[URBAN NOTE] "Waiting for the streetcar now an international game"

[rfmcdonald]

The Toronto Star's Tess Kalinowski reports how Bombardier is keeping cities other than Toronto, including New York City, waiting for their mass transit vehicles.

Commuters sweltering on old TTC streetcars this week can take some comfort in knowing that Toronto isn't the only city seething over the late delivery of new transit vehicles.

While Torontonians curse Bombardier's glacial delivery of the new air-conditioned fleet, New York, Kansas City and Cincinnati are also facing delays on transit deliveries.

The Montreal-based Bombardier’s delivery of more than 200 Red Rocket streetcars, being assembled in Thunder Bay, is already a year behind schedule. Currently, only eight are running on Toronto’s streets, when 60 were supposed to have been here by now.

Meanwhile, New Yorkers expecting new Bombardier subway cars in 2017, are now facing a year-long delay in the $599 million, 2012 order.

A Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman said the decision to keep older subways running until 2022 at a cost of $50 million wasn't related to the delay in receiving new cars.