Could Increasing Capacity of the Canada Line Cost $4 Billion or More?

The following should give one pause to think. Toronto’s Yonge-Bloor Interchange Station Expansion To Cost $1.5 billion From Drum, via the LRPPro Report going to TTC Oct 22 is how the current Yonge-Bloor interchange station can be expanded to deal with overcrowding. This idea been around for a number of years and been placed on [...]

The Booster Class Just Chuckles and Leads The Taxpayer To Financial Slaughter.

  One just has to shake ones head about this High Speed Rail article in the Daily Hive, but what is even more laughable is the comments by many people, who know little or nothing about HST. “Build it now“, says one comment; “please make this happen“, says another, yet no feasibility study or local [...]

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 [...]

Trams Having Limited Capacity On Broadway? – SURELY NOT!

A repost from May 2019. With the the City of  Vancouver and TransLink continued telling big porkies about LRT, the following is enlightening! Leipzig Tram The ongoing planning charade currently being played out by the cities of Vancouver & Surrey, and TransLink with the proposed Broadway SkyTrain subway, is being fueled by professional misconduct, by [...]

The Same Sad Old Story

Again, one just has to shake ones head. Our politicians, abetted by TransLink do the same thing over and over again, ever expecting different results. The very sad thing is, our politicians and news media do not have a clue what light rail is as evidenced by the banner photo, which is of a diesel [...]

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 [...]

Flying a Trial Balloon

Trial balloon: A tentative measure taken or statement made to see how a new policy will be received. As the Daily Hive seems to be the official organ of TransLink, it comes as no surprise that a trial balloon is floated regarding an elevated SkyTrain to UBC. The first problem is that Vancouver City Council, [...]

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 [...]

Transit lessons unlearned – A repost from Jan. 2009

First posted in 2009. More than a decade later, these lessons have still not been learned. It is sheer negligence on the part of TransLink, the Mayor’s Council on Transit, and the Ministry of Transportation, that they remain ignorant of what was commonly known elsewhere, not just a decade or so ago, rather three decades [...]