They came from the U.S. to see what is happening in York Region. Representatives from the “collar” counties of Chicago including Cook and DuPage came to our offices last week to learn about our rapid transit project.
They have visited Los Angeles and other cities to observe successful examples of rapid transit systems in action. Instead of reinventing the wheel, they are learning from what is out there, and according to the representatives, our system is one of the best.
These government officials and city planners come from a place that is similar to York Region in many ways. Some of their counties have a population of about a million people and are a suburb of a major city. They are in the situation of needing a solution faster than building a subway. That is why they wanted to see how we built phase one and how we are developing vivaNext.
They had questions about how bus rapid transit works, why we chose this technology, how our private/public partnership works and how we are marketing transit alternatives to a suburban population.
When we first started, we looked around the world to gather ideas. Now, as a testament to the good job we are doing, other cities are looking at vivaNext for ideas.
While they are just in the preliminary studies stage of building their system, if you find yourself in Chicago or its “collar” counties in the near future, you might just find yourself riding on a system that seems remarkably similar to the one in York Region.
