Light Metro Fiasco In Honolulu

Light-metro, a 1970′s solution for a 1950′s transit problems and made obsolete by light rail by the early 90′s. Why oh why do politicians love gadgetbahnen. The total cost of Honolulu’s 20-mile (32 km) rail line and 21 stations as $9.862 billion. If the add-ons approved by the board Friday are included in the final [...]

Mobility Pricing – The Rapture of Megaprojects

The first rule of mobility pricing is: One must have an affordable and user friendly public transit alternative. Metro Vancouver doesn’t, nor is planning for one. Instead metro Vancouver is planning for politically prestigious mega transit projects and like all megaprojects, they cost a lot of money and government, whether it be civic, provincial or [...]

TransLink Underestimated Capacity Of LRT By 150% And The Time Penalty By Infinity

It verifies what we all knew: that TransLink underestimated the capacity of surface rail by 150% and the time penalty by infinity. Professor Patrick M. Condon, James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Livable Environments, UBC Yes we all knew; American Transportation Expert, Gerald Fox told us in 2008: The Evergreen Line Report made me curious [...]

Quebec Follows The Vancouver Model Of Transit Planning

The Vancouver Model Of Transit Planning: If you build with light-metro, make damn sure you don’t build LRT anywhere near it In Quebec, Montreal’s REM Lobby, including the Caisse and city, provincial and federal politicians could not afford to have LRT interfere with their light metro propaganda campaign and made sure Quebec City’s $3.3 billion [...]

How The NDP Paved Paradise and Turned It Into a Parking Lot.

The NDP’s refusal to give Metro Vancouver’s transit planning an independent review has condemned the region to congestion and gridlock for generations. The billions of dollars spent on rapid transit and the future billions of dollars to be spent expanding rapid transit has and will utterly fail to attract the driver from his/her cars. The [...]

And Now, Back To The Real Storey

  The election is over and promises have been made and the winners and the winners the SkyTrain Lobby. Premier Horgan has promised billions of dollars to extend then Expo Line to Langley and with a hint, beyond. The Broadway Subway, now refereed by many as the BS Line is first in line for a [...]

The NDP – Stupid Is, As Stupid Does

  Trust the NDP, to get embroiled in extending SkyTrain. Again, the NDP proven they haven’t a clue about regional transit or transit mode and if proceeded, there will be severe financial consequences for the taxpayer and the transit user. Premier Horgan has made a very, very expensive mistake. Again, for the general benefit of [...]

Should We Convert The Canada Line to Light Rail?

Updated for 2020  With Covid-19, this becomes more important than ever. Right now we have a Hobson’s choice for regional rail transit, extend the Millennium and Expo Lines and continue using the proprietary Movia Automatic Light Metro or nothing. This must change and change soon, or the hugely expensive SkyTrain light metro system will become [...]

Oh Where, Oh Where Has Our Customers Gone………………..

TransLink must soon face a very unpleasant truth, Metro Vancouver’s transit system is crap; it is strictly a commuters transit system, with, except for the core of City of Vancouver, there is little off-peak usage. The transit system is designed to feed the light-metro system and because of this, TransLink, as BC Transit before. has [...]

From September 2010 – The Groundbreaking Leewood Study

On September 20, 2010, Rail for the Valley unreleased the groundbreaking Leewood Study regarding the reinstatement of a passenger service using the former BC Electric, now Southern Railway of BC route. Why Groundbreaking? The Leewood Study was the first and only independent study done on passenger rail for the Fraser Valley, without political or bureaucratic [...]