial funding. The bid price is guaranteed until June 27, 2009.

This follows an earlier botched call for tenders which was cancelled last summer after receiving only two bids after rival Siemens pulled out. Bombardier’s original bid was found to be non-compliant, and little-known British firm TRAM Power was deemed not to be “commercially compliant.”

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25 comments

  4. Woo-hoo. Now onto the fun bits, like how to stick a PCC headlight onto the thing.

    Looking forward to seeing these big boys on Toronto’s streets. They just might finally change the public attitude towards streetcars from archaic buses-on-steel-wheels to serious transit machines. Oh ye Gods of Common Sense, might we now see streetcar routes on the TTC rapid transit maps?

  5. The difference in pricing is interesting. I wonder if Siemens didn’t bother bidding the first time because they figured they wouldn’t be able to beat Bombardier’s price. Anyway, that’s what competitive bidding processes are for.

    TheStreetcarRedefined.ca is an old site. There were billboards around town advertising it in 2007.

  6. woohoo! we might actually get some new vehicles sometime soon!

  7. a) Citadis is an Alstom tram. The Siemens tram would have been a Combino

    b) They have language in the report allowing them to piggyback TC on this order. Goddammit. The TC cars should be and can be different enough from the downtown to justify a separate order rather than giving BBD a massive headstart on the next 400. The 204 cars here is the entire tram system of several European cities combined.

  8. @uSkyskraper: Why would you put streetcar lines on RAPID transit maps? None of the TTC’s archaic streetcar practices, save for front-door boarding, will change with the new cars. Are you hoping the shiny new vehicles on rails will distract people from the fact that they’re still slow?

    The common sense solution is to leave them off.

  9. My wife and I lucked out the other day and got an old subway car with padded seats. Remember them? Comfort. Will the new streetcars just have the steel seats covered with fuzz?

  11. What a shame… it looks so ugly compared to our existing fleet.

  12. I’m glad Bombardier won, I like the interior configuration much better than the competitor’s. When I saw them at the Ex, I thought that the Siemens car had a lot of wasted space. And, I like the exterior design, too – I think it will age well.

  13. Mark Dowling: Chill, the TTC only retains an option to purchase the TC cars from BBD, not an obligation. If the new cars are successful, why wouldn’t TTC want the option of going with BBD for TC? And if they turn out to be a flop, TTC retains the choice of going with another manufacturer. Really, all this does is give them the chance to go with BBD rather than having to go through another two year RFP process, which would slow down the rollout of TC.

    Seems like a pretty logical way to conduct business.

  14. Paint them MAROON & CREAM and they will look awesome.

  15. Asher, I simply do not see why it had to be in this report at all. TC should have been an entirely separate project, but by putting a TC reference in the final report it will have a chilling effect on potential TC bidders who will suspect a fix being in.

  17. Nice.

    This TC talk though, makes one wonder what exactly is the difference between TC and these new streetcars if TC runs at grade on existing streets? Add a couple more cars to the vehicle in the picture and would that make it TC/LRT?
    It might solve the King/Queen (c)rush hour crowding. Will there really be so much more demand on a Don Mills TC line to warrant multi-car trains than on pre-existing streetcar lines?

    It also raises the question of how many different technologies/systems should a city run. Might make it trickier to train and schedule staff for, and to maintain.

    Oh and what’s a “Bombarider”?

  18. Ah, for the days in the 1950’s, when the TTC paid USD$17,500 for a slightly used PCC. At least for CAD$1,229,200, they is larger, has air-conditioning, more energy-efficient, and is low-floor.
    Keep the receipts.

  20. Joe, the pic you link to is a Brussels vehicle transplanted to Eglinton and with gold changed to red (easier to Photoshop that than to design a whole new paint scheme). It’s sort of official, if I recall: Matthew Blackett commissioned by Adam Giambrone to do that and the Transit City map and line buttons.

    Bombardier might have started with the Brussels paint scheme as well for their rendering, since that’s a very similar and recent model. If the bus fleet is any guide, I’d expect the final paint scheme to have more black, more white, and no silver.

  21. Sean: The link to the Bombardier site is to something that was developed as marketing by them the first time around. The car configuration shown is NOT the Toronto city car.

    I have updated my own post with more information about the proposal from yesterday’s media briefing.

    Sorry for being so tardy, but I had other things to do yesterday. Blogging sometimes takes second place!

    http://stevemunro.ca/?p=2041

  22. The streetcar purchase is contingent on federal and/or provincial funding. What do you want to bet the federal government will find a way not to provide funds, even though they announced around $4 billion for ready to go municipal infrastructure projects. They’ll come up with a bullsh*t reason, but the fundamental reality is that the federal government exists to suck money out of Toronto, not to send any back.

  23. I read yesterday in the Globe that because this streetcar has more capacity, wait times will be longer. This doesn’t seem the way to go to improve service…what am I missing?

  24. interesting that the TTC is calling for a streetcar musuem. But there’s already the Halton County Radial Railway Museum in Guelph. I guess they want to put one in town? Could be an interesting thing to put downtown, would be a great tourist thing.

  25. Asher wrote, “Chill, the TTC only retains an option to purchase the TC cars from BBD, not an obligation. If the new cars are successful, why wouldn’t TTC want the option of going with BBD for TC?”

    Nice idea, but the time line won’t allow that!

    The first TC line is expected to be up and running (2011) about a year before these new cars will hit the streets for the public to use (2012). The TC cars will be a more “off the shelf” design as they won’t have to be engineered to meet the specs for the legacy network’s track (tight curves at intersections, single-blade switches, and steep grades). While there is a strong advantage to going with Bombardier for the TC cars because much of the base for spare parts and repair skills will be identical, it is not necessarily a slam dunk. While Siemens’ bid was way higher than Bombardier for the legacy network, the same may not be necessarily true for TC vehicles. We shall have to wait and see.