Transit History That Politicians Would Like The Public To Forget

Election Special

First posted November 2024

The history of Vancouver’s SkyTrain light-metro system has been somewhat altered to fit today’s politcal narrative; the following is a brief but concise history of how metro Vancouver got saddled with the SkyTrain light metro system.

Prior to the Social Credit government forcing the then called Advanced Light Rail Transit (ALRT) system onto Metro Vancouver (To quote then premier Bill Bennett; “you will get SkyTrain whether you like it or not”, which was quoted again when then NDP Premier, Glen Clark echoes the same threat for the Millennium Line), there was a well studied plan to implement a modern light rail system for Canada.

Just weeks before the plan was to be accepted by the GVRD, the Bill Bennett government entered into a private agreement with the Government of Ontario to buy their unsalable Intermediate Capacity Transit System (ICTS) system, which was renamed ALRT for the sale to Vancouver, to acquire the services of the then famous “Blue Machine”, to win the next election, which like today, saw a one seat majority in the legislature in Victoria.

Only one ALRT system (Vancouver) was built and the proprietary transit system remained unsalable domestically and internationally.

Bill Van der Zalm was merely the government “points-man” to sell ALRT to the public and had little to do with the decision. He is on record stating that, except for the Expo Line, ALRT  or SkyTrain, was unsuitable for the lower mainland rapid transit and supports the Valley rail scheme.

The original LRT plans saw LRT from Vancouver to Richmond; Vancouver to New Westminster/Lougheed Mall and Whalley.

The following is a map, with costs (1978 dollars) of the proposed LRT lines, but for a somewhat higher cost we got ALRT to New Westminster.

Adjusting for inflation, the $430 Million to $558 Million would be $1.88 Billion to $2.45 Billion. Compare to the $7 to $8 Billion (2026 estimates), 16 km extension of the Expo Line to Langley or the now $4 billion, 5.7 km Broadway subway!

The GVRD did not want SkyTrain and instead wanted light rail for the then Broadway Lougheed Rapid Transit Plan as their “Cost of Transporting People in the Lower Mainland” Study found that SkyTrain, just to New Westminster,  was subsidized at $157 million annually in 1992; more than the trolley and diesel bus operations combined!. Accounting for inflation, this is $300 million annually in 2024 dollars

The NDP have flip-flopped twice, Broadway Lougheed and Surrey, from originally planned for light rail to SkyTrain light metro.

Why?

It certainly wasn’t because it was a better system because the well studied ALRT/ART (ART is the name for Bombardier’s rebuild of ALRT) has been found wanting and remains today unsalable.

The following is from Modern Tramways in 1983 and clearly shows that ICTS/ALRT was inferior to LRT, yet the Toronto studies were never permitted to be made public in BC and the Vancouver media never bothered to investigate ALRT.

It was known by 1983 that what we call SkyTrain was unsalable and today only seven systems were built and only six remain in operation. It was well known in the 1990’s that Bombardier’s rebuild of ICTS/ALRT was unsalable and resorting to pay “success fees” to bureaucrats and politicians in Korea and Malaysia to build with ART.

Bombardier could only sell one ART system in the USA, if the Canadian government, through the Overseas Development Bank would fund it, yet Vancouver continues to plan for more and worse, pretends it is a “world class system“!

Whoever has heard of a “world class system” that is unsalable?

This is the legacy of the SkyTrain light-metro system, a world class white elephant.

Why does government continue planning and building with it?

A Comment from our Canadian expert who advised Rail for the Valley (You know someone who works in the industry and not posting YouTube videos)

1. When I was at Bombardier people treated the technology and system as a like a joke. The main problem could be expressed in a single statement, It wasn’t scalable and the design (especially the vehicle) was unadaptable even when that was desirable for the customer.

You couldn’t buy a basic version and work up to the “Full Monty” later. If you wanted one part or feature but not another, as a customer, you were out of luck, you had to take everything. This is what primarily killed it. Want an extra feature like a drivers cab, ala the Scarborough RT, the design back flips that had to be done were stuff of legend. The design was set and that’s it, too bad if the customer wants or needs a change.

1 (a) The extreme corporate and institutional resistance against it, when it was forced on Bombardier buy a corporate purchase. it wasn’t a Bombardier product. It also directly compeated against other Bombardier products, making all of them including the Skytrain, harder to sell.

As an employee of Bombardier, god help you if you were given a position in that department and its various sub sections which promoted and sold it. ALRT, Skytrain, Scarborough RT, whatever you called it, you had just been demoted, almost as bad as being banished to the Monorail and People Mover Department. The most commonly heard phrase was, “a duck making a lateral career move to, a l’Orange!” It wasn’t liked and it wasn’t easy to promote due to it being very complicated and considering its capacity, really expensive.

2. Half the capacity of a full Metro (because it’s a Light Metro) but 80%+ the cost to build.

3. It’s automation wasn’t scalable either. One single line, one isolated line could save money for an operator however multiple lines in a network actually increased its operating costs.

4. Contrary to what your Translink people said, you could only buy the technology from Bombardier because we made it legally difficult and expensive to use anything but Bombardier technology. Plus you the operator, signed legal agreements banning any vehicle or principle operating technology outside of Bombardier’s products. These included NDA’s banning a list of topics for outside public information consumption. Don’t blame Bombardier this is actually very common in most of today’s industry agreements.

4 (a) The more you invested in the system the more you became more dependent on Bombardier. You might get cheaper off the shelf or easy to design and build replacement vehicles using the Mk 1 Skytrain, Mk 2 Skytrain levels of technology. However, finding a builder with the technological capacity to replace or build another version of the Mk 5 Skytrain with the same specs and capabilities designed from scratch to fill this niche market vehicle mandate, all for a comparable price, forget it. We designed it that way. All modern railway vehicle manufacturing companies do this to some extent. The odd mixtures of technology with the Skytrain vehicles made it easy to do that.

5. The odd nature and location of its propulsion equipment makes using nearly all of the easily available (cheap) 3rd party auxiliary track devices, virtually impossible. Thus forcing you to use either a far less common (more expensive) 3rd party alternative equipment or Bombardier’s (and its corporate partners) design specific equipment. This was common in maintenance equipment as well.

Massey Tunnel Shit Show Revisited

Seven years later and we are still at it.

The newly elected Conservatives are trying to con everyone that they can build the bridge for around $6 billion.

Really?

It seems so.

Back in 2017, the full cost of the bridge was reported to be over $8 billion and the then newly elected NDP Premier Horgan, cancelled the bridge and opted for a tunnel instead.

In 2017, CKNW Radio reported that the full cost for the bridge was over $8 billion.

With the recent election of the Conservatives, out of pure politcal spite, they will cancel the tunnel, after $500 million has already been spent and go back to the original bridge plans.

But, there is a problem.

It seems the Conservatives slept through their math classes and forgot to add inflation to the original cost.

This has been completely ignored by the the new premier and the Delta Conservative MLA as they claim they can build the bridge for more than $2 billion less than the estimated cost in 2017.

The same tired rhetoric, the same anti tunnel “porkies” are being used by the peanut gallery or Russian, Chinese, American botts (foreign influencers are a dime a dozen these days) on social media, using cheap AI inspired posts to sway the public’s attentions.

See Massey tunnel Facts.

So here we go again, politcans selling snake oil.

Of course, what the Conservatives and the NDP both ignore to tell the public is that the original reason for the removal for the Massey Tunnel is because it acted as a dike, prevent massive tankers and colliers going up the Fraser to Surrey docks to load American coal and oil.

Any talk about improving traffic congestion is just talk because there is still only four lanes of traffic on the Oak and Knight Street Bridges going north, unchanged in 51 years!

The taxpayer is in for a rollercoaster of lies, damned lies and statistics by the Conservatives desperately trying to sell a $12 billion plus bridge to the taxpayer (shades of the FastFerry scandal), with th claim of solving gridlock in Delta, while at the same time ignoring the fact that gridlock will only moved to Steveston Hwy, a mere 3 km away!

The bridge or tunnel debate underlines the “shit show” regional transportation planning has become.

Massey Tunnel Shit Show

Posted by zweisystem on Saturday, November 2, 2019

Blunt title but it is time to be blunt, regional transit planning is a “shit show”.

Shit show: Noun, vulgar slang, US origin – a situation or event marked by chaos or controversy.

This aptly describes our regional transit planning, where politicians at all levels of government promote their pet transit theories and projects, using an extremely dishonest bureaucracy to carry out their wishes.

This costs money, an awful lot of money; this wastes timed, an awful lot of precious time; this costs planning paralysis and in the end politicians approve doing the same thing over again, hoping for different results.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” Albert Einstein, Dec 13, 2017.

The Massey tunnel replacement project must stand out as a grand example of political manipulation; yellow journalism by the mainstream media; and a complete lack of any coherent regional transportation plan.

The Massey Tunnel does not need replacing, it is perfectly safe.

What is needed: A new bridge/tunnel crossing of the South Arm, near the vicinity 80th Ave in North Delta and a second bridge/tunnel crossing, of the  North Arm, adjacent to the CN rail bridge, from Richmond to South Burnaby. This entails new highway construction, which the regional politicians are afraid to contemplate.

All the new 8 lane bridge or tunnel do, without a second crossing of the North Arm of the Fraser, is to create a parking lot on Highway 99 in Richmond because of the restricted capacity of the Laing, Oak St. Knight St., and Queensborough bridges!

There has been no capacity increase for crossings of the North Arm of the Fraser River since 1975!

Until a comprehensive transportation plan is tabled and a rational regional strategy for transportation is obtained, any new bridge will create a “shit show” for traffic.

Speeding up Massey Tunnel replacement crucial for economy: Delta city Councillor

by Ria Renouf and Alison Bailey

Posted Nov 1, 2019

Summary

Transit advocates say any plan for replacing the Massey Tunnel should be assessed in light of climate concerns

A Delta councillor says a seismically safe, efficient alternative is urgently needed for the crucial economic gateway

DELTA (NEWS 1130) — Transit advocates are citing climate concerns and calling for plans for the George Massey crossing to be studied further, but a Delta politician says enough is enough.

Abundant Transit Vancouver penned an open letter asking for the plan for replacing the crossing to be sent to the Regional District’s Climate Action Committee for further scrutiny.

Coun. Dylan Kruger is a member of that committee and says further study is not necessary and a new crossing is urgently needed.

“They are arguing that there should be no replacement for the George Massey Tunnel because we should not be building for car infrastructure, we should only be building for transit,” he says. “I’m fully in support of building infrastructure to get people out of their cars but there’s a fundamental concept people have to understand when it comes to the Massey tunnel: the Massey Tunnel is the economic gateway into Canada.”

Kruger says commuters aren’t the only ones who rely on the tunnel.

“At the end of the day, container trucks can’t take transit,” he explains. “We still need to build so we can get goods from point A to point B, in this region and in this country. So the notion that we should be building only for transit infrastructure here, I think really does not take into account the economic ramifications.”

For the rest of the story, please click

Reality Check On High Speed Rail

To build or not to build, that is the question.

Now Zwei is no expert on high speed rail or HST, but from what I have read and what I have been told by people who have planned and built with HST elsewhere is “is there a demand for such a servcie?“

Is there enough ridership to fill at least three trains per hour per direction on the new HST Line?

News Flash: Spain has just now recorded another HST accident with at least 68 people dead.

Unless one can fill at least three full trains an hour per direction, HST will be hugely costly to operate, especially in Central Canada’s harsh summers and winters, where summers heat and winter’s snow will play havoc with HST trains.

The current cost estimate for Alto is now north of $80 billion and I wonder if ALTO will become the “SkyTrain” for all Canada, an endless money pit, hugely subsidized to meet politcal and not customer objectives.

Rail for the Valley has a different approach.

In the best interests of Canada, the passenger train routes connecting Windsor, Toronto/Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City be nationalized and upgraded to 200 kph operation. This would include a complete re-signalling, quadrupling tracks in needed locations, road over passes and railway flyovers.

Why 200 kph?

Because there is a lot of kit on the market designed for 200 kph operation, thus much cheaper for procurement of trains, maintenance issues and track requirements. Rail lines that have speeds over 200 kph grow more and more sensitive to both vertical and horizontal curvatures, thus greatly adding to the cost of the rights-of-way, including more expensive viaducts and tunnels.

Pathways for both freight and passenger trains would be allocated pathways as the signalling would provide on the line. Disused or abandoned rail routes could be reactivated for freight and local passenger servcie, as what is happening today in Europe today.

Finally a maximum speed of 200kph is well within the sphere of current track maintenance programs, both in summer and winter, while trains at higher speeds may find operation problematic.

This would cost around $40 billion and the addition $40 billion could be invested in regional railways across Canada, such as Vancouver Island’s E&N, BC Rail, Rail for the Valley’s Vancouver to Chillwack servcie and Kamloops to Kelowna in BC.

The same concept of regional railways could be built in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Certainly there is ample scope for regional railways in Ontario and Quebec. The Maritime provinces need their railway lines completely rebuilt and even the reestablishment of railway operation in Newfoundland.

Canada, especially the the Canadian politcal and bureaucratic elites must rethink railways as not being some sort of relic from the 20th centruy, but instead much needed transportation infrastructure for Canada in these perilous times.

HST and ALTO is the current flavour of the month, being built to meet politcal timetables and electoral needs, where regional railways carrying both freight and passengers meets a national need, across all politcal lines.

One wonders if HST and ALTO is putting a $80 billion horse before the cart?

Photo: A 200kph Train operating in Northern Ireland

National Dream Or National Nightmare: Time To Rethink ALTO High-Speed Rail Project

By Brian Graff / October 23, 2026 (Reprinted by permission of Dominion Review)

I am not on the political right, which has an obsession with the evils of high government spending and in particular, with running deficits. But the Carney government seems like it is promising to spend massive amounts of money on questionable projects at the same time as it has been cutting back on things that make money – or taxes, like the Carbon Tax and the Digital Services Tax.

Privatizing airports is about the only policy that would raise money, but then the government is promising that passengers will not see any difference for the worse. It cannot be that this scheme will both generate more money for Ottawa and that flyers will not pay more.

Carney had promised to double housing construction, which would mean an increase from 250,000 units per year to roughly 500,000 units per year, which would mean housing for over 1 million people a year when net immigration is now near zero and apartment vacancy rates have skyrocketed.

Thankfully, that plan to double new housing has now been dropped.

Carney was also quick to please Donald Trump by promising defence spending of 5% of GDP, but most spending on defence is wasted unless Canada goes to war or gives weapons to nations that we support who are at war, like Ukraine. And seriously, do we expect Russia or China to land on Ellesmere Island and claim it as theirs?

An expensive project that might seem more practical is the Alto High-Speed Rail (HSR) project that will run from Toronto to Quebec City. Frankly, the fact that it will not run west of Toronto to Mississauga, Hamilton, or Kitchener/Waterloo seems like a mistake, given the high population west of Highway 427 to London.

Now, for years I went to Liberal Party policy conventions in Ontario, and inevitably the top 10 prioritized resolutions would include high speed rail. Progressives look longingly at the extensive rail networks of Europe and Japan. Meanwhile, the car, the suburbs, and so on are unfashionable. It is often unclear why we want or need high speed rail, or who benefits.

Like bike lanes, high speed rail is an obsession with progressive politicians and some voters who are progressive or left of centre, and who are conducting a war on the car, but HSR is also touted as reducing GHGs and cutting travel times. However, the Alto project will not likely be a new version of the “National Dream” of the transcontinental railroad, except that that project was in some ways a boondoggle or massive giveaway to private investors.

Currently, a train trip from Toronto to Montreal takes five to six hours, assuming no delays. Alto promises to cut this time in half, to around three hours. This sounds great, except that flying from Toronto to Montreal takes about one hour and twenty minutes in the air (though passengers are asked to arrive 90 minutes or more before takeoff, which seems nuts). That said, right now a person can fly to Montreal in under three hours all in. Of course, a lot of that time will be spend sitting and waiting, and this time could be shortened particularly at a small airport like Billy Bishop if there were more people paid to speed it up.

Of course, flying is airport to airport, whereas the train is Downtown to Downtown, but not everybody wants to go Downtown, unless perhaps you work in government, for a law firm, or a corporate head office. But Toronto has that UP train that takes 30 minutes to go from Union to the airport, and Montreal is also getting a fast rail service too.

But does the Alto HSR service make any financial sense? This is where there is a problem. The latest estimated cost range is from $60 billion to $90 billion for the entire Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City line, but what major project comes in on budget these days?

The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) did their own analysis and estimates, which concluded the price could be as high as $113 billion, though that is the worst case and their low-end number was around $75 billion.

Let’s just assume the cost is the average, around $75 billion in today’s money.

Money is not free and this is a private-public project. Government can borrow at low interest rates, but equity investors need higher returns. Let’s assume a low 5% rate of return is required. So, $75 billion times 5% equals $3.75 billion profit or return on investment, or equivalent net benefits, to make the project break even.

Assuming 365 days a year, that means just under $10.3 million in profit per day, though of course weekends and holidays will have lower volumes.

The trains will likely run three or four times per hour during peak hours, but will likely shut down at night for maintenance. If we assume 18 hours per day, this is 54 to 72 trains per day – but given off-peak hours and weekends, let’s assume 50 trains per day average.

The trains will seat 690 to 1,250 passengers, averaging 970 people. Assume a 50% average rate of passenger load over the entire line, and we are at around 500 passengers, or 25,000 per day. At 75% capacity this is 37,500 passengers per day.

For context, Pearson Airport serves an estimated 100,000 passengers per day, heading to destinations all over the world. Currently, VIA rail carries 2.1 million passengers per year in the Toronto-Quebec City corridor, or 5,700 per day.

The return on capital of $10.3 million per day works out to $412 per passenger at 25,000 per day, or $274 at 75% capacity, just to recover the construction cost and excluding actual operating costs.

Assume operating costs of $100 per passenger, and that means ticket prices of $375 to over $500 one way (or else we would be over the capacity of the trains).

The current cost of a round-trip ticket just for the Toronto Montreal portion is around $150 for economy class, and $250 for business class, meaning a one-way trip might be half of that. Flying round trip from Toronto to Montreal is around $400, so each actual flight is likely as low as $200. Of course, if someone is buying just a one-way fare, the prices are higher.

Many people also currently drive Toronto to Montreal, Toronto to Ottawa, and Montreal to Quebec City. Gas is cheap, and with plug-in electric vehicles, energy is even cheaper and CO2 emissions low, if climate change is an objective. But anyone driving their own car avoids the costs of renting a car at their destination, or taking taxis or Ubers and so on, and when driverless cars are perfected, at least for use on 400 series highways, travellers might be able to sleep or do other things while being driven.

Advocates of HSR often draw comparisons to Europe. Spain has been an example of a country that has built a vast rail network at reasonable cost. France has excellent service, but the UK’s plans have turned into something of a disaster, with the routes being reduced and costs skyrocketing.

Let’s compare distances of ALTO to the UK and France.

London to Birmingham (my mother’s birthplace in 1923) is about 100 miles. As the crow flies Paris to Marseilles is about 410 miles. Toronto to Montreal is 315, Montreal to Quebec is 145. Toronto to Ottawa is 220 miles, and Ottawa to Toronto is under 105, so Toronto to Montreal via Ottawa is 335 miles, as the crow flies. But we need to remember, airplanes can generally fly straight, ignoring the circling or direction of takeoff and landing.

Here is the map of the current planned or potential routes for ALTO, Toronto to Quebec City. The route in large part was intended to go through areas with low populations and land prices, to save money and since the goal is to only have stops at the most important points.

But rather than building a new high speed passenger rail line, a better solution might be to expropriate both the CP and CN main rail lines from Windsor to Quebec City, and then upgrade the CN line to increase speeds, while using the CP line for slower passenger trains and freight trains, with VIA owning the tracks instead of being a nuisance to the corporation that owns the tracks to make money.

It is cheaper and easier to build or upgrade tracks parallel to the current CN and CP main lines to take more freight trains than to build a high-speed rail line for the entire length, from scratch. This would also mean upgraded service in other cities like Kingston, Belleville, Oshawa, and west of Toronto that will not be served at all by the Alto project.

Let’s put the $60 billion to $90 billion current budget in some context. The market capitalization of CN Rail is a good starting point, as it includes the existing Toronto-Quebec City rail lines, which is just a fraction of their assets and business all across Canada and the US. Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) has a market cap we can also look at for context.

As of early October 2026, approximate figures for the two Class I Canadian railways are below. Market caps move with the share price; debt is from the most recent reported balance sheets (around mid-2026):

Canadian National Railway (CN; TSX: CNR / NYSE: CNI)

• Market capitalization: about CAD 103 billion (roughly USD 72 billion).
• Total debt: about CAD 22.8 billion (roughly USD 16 billion). Cash is only a few hundred million, so net debt is nearly the same as total debt.

Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC, formerly CP Rail; TSX: CP / NYSE: CP)

• Market capitalization: about CAD 108 billion (roughly USD 76 billion).
• Total debt: about CAD 25.2 billion (roughly USD 18 billion). Cash is also only a few hundred million.

So, for CAD 250 billion, we could buy the entire freight operations across North America of both railways, or about CAD 125 billion for either one.

Buying both mainlines from Quebec City to Windsor would likely cost far less than the $113 billion PBO worst case price for a new HSR line, excluding marshalling yards and other things. Here is a map of existing rail lines in the areas in question

Sir John A. Macdonald is known for the National Dream of the CP rail line to the Pacific, but in fact, the project was a financial nightmare where CP was given a fortune in free land and other benefits including financial guarantees. Some people now think it would have been better off if the government had just fully owned it. Public ownership often makes sense, and even if the Windsor-Quebec City mainlines were expropriated, the government previously owned corporations that were well run, including PetroCanada, C, and – the best example -Polymer Corporation (based in Sarnia).

I doubt that the high-speed rail line as currently proposed makes any financial sense, even if it were to come in on budget. But chances are that the line will not draw the passenger volumes needed at ticket prices that will cover operating costs and the initial capital costs – this risks being a major boondoggle when a more incremental approach of buying up the existing main lines would serve more people, and mean the entire Windsor to Quebec City corridor could be acquired immediately.

Here is a better option, which would allow for improving VIA service as well, which is something the ALTO project cannot do by its route north of Rice Lake and coming into Montreal through the North.

By shifting all or nearly all freight to the CP line (which might require some new freight tracks or rights of way to make it optimal) then the CN tracks from Toronto to Kingston, and from Downtown Montreal to west of the Ottawa River, can be used in areas where creating a new right of way is next to impossible, and the tracks can be upgraded to serve both VIA and ALTO, with transfer points in Dorval, Kingston, and Oshawa.

High speed rail from Toronto to Montreal, or Montreal to Toronto, can be offered once the Montreal-Ottawa and Ottawa-Kingston portions are built – meaning service can start before the Toronto-Kingston (or Toronto-Peterborough-Ottawa line under the current proposal) will be completed – and HSR will not share the tracks with freight trains, only with VIA trains. Even the Toronto-Kingston can be upgraded in increments with a new right of way, or by widening the existing one, from Kingston to Belleville, then Belleville to Oshawa.

Here is a map of the population density:

Alto’s current line goes through the least populated areas, north of Rice Lake and with an option that goes south, but seems to have no connections to the current CN/VIA tracks, though the CP tracks do cut north from Belleville to Smith’s Falls.

One question – if something blocks the Alto tracks, does all service stop? By not being close to existing VIA routes on the CN corridor along the lake and river, Alto is not even close enough to the 401 to use buses, yet alone to just reroute the trains around the area where Alto’s tracks are inoperable.

Here is a map of Montreal and environs:

Now, the Montreal-Quebec City portion will likely be north of the St. Lawrence River. Both CN and CP have tracks into Laval, but CN’s go Downtown and likely will have to be used given the cost and disruption of expropriating an entirely new line.

A key public goal of the government is to reduce GHGs – and to take people out of cars and/or out of airplanes. Both CP and CN lines run extremely close to Trudeau Airport. By skipping Laval and coming into Montreal from the west, the line is shorter, but more importantly, this will take people out of flying from Ottawa to Toronto and/or Montreal to catch a flight to other places in Canada or international flights. Extending the line to near Pearson Airport on the west end would have the same impact, though the UP service does that now but involves a transfer at Union Station.

If anything, the line could stop at Trudeau Airport, then stop in Downtown Montreal. Then there is a choice to go east along the river to Quebec City, or if Laval is that important, have the line go north to Laval then turn east to Quebec City.

Now here is Ottawa:

A station in the suburbs near the airport makes the most sense. But Alto’s plan shows the rail line crossing the Ottawa River near Hawkesbury, though there are no existing rail bridges across the river anywhere near there, while both CN and CP have sets of rail bridges across the Ottawa River west of Montreal at Dorion. Likely one set of bridges alone could handle the freight traffic with the other set of bridges shared by VIA and Alto with Alto having priority. If the bridges can be widened or new parallel bridges built later, this represents a cost saving and speeds up construction.

The big public benefit is that VIA will own its tracks (in conjunction with Alto and/or the government) instead of CN owning the tracks, so VIA’s current problem of sharing the tracks and being second priority to CN’s own operations is gone.

The portions of tracks close to Toronto and Montreal where the right-of-way will be shared by Alto and VIA works and is likely unavoidable, but now ALTO connects to Trudeau Airport, so someone from Quebec City or Ottawa can take the rail directly to an airport with international flights and flights to the rest of Canada.

This is the possible staging, over a much longer timeframe, for adding parts of the system where speeds can be highest:

• Stage 1: New HSR tracks from west of Montreal to Ottawa – with high-speed rail only covering this portion.
• Stage 2: New HSR tracks from Ottawa to Kingston – trains can continue to/from Toronto so high-speed rail service can start at this point.
• Stage 3: New HSR tracks from Kingston to Belleville – though there will be no stop in Belleville itself, but there will be a link to the VIA tracks here, to speed up the service.
• Stage 4: HSR tracks from Belleville to Oshawa – completing the new right of ways needed.

Where possible, the existing tracks can be upgraded, straightened or small acquisitions of adjoining land made to allow for more appropriate curves or improving the system to allow even higher speeds – incremental improvements that benefit Alto or both Alto and VIA.

By having stops at Trudeau Airport, Kingston and Oshawa, the potential ridership will be far higher, and the line will pass closer to higher density areas of Ontario. A Laval station is still possible, but it is between Montreal and Quebec City as opposed to being between Montreal and Ottawa. The area east of Toronto, around Oshawa, includes a lot of people who do not have an airport with passenger service. Trudeau Airport can mean a lot of passengers, and it is possible to still have a stop in Laval. People from other cities along Lake Ontario or the St. Lawrence could travel to Kingston by car, bus, or by VIA train and then transfer for the rest of their trip.

The other key advantage is that other than very close to the cores of Toronto and Montreal, there is now some redundancy – if any portion of the line has to be shut down, trains can bypass that section by using tracks normally only used by VIA. There may be a delay, but service can continue instead of being cancelled entirely or passengers having to be loaded into buses to get to somewhere where service resumes or their destination. Oshawa is certainly more likely to provide high numbers of passengers than Peterborough.

In the Toronto to Montreal corridor, VIA service is heavily subsidized and slow – according to Grok AI, Toronto to Montreal one-way on average has revenue of $113 per passenger and a subsidy of $50 per passenger, for a cost of $163, and almost a third is subsidies. In contrast, economy fares on Porter Airlines from Billy Bishop airport to Montreal are around $120 to $180, with no government subsidy.

Plus, there is the cost savings from not building a new bridge over the Ottawa river, and my route is shorter and more direct.

What is the point of high-speed rail? A bunch of business executives or government managers taking less time to travel cannot produce billions in economic value. This is particularly the case with Zoom/videoconferencing and similar services that have taken off since Japan, France, and some other countries started high speed rail. These countries are also denser and many people take rail regardless. In Canada, the densities are so relatively low, the country so big, and energy so cheap that flying makes more sense.

A non-stop flight from Toronto to Montreal is only in the air for about one hour and twenty minutes. To Ottawa might be one hour or one hour and 10 minutes. Montreal to Ottawa is under an hour. Montreal to Quebec City is 40 minutes to just under an hour depending on the airplane and so on.

Flying uses four to six times the energy as high-speed rail, assuming a 300-mile trip. A Boeing 737 uses roughly four-and-a-half to six gallons of fuel per passenger for a one-way, 300-mile trip. One person in a Honda Civic might use seven-and-a-half gallons of gas, one way. If two or more people are in the Civic, it uses less energy than flying. Four people in a car is best, a bus is even better, but a lot depends on how full the train or bus is.

If the goal of high-speed rail is to reduce GHGs, that would be fine, except our policy now seems to be to extract and export as much fossil fuels as possible, with massive construction projects that will require energy to build. High speed rail will also require a lot of bridges, tunnels, and so on – while the highways and airports generally can handle the status quo and some growth.

If Canada wanted to reduce GHGs in future, particularly to meet targets that are total emissions and not “per capita”, the best solution is to have low or no population growth, or even let the population slowly decline as is happening in Japan and Korea now. The insane Century Initiative policy of high population growth ignores the increasing costs of eliminating GHGs with more people, in order to have the same total emissions.

The average price of a VIA rail ticket is $80 to $150, one way. But there is a $50 to $60 subsidy, and with fewer VIA passengers, that would go up. According to Grok AI, the cost of flying from Toronto to Montreal is between $70 and $25, typically around $110-$120, and airports get no subsidy. In fact, the government get lots of rent from Pearson under the current model.

The real problem right now is that VIA does not own its tracks. Until CN was privatized in the 1990s, the federal government owned all of CN, including those tracks.

Alto does nothing to improve service on the current VIA corridor. In fact, VIA will lose passengers and be a worse service as a result. Alto cannot charge more than maybe $200-$250 one way from Toronto to Montreal, but likely would want to offer a premium service more like business class. Most people would likely keep flying, particularly if their destination is not downtown, but home or elsewhere in the burbs.

The problem with flying is the time between getting to the airport, security, boarding, and so on and then waiting for luggage. Flying from Billy Bishop is faster than Pearson, I assume, but there is an advantage to rail over air in terms of being able to serve downtowns, and not having the high security or time waiting to board, take off, landing.

If we expropriated both CN and CP mainlines, it would not include the marshalling yards. Some new freight-only sections of track might need to be built, and possibly it could be privatized, or jointly run by the government and the two railways. So, even if the cost of acquiring both lines together is high, it will earn back much of the revenue from freight traffic in tolls or fees, or the CP freight portions could mostly be sold off in some form so that both companies can maintain freight services on mostly joint tracks.

The big problem with rail is that the companies run parallel vertical monopolies, as opposed to the tracks being run like a utility or toll road, with the trains paying for access and use. If every airline had to have its own airports, we would say that is nuts, but we accept this with rail because that is how they started.

If we want HSR, then we should build a new line along the west side of the Ottawa river to near Ottawa airport, with a stop at Dorval/Trudeau airport. Then, build a second stage from Ottawa to Kingston. If in future there is justification, then we should build new HSR sections from Kingston to Belleville, then Belleville to Oshawa.

SkyTrain – The Multi Billion Dollar Voter Bribe

Originally posted in 2016, ten years and an estimated $16 billion later, the true costs of building SkyTrain does not resonate with our local politcans. I will add comments and give 2026 dollar figures where necessary. The graph is from Ontario’s MetroLinx, and our SkyTrain light metro system, falls in the “subway” category of 50 year costs.

Three Minutes Into The Future!

Posted by zweisystem on Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Originally published August 30, 2016 

Our politcans seem to have fallen asleep in their arithmetic classes as their “back of the envelope” planning will cost both transit users and taxpayers dearly.

More wise words from Mr. ‘Haveacow’ who is an extremely experienced transit planner working on Ottawa’s new regional light rail line.

This was originally a post from the recent Calgary blog and contains a wealth of information that the powers that be don’t really want in the public realm.

Zwei replies: it is estimated that a minimum of $16 billion will be spent extending the Expo and millennium Lines a mere 21.7 km.

What this boils down to is that the Expo and Millennium Lines need a lot of investment for modernization, investment that will come from the expense of the Metro and Fraser Valley region.

As one transit expert told Zwei decades ago,”you can get any transit system to do anything you want , if you throw enough money at it.” The problem is, of course, the money thrown at the transit system generally comes from other transit projects.

This begs the question; “How much money is the taxpayer willing throw at SkyTrain”?

An Historical note: The initial ALRT line from Vancouver to New Westminster was originally designed to have a third “express line” through less well used stations, such as Royal Oak or 22nd Ave., to decrease travel time. Zwei was told by a retired GVRD planner some years ago that there were supposed to be five such stations along the route and the plan was to cut almost 10 minutes off the travel time in the peak hour, end to end. Cost constraints and signalling issues sidelined any thought of this type of operation.

Over to you, Mr. Cow!

Technically Skytrain can be expanded to do 28,000+ p/h/d. Actually any existing rapid transit system can be expanded to handle much greater passenger capacities. The real issue is how much you want to spend to do that.

Skytrain could with existing technology upgrade its signaling systems to a state of the art, high capacity multiple independent moving blocks signaling system with the newest version of Bombardier’s City Flo 650 Automation System operating as the system governor. But that’s expensive and Translink is only and very begrudgingly doing some of this, mostly because of cost issues and the time required.

Problem/Issue#1:

The electrical handling capacity of the system needs to be upgraded. Meaning, the existing electrical transformers (hidden behind the doors at nearly every station and what is mostly responsible for the mysterious size of most stations on the ground floor) needs to be upgraded in capacity or new ones have to be built and the corresponding cabling replaced, as well as the replacement of many of the system’s third rails and third rail connecting joints with each other and the cabling (can’t remember the technical name right now). Translink is trying to do this but its expensive and very time consuming however, it can easily be done at night when the system is closed and doesn’t necessarily. This is the first step in signal upgrades. Comment by Zwei: To date there has been no real hint of an electrical upgrade and now with the promised Rootin Tootin Newton extension, I would think an electrical upgrade would be mandatory. One wonders is there a budget for this or a cheap bandaid solution? Back of the envelope costing for transit promises tend to backfire on the taxpayer.

Problem/issue #2:

Next spending at a minimum of $500-700 Million ($660 to $910 million in 2026 dollars) and about 2-5 years with multiple daytime shutdowns to completely replace all the existing signaling software and hardware as well as the signals themselves. Toronto is replacing its 60 year old signaling system on line#1 (Yonge-University Spadina-York Subway Line). Its taken 4 years so far with major portions of the line getting shutdown on the weekends. This weekend its Lawrence Station to Yonge and Bloor, (the busiest stretch of rapid transit line in Canada and 2nd busiest in North America during peak hours). But it must be done to improve the lines top capacity limit and to keep the overall network in good repair. The traditional time the TTC does maintenance projects, the 6.5-7 hours a week from closing time Saturday night/Sunday morning to the traditional late start Sunday morning at 9am is just not enough time. So every weekend or at least every second weekend a section of the line is taken out of service to replace the thousands of km’s of cables and signaling infrastructure. Fall 2017 is the expected completion date.

Next, add new centre platforms to existing stations and or adding centre tracks with new passenger platforms either side and move the existing tracks to the outside wall limit which is also expanded. Except for the highest use stations, this eliminates the need to lengthen platforms and is cheaper option when dealing with an above grade rapid transit system.

Problem/Issue #3:

Man this time consuming and expensive and you really have to do step 1 and 2 first but it can work. Translink is doing a station by station approach which means it may have most of the original stations on the Expo line upgraded by 2041. Time to do all the stations depends on budgets and assuming we survive the asteroid impact we will be subject to in 2048 (I’m a back yard astronomer each time a particular well know asteroid passes by us it keeps getting closer and closer, I’m not kidding). However, after several expected close fly bys in 2020’s and 2030’s due to gravitational sheer, may change the final date or it may cause it to miss us altogether, we will see. Anyway back to point.

There are other issues such as, as your above grade Skytrain lines age, the structure between the stations will need significant structural upgrade. The longer you wait the bigger the bill. Translink has no budget or plan to deal with this issue. As we (me and employees of the company I was consulting with at the time) asked during our visit to there control centre a few years ago while we presented to the staff pieces of concrete right of way we found around Metrotown Station. What is your long term plan to deal with Expo line’s above grade structural renewal proposals we asked? Their answers were polite and diplomatic but you could tell we caught them off guard. It all depends on budgets and the availability time capital was the answer, so no plan until they have enough cash I guess.

Lastly, as any rapid transit system gets bigger and bigger, the cheap and easy to build lines will generally get built first. Each extension or new line becomes relatively speaking more and more expensive (regardless of inflation). Its not Translink’s fault this generally happens on any system, you pick the low hanging fruit first! Many of the new lines like the Millennium Line’s Broadway extension to Arbutus and eventually UBC, are very expensive (because of the tunnel) and will only produce for now and even into the future, meager passenger numbers. In my humble professional opinion, the overly optimistic predictions of Translink will never produce the numbers really needed to justify a below grade Skytrain line that costs only 20% less per km than a late, over budget, subway line in Toronto that will daily handle twice the capacity of the planned Skytrain line, using the present 60 year old signaling system not the new one which is being installed on the rest of the line and that will be ready to go when this extension is complete. All these cost predictions for the Broadway Extension are based on 6 year old planning data which needs to be seriously upgraded and will most likely go up in cost per km as well. (Comment by Zwei: The Broadway subway is now estimated to cost around $3.5 to $4 billion. The UBC subway around $8 billion)

There are very few other justifiable new line opportunities for the Skytrain System given current ridership and corridor passenger levels. There are some extensions planned or being discussed. One is the killing of the very poorly thought out LRT line in Surrey and replacing it Skytrain extension (Comment by Zwei: Well TransLink and the Provincial NDP killed off the planned light rail in 2017 and replaced it with the now $7 billion plus Langley extension (guideway only). One cannot, but opine that the surrey LRT was so designed to get cancelled in favour of more SkyTrain) but it brings about another issue that is not thought about in Vancouver yet but Toronto and Montreal have been facing for a while, that is the geographic scale of the service area. You can extend the Skytrain in Surrey but even Skytrain’s for Surrey, “Daryl”, missed this little issue. If you build the extension of the Skytrain as designed by Translink and Daryl you will have to sit for an hour just to get to the other side of the line, which is downtown. This still seems to be the largest passenger destination for the system. It will take an hour because of all the other existing stops you already have in between Surrey Skytrain extension and downtown Vancouver. You could have a local/ express train system operation but unless track infrastructure is severely upgraded, it just can’t happen. So a change in operational technology is needed, more commuter rail/regional rail or Zwei’s Tram Trains operation. Both Toronto and Montreal learned a long time ago you can’t extend subway/metro lines outward until they are 30-40 miles long its just too expensive to build and operate. Not to mention there would be just too many stations stops between where people want to go and where they will be getting on. Adding express services is expensive and difficult and ultimately lowers capacity. Even heavier capacity LRT lines have a distance/travel time limit. So soon a new form of longer distance rapid transit will be needed for Vancouver’s outer areas you can’t keep building Skytrain further and further out its also way too expensive to build and you still suffer the distance/time penalty for potential passenger numbers. So yes a change in rapid transit operating technology, due to the geographic operating scale, for the outer portions of your region is most likely imminent.

Final comment by Zwei: Both provincial and civic politcans have shown that they do not give a damn about the cost of SkyTrain, or the taxpayer as SkyTrain is built to win elections and the cost be damned, “we will just raise taxes on the rubes, they were the suckers that voted for this”.

SkyTrain To Rootin Tootin Newton? It Must Be Election Time

It is the silly season folks and the NDP and Conservatives have made promises to build more SkyTrain and why not, as politcal promises are easily made but much harder to keep.

The first question I will ask is the cost?

Based on the Langley extension, around $3.2 billion, not including cars, signalling, added electrical supply and more.

Second question I will ask, Funding?

Ah yes funding, a pesky little question to ask because Bombardier no longer owns the propitiatory cars that operate on the Expo Line and Alstom, who now owns the proprietary system, is in the process of selling the production facility (and the all important test track) in Kingston; with Ottawa opting out funding this line altogether. Ceasing production are they?

Do I hear ALTO, that $80 billion, 300km high speed rail line connecting Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City.

Then there is Vancouver, with a current $3.5 billion subway to nowhere under Broadway, with provincial promises to complete it to UBC. Oh and that is another $8 billion – chump change at election time.

For the same cost of a 8 km extension to Rootin Tootin Newton, we could build around 60km of modern LRT for Surrey, but of course its the photo ops and 10 second sound bites that come with SkyTrain that is important, especially around election time.

Does anyone remember former Vancouver mayor, Kennedy Stewart’s SkyTrain loop line for Vancouver?

Remember, promises, promises…………….

BC NDP, BC Conservatives support expanding SkyTrain to Newton

By Amy Judd Global News

Posted October 20, 2026

Surrey is shaping up to be a major battleground in the upcoming provincial election and now B.C.’s two biggest parties are expressing support for expanding the SkyTrain to Newton.

The city’s newly elected mayor, Doug McCallum, said in a statement that only the BC Conservatives have committed to the expansion, while the BC NDP “offered a meeting.”

One of McCallum’s campaign promises was to connect Newton on the SkyTrain line.

Eby was asked about the mayor-elect’s comments during a press conference on Tuesday morning.

“It’s important for British Columbians to know that whether it’s our commitment to work with the new mayor in Surrey, to build that SkyTrain in Newton, or whether it is the Massey Tunnel Project in the Lower Mainland, or whether it’s right here in Kelowna, to build up that sixth floor of the hospital, that we’re building this province,” Eby said.

He added that the BC NDP has set aside $250 million in their platform for a transit expansion to Newton and they have set that money aside.

The city’s newly elected mayor, Doug McCallum, said in a statement that only the BC Conservatives have committed to the expansion, while the BC NDP “offered a meeting.”

One of McCallum’s campaign promises was to connect Newton on the SkyTrain line.

Eby was asked about the mayor-elect’s comments during a press conference on Tuesday morning.

“It’s important for British Columbians to know that whether it’s our commitment to work with the new mayor in Surrey, to build that SkyTrain in Newton, or whether it is the Massey Tunnel Project in the Lower Mainland, or whether it’s right here in Kelowna, to build up that sixth floor of the hospital, that we’re building this province,” Eby said.

He added that the BC NDP has set aside $250 million in their platform for a transit expansion to Newton and they have set that money aside.

Just as a reminder for the cost of a 8 km SkyTrain line, Surrey could build around 60 km of modern light rail, but politcans only care about transit at election time!

3 dead, several injured after fiery bus crash in Calgary

I am posting this very sad news report to illustrate accidents on public transit systems happen, but it seems if an accident is involving a streetcar or tram, it gets wide coverage, but with a bus, not so much.

From what I have gleaned from other news reports, there seems to have been a fire on a compressed gas fueled bus, which caused a fire and injuries.

Please watch further news reports for more details.

3 dead, several injured after fiery bus crash in Calgary

Fire involving city transit bus occurred Thursday afternoon in Saddle Ridge neighbourhood

Kelsea Arnett · CBC News · Posted: Oct 15, 2026

Three people are dead and 16 others were injured in a collision involving a city bus in Calgary on Thursday, according to officials.

The fiery, fatal crash happened just after 1 p.m. in the city’s northeast community of Saddle Ridge.

Three people were declared dead at the scene. Ten were transported to hospital via ambulance, with one in life-threatening condition and nine others in non-life-threatening condition.

Five others were assessed for non-life-threatening injuries at the scene, and were later transported to hospital for further assessment.

A Calgary Police Service member also sustained minor injuries.

The fire occurred on the 800 block of Saddletowne Circle N.E., near the neighbourhood’s fire station.

The collision involved two city buses and multiple vehicles, Calgary Police Staff Sgt. Andy Woodward said during a press conference on Thursday.

“I’ve been a police officer 36 years, and I think this is probably the biggest scene I’ve worked on in relation to the collision that we’ve got here,” he said.

WATCH | Witness captures video of city bus on fire:

3 killed in bus fire in northeast Calgary

A City of Calgary bus fire on Oct. 15, 2026, left three people dead and several others injured. Maxwell Calinisan was nearby when the incident occurred and captured this video.

Fire crews initially responded to reports of a motor vehicle collision, but pivoted to a fire response when they realized one of the buses was aflame, Calgary Fire Chief Steve Dongworth said. In total, 12 units responded.

A hazardous materials unit was also called to the scene, Dongworth said, as the bus on fire ran on compressed natural gas.

“It was fairly involved,” Dongworth said. “It wasn’t a catastrophic fire, but it was a serious fire inside … there was also a small fire in the other bus.”

The driver of the second bus was trapped and needed to be extricated, Dongworth added.

‘It was just burning everything’

Maxwell Calinisan was in a nearby Shoppers Drug Mart when store staff told him and other customers there was a fire nearby and they would need to evacuate to the store’s parking lot. 

“When we first came out, I looked to my left and the fire was just on the bus, and then we just ran as far as possible in the parking lot,” he told CBC News.

“The fire was pretty much on top of the bus,” he said. “It was just burning everything.”

Emergency crews arrived soon after, he said.

Both Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas offered their condolences in separate social media posts.

Police continue to investigate the cause of the incident.

Access to Saddletowne Circle is closed for “a significant amount of time,” police said, advising people to avoid the area.

Corrections

• In quoting the Calgary Fire Department chief, a previous version of this story incorrectly described the type of bus involved in the collision. It runs on compressed natural gas.

OK Premier Eby, Why not TramTrain?

Posted by zweisystem on Saturday, October 10, 2026 ·

In Germany, TramTrain operates on mainline railways with mixed passenger and freight service, with little problem.

It has now been 16 years since Rail for the Valley commissioned the Leewood Study on reestablishing a passenger rail service from Vancouver to Chilliwack and all the public got was invented excuses from all levels of government.

Light rail doesn’t work; no one will take it, too circuitous a route; etc., were the excuses of TransLink’s gold plated bureaucracy, most politicians and armchair experts.

Yet, TramTrain has become a powerful tool in affordably bringing rail transit to areas otherwise underserved by public transport.

What is TramTrain?

TramTrain is part of the light rail family that modern streetcars have the ability to operate as a streetcar or tram on-street track;  as light rail transit on a reserved or dedicated rights-of-way; and on mainline railways.

First used in Karlsrhue, Germany, since 1992, TramTrain, due to its low cost, has become an essential tool in providing the all important “seamless journey” that has proven to attract the motorist from the car.

A TramTrain in the city of Chemitz.

Consider the following:

• TransLink is spending well over the advertised cost of $6 billion to extend the SkyTrain light-metro 16 km.
• The total cost to extend both the Expo and Millennium Lines is now well over $18 billion. The government only gives ‘guideway’ costs, which the federal government is paying 40% all other costs are paid for by the province (Us)!
• The French city of Caen opened a 16 km tramway in 2019 for CAD $472million. in 2026 dollars.
• The region could spend under two billion to provide a 130 km.,  thrice hourly Marpole to Chilliwack TramTrain service, which would connect Vancouver directly to Cloverdale, Langley, Abbotsford, Sardis and Chilliwack.

To put this another way, the region could spend under $2 billion to build both LRT and a TramTrain that would provide a direct from Chilliwack to Marpole service, which in the future could be affordably extended to Richmond and downtown Vancouver!

Sadly, the concept building affordable transit in not in the NDP’s, lexicon as SkyTrain is built to win votes, win elections, not to affordably move people.

Telling the truth about SkyTrain is a revolutionary act in BC!

Buddy, Can You Spare $25 Billion…………

It has been brought to Zwei’s attention than another group is wanting to build more SkyTrain, this time calling itself Crosstown SkyTrain , a 38km light-metro line from Downtown Vancouver to Surrey.

Well, that sounds good doesn’t it, how about the cost?

A bare minimum cost for an elevated SkyTrain would be $19 billion, based on the cost of today’s cost of the Expo Line extension to UBC, including cars and other costs not included with the Langley extension program.

But it will not be elevated in Vancouver, oh no, the ‘creme de la creme’ will not have it.

So if 50% of the line is in a subway (in Vancouver of course), the cost would top $29 billion!

But of course there is more, the line would need Operations and Maintenance Centre number 6, costing around $1 billion and a new bridge crossing the Fraser River, $3 billion ( I am being extremely generous here) and the total cost for this line would top $33 billion.

The Rail for the Valley Marpole (Vancouver) to Chilliwack, Leewood Study proposal would cost under $2 billion and extending the line to Vancouver, via the Arbutus corridor would be around $300 million.

As BC is cash strapped at the moment and the $8 billion Broadway subway to UBC would be the next line to be built, then the North Shore transit has to be dealt with; I would say that the Crosstown SkyTrain Line to Surrey is nothing more than a pipe-dream.

Contrary to the hype and hoopla about SkyTrain, modern light rail is the only transit mode that can affordably deal with today’s traffic and transit woes, but we can’t have that, can we, as the politcans and bureaucrats who support SkyTrain would be extremely embarrassed at how modern light rail out performs SkyTrain at every level.

40 years of telling SkyTrain porkies would be embarrassing!

Gerald Fox’s 2008 shredding of the BC’s Auditor Generals Business Case for the Evergreen Line deserves a reread .

He leaves this little gem:

But, eventually, Vancouver will need to adopt lower-cost LRT in its lesser corridors, or else limit the extent of its rail system. And that seems to make some TransLink people very nervous.

Telling the truth about SkyTrain in Metro Vancouver is a revolutionary act!

Movia Automatic Light Metro is the Brand Name And SkyTrain Is The name Of The Light-Metro System

So back into the archives I go.

As the hype and Hoopla of the provincial election shudders along, there is a lot of postings in the various Social media outlets about the SkyTrain Line, now called the Dave Barrett Extension (strange that as former Premier Dave Barret was very pro light rail and not too fond of SkyTrain) confirms that SkyTrain is being built more to win elections that provide an affordable and user friendly transit alternative.

And yes, since this was published, it seems a Brazilian company has trademarked the name SkyTrain for their proprietary transit system, as their Emails remind me.

The old saw dating from an Email from 2019, proclaiming to all that SkyTrain is the brand name of the transit system and that the LIM powered trains are made by various companies, is coming back to haunt transit issues in 2026.

Sorry, but Alstom now owns the patents for the proprietary MALM system and SNC Lavalin may still hold engineering patents, inherited when Lavalin owned the system and then promptly went bankrupt.

Yes, the Chinese Railway Corporation produced compatible cars for the Kuala Lumpor system but they were cloned cars of the Beijing MALM system and the design is 30 years old. As the CRRC doesn’t believe in intellectual property (patents) such cars could be illegal to operate in Canada or cause huge extra penalty costs to the operator.

No other company produced LIM powered cars that are compatible with the trains used on the Expo and Millennium Lines. There is no market for the system, therefore no investment for what is now considered an orphaned system.

The name SkyTrain is used on a lot of elevated transit systems, simple because it is railway is in the Sky, so to speak. SkyTrain is not a brand of transit, it is a name only!

Miami’s Airport SkyTrain People Mover, No Relation to Vancouver’s SkyTrain!

BTS Bangkok is a conventional railway, operating as a regional metro system and is no relation to the proprietary “SkyTrain” light-metro system in Vancouver.

The Kuranda SkyTrain or Sky-rail in Australia, is an aerial tramway.

In Taiwan, the Taoyaun airport people mover is called SkyTrain.

And I can go on.

It seems the SkyTrain “brand”, is nothing more than the local names for elevated transit lines.

Then of course the is Bombardier’s SkyTrain, a rubber tired airport people mover. As reported in RftV two years ago:

Bombardier Is Building SkyTrain at LAX…..But, It ain’t Our SkyTrain!

Bombardier’s Airport People Mover system was called SkyTrain, no relation to MALM.

Why the deliberate misinformation?

Sadly it is the old “if you repeat a lie often enough, the people are bound to believe it.”

What they are calling the SkyTrain brand in Vancouver, is not a brand, rather the name of the regional light-metro system, chosen via radio contest by CKNW in 1985.

So, as a refresher, I will start with the brands that our light-metro system has been marketed under.

1. Intermediate Capacity Transit System (ICTS)
2. Advanced Light Rail Transit (ALRT)
3. Advanced Light Metro (ALM)
4. Advanced Rapid Transit (ART)
5. Innovia Rapid Transit
6. Movia Automatic Light Metro (MALM)

The various brands have been owned by four companies:

1. The Urban Transit Development Corporation (UTDC)
2. Lavalin
3. Bombardier Inc.
4. Alstom

Powered by Linear Induction Motors, MALM certainly is, as most unconventional railways are proprietary. The MALM system is not compatible in operation on any other railway, other than its family of now six systems (Toronto abandoned their ICTS system) and no other company has ‘off the shelf’ vehicles that can be used on the MALM system.

As stated before, Alstom now hold the technical patents and SNC Lavalin hold engineering patents.

One should be wary of politcans pretending they are transit experts and their blatant attempts to mislead the public may come back and haunt them in the future.

Lysenkoism – TransLink’s Doctrine

The SkyTrain Lobby Is Watching You!

.This is a repost and in light of both provincial and civic elections, Lysenkoism will reign supreme!

Lysenkoism: describes the manipulation or distortion of the scientific process as a way to reach a predetermined conclusion as dictated by an ideological bias, often related to social or political objectives

Transit is about moving people, not building high rise condos and towers!

Really, not in Vancouver, where the SkyTrain light metro system is designed to shape land use, ensuring big profits for politcal friends and insiders.

Ignoring the fact that the proprietary SkyTrain mini-metro system has been rejected by transit planners around the world as being extremely expensive for what it does and just being poorly designed, many local politicians, planners and engineers still hail SkyTrain as a ‘wonder system‘ despite the fact that only seven such systems have been built in almost years and only three are seriously used for urban transport.

Ignoring facts has been the mainstay of TransLink, countless provincial ministers of transportation, professional engineers, planners and academics, in transit debates and regional transit planning in general. Why have so many people have stained their reputations, supporting a proprietary mini-metro, when the rest of the world has moved on, regarding SkyTrain as a historic footnote?

There are two reasons for so many local so-called professional and academic people remain willfully blind on regional transit issues.

1. Many people have made small fortunes by supporting SkyTrain and the SkyTrain planning and building process. Making large sums of money by doing very little is a very hard habit to give up, especially when the taxpayer is footing the bill.
2. Many people have just been bamboozled by the SkyTrain lobby and are embarrassed to acknowledge it. Like sheep, they continue to baa, baa, the SkyTrain line for fear that they would be shown ignorant of transit issues.

Greed, ignorance and fear are the main ingredients of our regional transit planning and until that changes, the powers that be will still plan for SkyTrain. The continued building and operating SkyTrain is bankrupting TransLink, taxes will continually rise, further feeding greed, ignorance and fear.

Lysenkoism is the doctrine and it is practiced by the provincial government, Metro Vancouver and TransLink.