The SkyTrain Lobby Has A Meltdown
The following video was brought to my attention and it gives a fairly honest argument about the SkyTrain versus Light Rail.
The big problem for Vancouver has been 45 years of SkyTrain propaganda coupled with condescending and fake news about Light Rail. Those who spoke against SkyTrain were quietly sent to Coventry and let go or for the biggest sins of saying SkyTrain is just plain wrong, get fired.
University professors who spoke positively about light rail were given the “Star Chamber” treatment.
In today’s world, legal or administrative bodies with strict, arbitrary rulings, no due process rights to those accused, and secretive proceedings called “star chambers”.
Even good old Zwei has been blacklisted from Post Media, the Tyee, CBC, CKNW, and most major news stations because they couldn’t cope with the truth about SkyTrain. The last time Zwei was threatened with a lawsuit for libel, but I mentioned a few names that had offered their services in defense, it all went away.
It seems they could not cope with the legal maxim that the defense against libel is the truth.
What is of no surprise for me is the general ignorance of public transport and transport mode, with many echoing old cliches about light rail and light metro. Yet, the one issue no one dares to address is cost, yet these are the same people who will decry the cost of every bean, but when it comes to SkyTrain they hide behind dated rhetoric and more.
The simple fact is, the current $16 billion plus, 21.7 km extensions to the Expo and millennium Lines will be the last simply because by the time funding is secured for the UBC extension, sometime after 2040, there will be no more MALM (SkyTrain) vehicles available and no manufacturers willing to design new vehicles without being paid up front, at a cost of over $200 million, before the first car rolls off the assembly line.
NEWS FLASH! The latest cost for the Expo line extension to Langley is now around $7 billion and the Operations and Maintenance Centre #5 (OMC#5) needed for the 5 car Innovia 300 trains is an added $1 billion.
Golly Gee Whiz Batman, how much light rail could we build for that?
160 km of modern LRT, all found!
