And Then There Were Six

Despite the hype and hoopla of regional mayors, five very important facts about our SkyTrain light metro system are glossed over in Metro Vancouver, by metro mayors, bureaucrats and transportation planners: The Expo and Millennium Lines operate a dated proprietary railway, now called Movia Automatic Light Metro. Only seven of these proprietary railways were sold [...]

SkyTrain On Fire!

Lost amidst the hurly burly of the American election and the just announced almost total lock down in BC, a fire at New Westminster Station caused the shutdown of service Sunday morning. What is interesting is that this fire on the main public transit route to downtown was not given great play in the media [...]

Never On A Friday

When government wants to bury an embarrassing news release, they release it on a Friday and hopes no one notices. Well, the BC government announced the preferred “proponent team” for the Broadway subway and the Surrey Expo Line extensions today, Friday, July 17. Interesting! I will not go into the pitfalls of the projects as [...]

Expo & Millennium Line Ridership – 150,000 Per Weekday

It is interesting, the on going debate about the SkyTrain light metro’s ridership, especially when TransLink’s spin doctors tell the truth. This comment by a TransLink spokesperson caught me by surprise and it has been repeated in both the mainstream and electronic media. Just has to be true! TransLink characterized this job action as unreasonable [...]

Chaos Wednesday

And SkyTrain never breaks down or stops service? Just saying. Commuter chaos amid problems on Expo, Canada Lines By Simon Little Online Journalist  Global News Passengers using the Expo and Canada Lines on Wednesday had to deal with major delays after both lines experienced separate problems. The Canada Line was dealing with a stalled train [...]

A Grim Reminder For The Expo Line

A grim reminder indeed! Thanks to the Ford’s in 2010, the SRT remains in place instead of the planned LRT conversion that was supposed to up and running either late last year or this year. It would not only cover the exiting line, but the 1980 plan extension to Melven Town Centre. Then got to [...]

SkyTrain Costs That TransLink Do No Want The Taxpayer To Know

Many people who advocate for more SkyTrain extensions in the metro region, do not understand the costs associated with automatic train control or ATC, necessary for driverless operation. The cost of resignalling just one subway line in Toronto is said to cost CAD $562 million. TransLink’s problem is that to increase capacity on the Innovia [...]

SkyTrain Ka-Put Again

For a proprietary transit system that is supposed to have a remarkable operational reliability, it is breaking down an awful lot lately. Could it be that SkyTrain is not as reliable as certain people would have us think? Sadly, SkyTrain is demonstrating the perils of an aging proprietary railway. Stalled train creates SkyTrain delays during [...]

When You Really Need It – SkyTrain Craps out!

Again, SkyTrain never fails to, well fail! CKNW NEWS ALERT Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai??Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? [...]

Expensive Projects = Expensive Costs

Most people championing expensive transit, fail to see three minutes into the future. The failure of a switch motor on the Expo Line last week caused transit chaos. Switch motors fail and on automatic railways, the regimen is to replace motors on a preventative basis before they fail in revenue service to maintain the integrity [...]