Transit in British Columbia: The First Hundred Years

A.A. den Otter is a professor of History at the Memorial University of
Newfoundland.

This book is a lavishly illustrated history of urban transportation in
southern British Columbia. Beginning with the electric streetcars that
commenced service in Victoria in 1890, the book traces the spread of the
system to Vancouver, New Westminster, and North Vancouver. The work also
discusses the interurban electric railway that covered the Fraser
Valley. The streetcars and interurbans dominated the region for half a
century, but eventually yielded to the bus. Gradually British Columbia
Electric, which operated the system, abandoned the streetcars. New
Westminster was the first to lose them, followed by Victoria in 1948,
and Vancouver in 1955.

The switch to buses is described, as is the advent of Seabus and
Skytrain, Vancouver’s ultramodern elevated rapid transit system.
Perhaps the most interesting section of the book describes Vancouver’s
love affair with the trolley bus. Although nearly spurned for diesels,
the trolleys regained favor during the energy crisis of the 1970s;
today, Vancouver’s fleet remains the largest outside of San Francisco.

Typically for the genre, this volume is light on textual material,
concentrating on first and lasts, accidents, and routes. It does not
attempt to analyse or interpret these events. Consequently, the many
well-reproduced photographs are the book’s real merit.