China’s ai???Silkwormai??i?? Tram Unveiled

Our not so friendly SkyTrain Lobby would have us believe that light-metro is being built in quantity in China.

Not so fast, as China’s huge city populations would demand large metro operations, not capacity constipated light-metro like our SkyTrain.

At the other end of the public transit scale, China is also building tramways or light rail and the new Silkworm tram has been unveiled.

Tram line ai???Silkwormai??i?? unveiled

By Ruby Zhang | June 15, 2016

THE new train that will be used on the T1 and T2 tram lines in suburban Songjiang District was unveiled at a local railway fair yesterday. The lines will be put into operation next year.

The new train, which is the first of its kind to be used in the city, has no step between the carriages and the platform, which will make it easier for passengers with disabilities or those carrying heavy luggage to get on and off.

The five-carriage train, which is 33 meters long and 2.65 meters wide, has been one of the highlights of the exhibition Rail + Metro China 2016 at the Shanghai New International Expo Center.

Because of its streamlined design, the yellow train has been dubbed ai???Silkworm.ai???

The train was entirely designed and manufactured in China, according to the manufacturer, Shanghai ALSTOM Transport Company.

ai???The localization will greatly lower the cost of the tramsai??i?? maintenance in future,ai??? said the company.

 

Much Ado About Nothing

Photo-op’s are a politician’s best friend, so now we have all three levels of government glad handing for the camera’s on the transit issue.

The key sentence is; “…….that would allow the three levels of government to at least get started on parts of the mayorai??i??s ten year plan.

So no discussion of the $3 billion Broadway SkyTrain to nowhere or Surrey’s $2.5 billion poor man’s SkyTrain in the guise of light rail.

Yeah, sad to say, I have heard it all before, but its nice to have one’s picture taken.

Trudeau coming to Vancouver for major transit announcement

Vancouver, BC, Canada / News Talk 980 CKNW | Vancouver’s News. Vancouver’s Talk

Posted: June 15, 2016

The Federal and Provincial governments along with Metro Vancouver mayors have come to some sort of deal to move forward on partAi??of the 10 year transit and transportation plan.

Sources tell CKNW that an announcement is imminent that would allow the three levels of government to at least get started on parts of the mayorai??i??s ten year plan.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be in town tomorrow and will be appearing alongside provincial and regional officials for the announcement.

However, while the plan can apparently get started, Ai??how to pay the regionai??i??s full 17 per cent share is still a question needing answering.

Sources say any deal on funding the regionai??i??s full 17%Ai??is still very much a work in progress.

The federal government has put $370Ai??millionAi??on the table for phase one of the plan while the province has kicked in $246Ai??millionAi??over three years.

A deal to cover the regionai??i??s share is required to unlock the full funding.

TransLink Spies On Media Reports

One can now tell how dysfunctional TransLink is when it blames the messenger and not itself; in fact TransLink is scared of the messenger.

Again, instead of spending time and energy in providing a good transit service, TransLink spies on media reports and organizations who disagree with this ossified bureaucracy.

It must be getting very lonely in their expensive new “ivory towers”.

TransLink keeps close watch over media reports

Vancouver, BC, Canada / News Talk 980 CKNW | Vancouver’s News. Vancouver’s Talk

Posted: June 15, 2016

Itai??i??s clear TransLink keeps a fairly close eye on what the media reports about the organization.

Documents obtained through Freedom of Information show following a TransLink media availability back in January about the new Compass Card, there was a backdown back at transit headquarters with an ai???analysis of coverage.ai???

That included which media outlet was at the availability, what they reported and even the ai???toneai??? of the stories.

Most times reporters were rated as ai???factual, with a neutral tone.ai???

There was also a breakdown of what media had the most comprehensive coverage.

According to the FOI documents, TransLink felt radio missed the mark on key messages.

Zwei Told You So! Few Fare Cheats On SkyTrain!

So, where is the massive fare evasion that warranted over $200 million spent on the Compass Card and Fare Gates for the SkyTrain light-metro system?

No massive amounts of fare evasion you say?

Maybe it was all those U-Pass holding students that confused everyone?

Who was the lobbyist for Cubit Industries again?

So, $63,000 more in fares were paid in the first quarter of 2016 than 2015 or put another way, TransLink spent well over $200 million on a fare gate and Compass Card system on SkyTrain, costing well over $10 million a year to operate and TransLink will only recoup about $250,000 a year?

The entire SkyTrain Board and senior management should be fired on the spot, as would be done by any other transit authority.

SkyTrain fare gates havenai??i??t reduced cheating, says Langley City Councillor

Vancouver, BC, Canada / News Talk 980 CKNW | Vancouver’s News. Vancouver’s Talk

Posted: June 15, 2016

A Langley City Councillor says Translinkai??i??s new Compass Card system is not cracking down on fare evasion.

Langley City Councillor Nathan Pachal says Translink recently released its first quarter results in which the Compass Card system has been fully operational.

He says transit fare revenue was up $63,000, a marginal increase of 0.1% from a year ago, when fare gates werenai??i??t in operation.

ai???There should be several million dollars per year, 10-million, even even more from savings from fare evasion, if this is what they claim.ai???

Pachal says fare gates cost upwards of $10 million per year to operate.

He says itai??i??s likely that the fare gates costs more to operate than they save.

So far, no comment from Translink.

 

TransLink 1st quarter result (chart: South Fraser Blog)

Honolulu light metro now $1.1 billion (CAD $1.41 billion) over budget

Attention Metro Vancouver transit planners, it seems the Honolulu light-metro is now $1.1 billion (CAD $1.41 billion)over budget.

As TransLink aggressively pursues light metro for regional transit planning, alarm bells are sounding in Honolulu.

The trouble is, Factbender and the regional Mayors are not listening,Ai?? wanting prestigious transportation vanity projects, in the guise of SkyTrain light-metro and light rail, masquerading as SkyTrain light metro.

Until both parties show some maturity with transit planning and plan transit to cater to the needs of customers and not the election schedule, extra taxes in the guise of mobility taxes and road pricing, will be the order of the day.

The HONOLULU rail transit board is advising the city on Oahu Island how much light metro elevated transit can be constructed with the $6.8 billion now projected as the project cost, the “Hawaii News Now” site reports. The agency estimates it will need $7.9 billion to build the full 20 miles with 21 stations so a shorter route might be constructed with bus connections. The rail board has two months to present options to federal transit officials.

Rail board given options on how much rail can be built for $6.8B

(Image: Hawaii News Now) (Image: Hawaii News Now)

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) –

The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation said the city’s proposed rail route will likely be shorter or have fewer stations with the revenue it expects to have.

HART presentedAi??the options to the rail board, which met Wednesday for the first time since the HonoluluAi??City Council voted to cap spending on the over-budget project last week.

According to HART projections, the rail line would end at Kapalama near Honolulu Community with the money it expects to have — $6.8 billion. HART estimates it will cost more than $7.9 billion to build all 20 miles of rail with 21 rail stations.

If Broadway’s Transit Ridership Doesn’t Improve, Cancel the Subway

Memo to TransLink, the city of Vancouver, the Mayor’s Council, and Mr. Factbender, subways need a large mass of ridership to justify construction.

Quote: “This is way less than the 15,000 riders used as the benchmark for justifying subway service, and about half the ridership projected when Toronto City Council approved the subway in 2013.”

So where have we heard this before?

Oh yes, Zwei has been say this for years, despite being insulted by the so called SkyTrain experts that this is not so.

Subway construction is extremely expensive and one needs huge traffic flows to justify construction of a subway.

TransLink should know this as the Cost of the Canada Line almost doubled to over $2.4 billion to build; but, oh wait, it is only managing to carry about 7,500 pphpd in the peak hours of service. No wonder TransLink is shelling out over $100 million annually to the charade of a P-3 operating it.

Broadway is even worse as peak hour traffic flows are less than 5,000 pphpd and TransLink wants to build a $3 billion subway To Arbutus?

Is insanity contagious? No, just the city of Vancouver, Factbender, and TransLink playing the taxpayer for rubes, funding a “Subway to Nowhere“, and they even have hired an American CEO, who favours light metros and subways from Seattle to oversee this farce.

 

If Scarborough subway ridership canai??i??t be improved, cancel it

Metro’s Matt Elliott tackles the new, underwhelming ridership projections for the Scarborough subway.

If the city is going to replace the Scarborough RT with an underground subway, it will need to find ways to boost ridership along the line, says Matt Elliott.

By:Ai??Matt ElliottAi??MetroAi??Published onAi??Mon Jun 06 2016

Having carefully reviewed theAi??updated ridership numbersAi??for the Scarborough subway project provided last week by Torontoai??i??s planning department, I am prepared to offer this bit of qualified journalistic analysis: these numbers suck.

The new figures,Ai??unveiled for the first time at a community consultation event last Tuesday, show the extension attracting just 7,200 peak direction riders during the busiest hour of the day in 2031.

This is way less than the 15,000 riders used as the benchmark for justifying subway service, and about half the ridership projected when Toronto City Council approved the subway in 2013.

The suck doesnai??i??t stop there. The extension is projected to attract just 4,500 new daily transit riders. With a total project budget of just over $2 billion, thatai??i??s an absurd cost of acquisition.

And the extension offers few other benefits. It doesnai??i??t provide relief to the existing subway network. It doesnai??i??t bring transit any closer to people without service.

What it does, mostly, is cost money. A lot of money. The subway represents a 1.6% charge on every residential property tax bill for three decades. When it opens it will, like the similarly underused Sheppard subway, require millions in annual operating subsidy.

My position on the project remains the same. It should be cancelled. All existing project plans should be burned to ash. Those ashes should be shot into space. No one should speak of this ill-advised, politically-engineered subway extension again. Build a light rail network instead.

But after years of fighting this fight, Iai??i??m cynical. It doesnai??i??t seem to matter how low ridership projections sink or how big the budget grows, Torontoai??i??s political establishment ai??i?? led by Mayor John Tory and a gaggle of Liberal MPPs in Scarborough ai??i?? seems dug in. Scarborough will get a subway.

If that really is the outcome, then Tory and council at least owe it to residents of Toronto to ask planning and TTC staff to explore strategies to increase ridership.

That might mean adding more express bus service to create better linkages to the subway from areas like Malvern. It might mean increasing operating subsidies so the cost of a monthly Metropass isnai??i??t out of reach for many.

It might mean scaling back Toryai??i??s SmartTrack plan, so it doesnai??i??t compete for Scarborough ridership.

It might mean encouraging super dense, high-rise development in the wide are around Scarborough Town Centre, even if that meansAi??expropriating more homes.

Many of these ideas wonai??i??t be popular, but all options must be on the table. Approving construction of the Scarborough subway with these ridership numbers would be an act of gross irresponsibility. Either find ways to honestly improve the numbers or cancel this misbegotten project. There should be no middle ground.

A Subway To Nowhere

For a $5 billion, 12 km subway to UBC, under Broadway….

…..one could build a tram network in Vancouver and North Vancouver!

Zwei been advocating for trams on Broadway since the 80’s, well more and more people are now seeing that instead of a $5 billion plus subway to UBC, one gets way more bang for your buck investing in tram/LRT for Vancouver.

Because TransLink doesn’t have the bucks to build a SkyTrain subway to UBC, this ossified bureaucracy deems that it need be only a subway to Arbutus; a subway to nowhere.

No wonder TransLink and indeed Vancouver are international laughingstocks, when it comes to transit; no wonder the TransLink plebiscite failed.

Common Ground, have a read.

Counting the Chickens

Bob Rennie is a developer.

He makes his money by assembling properties, having the municipal council up-zone the assembled properties to allow higher densities to build his condo’s.

Bob Rennie is not a transit expert.

Bob Rennie loves expensive rapid transit because he can use it as a selling point for his expensive condos.

As we have seen in Burnaby, where renovictions are the order of the day, transit dependent elderly and financially constrained people who live near transit hubs are being evicted so developers can up-zone modest apartments to extremely expensive high rise condominiums.

There is an old Hungarian saying; “If gypsies knock on ones front door, rush out to the back and count the chickens.”

In context, if Bob Rennie wants more rapid transit for, “affordable home ownership“, best make sure it is not just to sell overpriced condo’s.

Vancouver’s “condo king”: better transit is the key to affordable home ownership

by Jill Drews

Posted Jun 2, 2016 4:31 pm PDT

Metro Vancouver is ready to embark on a large transit expansion if it gets funding, but will that come in time to stimulate the economy in the short term? THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) ai??i?? We have to stop talking about affordability only in Vancouver and broaden our vision to include the region, but to do this, we need better transit. Thatai??i??s the message from marketer Bob Rennie as he gives his final annual address to the Urban Development Institute.

ai???Condo Kingai??? Bob Rennie says Vancouverai??i??s population would have to increase by nearly 200,000 people if everyone who works in the city were to live there as well. ai???If everybody that works in Vancouver wants to live in Vancouver, we would have to increase our population by 197,000. We have 25 per cent of the regionai??i??s population, but we have 33 per cent of the regionai??i??s jobs.ai???

Not everyone is excited by the idea of living farther from their workplace. The argument from many priced out is theyai??i??re not interested in spending hours in a car each day or cramming onto the transit system.

Rennie says the way to allow for people working here to own their homes is to get them to move out of the city limits into other parts of the region. Heai??i??s calling for a real investment in transit, no matter the cost.

ai???When we do the Broadway line, itai??i??s getting as much density there as you can. I donai??i??t care if itai??i??s rental with no parking. There is no affordability here. Main Street is breaking $900 per square foot. There is no affordability in the City of Vancouver, so letai??i??s look to the region.ai???

Rennie is calling on the politicians holding up a funding model for transportation to see this crisis for what it is and get moving now.

Surrey Mayor Linda Hepner agrees with Rennie whole heartedly. Hepner says fixing this needs a regional, network approach to get people moving. ai???Transportation, especially when you have the geography the size of Surrey, is critical.ai??? She says itai??i??s a usable network that makes it possible to live in Surrey and work in Vancouver.

Metro Vancouver mayors have sent their latest proposed funding formula to the province. They want a $3 per year property tax increase and regional tolling among other things to raise their share of the money. The provincial government says it needs to discuss the ideas with the Mayors Council, but it is offering $246 million to immediately improve transit across Metro Vancouver.

The Rapid Transit Density Con Game Exposed

Vancouver’s unique rapid transit/density debate is now fully exposed as a con game and nothing more.

TOD or transit oriented development has been the philosophers stone for so many academics, transit, and planning pundits that they remain oblivious to the real reasons to build transit: to move people.

TOD has been around for a millennia, ever since traders started using defined routes for caravans, such as the “Silk Road”. Services followed the caravan routes, which became important trade routes and over time villages grew into major cities and trading centres. Where trade routes were established population densities increased to service the caravans and travelers. This continues into the present day.

In Vancouver, the history for TOD is a little different; In the early nineties, the BC Crown Corporations Secretariat found that “SkyTrain” was so expensive to build on its own and decreedAi?? that “rapid transit be only built for purposes of land use.” This gave rise to Vancouver’s unique and as some would say obsession with density, so much so a modern day land rush has taken place along the various light-metro lines and station hubs, with building massive high rise condos and retail malls.

The folly of this is now apparent; affordable lower density housing is being replaced by unaffordable high-density housing, displacing (in many cases) those people who are transit dependent, to areas not serviced by SkyTrain or poorly service by buses.

By creating massive high-rise zones around transit hubs, may in fact reduce the actual number of people that will use transit, thus making a mockery of the political and academic density diktat: that massive density must follow rapid transit lines!

What the density debate has become is a tawdry bit of graft, where politicians allow developers to up-zone properties along transit lines so they can make massive profits at the expense of the taxpayer and the transit dependent poor.

Don’t expect things to change as developers have invested tens of millions of dollars on local civic, provincial and federal politicians, to continue the density charade and in BC, developers get what they pay for!

In Metro Vancouver, rapid transit is built to move money, not people.


No Vacancy: The face of Metrotown ai???demovictionsai???

Vancouver, BC, Canada / News Talk 980 CKNW | Vancouver’s News. Vancouver’s Talk
Posted: June 01, 2016

Imagine being forced to move twice in two years, your home sold out from under you and replaced by towering high rises with rents two to three times what you were paying?

Thatai??i??s the story of Don and Eleanor Gorman, and itai??i??s symbolic of hundreds of others in their Metrotown neighbourhood, an area changing rapidly under a wave of development.

The pair arenai??i??t your prototypical senior couple; they didnai??i??t meet until their 40ai??i??s, in the personals column of the Vancouver Sun.

Nearly thirty years ago they moved to Burnaby, building a cozy home in a one-bedroom suite much like their current one: packed with knickknacks and photosai??i?? but barely affordable atAi??$750 dollars a month.

No home

The neighbourhood was a different place back then; the Expo Line had just arrived for the first time, long before big malls, and Starbucks, and sushi restaurants on every corner.

ai???It was like heaven,ai??? says Eleanor.

But Don says itAi??all changed in 2014 when the owner of theirAi??complex sold the building.

ai???The owner got such a big offer that he couldnai??i??t turn it down. I think it was $40-million or something for the one building, so I guess he just couldnai??i??t resist and he sold it? I guess itai??i??s like winning the lottery, isnai??i??t it?ai???

The pair had to pack up their lives, and quickly, because the building was zoned for demolition to make way for a high-rise condo.

Luckily, they found another rental building close byai??i?? heartened by promises it would be a permanent home. They had received an unwritten promise from their landlord and owner that the building wasnai??i??t going anywhere.

Instead, it happened again. That building too was sold, zoned, and Don and Eleanor are once again on the moveAi??as their home faces the wrecking ball.

But it isnai??i??t just them; the more Don and Eleanor looked around the Metrotown neighbourhood they spent three decades in, the more they didnai??i??t recognize it: Building after building pegged for demolition.

ai???How many are going down on this street, five or six, something like that. And over on the other street there, too.ai???

ai???Somebody must just hate Burnaby the way it is. They must hate it. They figure it looks like a slum. I donai??i??t think thereai??i??s anything slummy about it.ai???

All along Beresford and Dunblane, rental unit after rental unit sold off, zoned, and bulldozed to make way for high-rise condominiums that are well out of the Gormanai??i??s price range.

ai???We like Burnaby. We like the shopping and everything. Itai??i??s been really good, but the money talks, and there you go.Ai??We were walking around some of these high rises, you know what the prices areai??i?? $1700 for a one-bedroom suite,Ai??$2200 for a one-bedroom suite. I mean thatai??i??s fine if you got that kind of money, but how many people can afford it?ai???

For the rest of the story…………..

Eric Chris On “Puff” Stories In The Local Media

Eric Chris sent this letter to a local scribe who works for one of the dailies.

It is worth a read because Mr. Chris is an Engineer and knows a thing or two about maths and indeed, he seems to know more about calculations than those working in the premier’s office; oh sorry, I mean TransLink.

Zwei too, is baffled by the 1980’s rhetoric, about SkyTrain and transit in general that emanates in the local media; good lord it is 2016; only seven of the proprietary ICTS/ALRT/ART SkyTrain systems have been sold in almost forty years; the world has moved on, but not our local mainstream media it seems.

Iai??i??m baffled by your latest story on how more ridership on public transit is going to turn things around, financially, for TransLink.Ai?? TransLink spends $3 for every $1 collected from fares by users.Ai?? More service hours for public transit by TransLink merely loses TransLink more money, doesnai??i??t it?Ai?? On the other hand, fewer service hours for less ridership on public transit actually saves TransLink money, right?

Public transit by TransLink is welfare transportation.Ai?? It doesnai??i??t make money.Ai?? Otherwise, TransLink could list on the Toronto Stock Exchange and offer shares for investors looking to lose $2 for every $3 ai???investedai??? in public transit by TransLink.Ai?? Good luck with that.

http://www.vancouversun.com/Transit+users+keys+kick+starting+Metro+Vancouver+transit+system+expansion/11948064/story.html

In 2015, TransLink had an annual operating budget of $1.5 billion (before the hundreds of millions of dollars donated recently by the provincial and federal governments) for roads, bridges and transit.Ai?? Spending on public transit in 2015 took up 90% of TransLinkai??i??s annual operating budget ($1,400 million).Ai?? Fares from public transit only generated about $450 million annually in 2015.Ai?? TransLink stringing us along over the last 17 years to spend too much on public transit hasnai??i??t spent enough money on roads and bridges and has allowed the Pattullo Bridge, for instance, to rot into disrepair and become unsafe to use.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/5-months-of-traffic-headaches-coming-thanks-to-pattullo-bridge-closures-1.3551743

For the last two decades, TransLink has been spending wildly on public transit for developers to build housing density along its subways and viaducts, supposedly to make housing affordable and banish road congestion. With Vancouver having developed the most unaffordable housing in Canada, possibly the world, and the worst road congestion in Canada, how can any intelligent and sane person suggest that more funding for TransLink is a good idea?

Overhead at TransLink is about $100 million annually. Nobody at TransLink matters and nobody at TransLink does any work: everybody at TransLink is on overhead. TransLink is $3.6 billion in the hole. How many people know this?Ai?? How about you tell them?

http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/2015/10/27/critical-years-loom-for-translink-credit-rater

TransLink has no way to get out of debt. All that TransLink can do is come up with expensive subway and other money sucking projects to try to raise taxes – hence the call for road and bridge tolls, euphemistically referred to as mobility pricing in order to ostensibly curb road congestion; yet road congestion dropped during the transit strike in 2001 when transit buses werenai??i??t on the roads.

http://www.trucknews.com/features/transit-strike-improves-traffic/

TransLinkai??i??s whole theory that public transit cuts road congestion is flawed.Ai?? Transit buses clogging up the roads and interfering with traffic create more road congestion than they alleviate.Ai?? Road space created by drivers taking public transit is used by other latent drivers, and public transit accomplishes nothing in terms of cutting road congestion:

ai???The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from U.S. Cities, concluded that ai???the provision of public transportation has no impact on vehicle kilometres travelled. The transit advantages were offset ai???by an increase in driving by current residents; an increase in transportation intensive production activity; and an inflow of new residents.ai???

http://www.vancourier.com/opinion/columnists/hold-your-nose-and-vote-no-on-plebiscite-1.1791689#sthash.tOoDnBrY.dpuf

Diesel buses used for public transit spew out toxins causing cardiovascular and respiratory diseases; whereas, cars donai??i??t to any extent.Ai?? While ridership might be high on public transit during a few peak hours on weekdays, most of the time, ridership on public transit is abysmal.Ai?? Overall, carbon emissions drop without public transit by TransLink.

Ridership

On the topic of ridership on public transit by TransLink:Ai?? ridership on public transit refers to the number of times that transit users board buses and trains.Ai?? Ridership reported by TransLink is analogous to ICBC reporting how many times people get into or out of their cars.Ai?? In Metro Vancouver, about 300,000 people out of the 2.4 million people use public transit by TransLink, on average.

TransLink needs more service hours to create ridership from transit buses to the new driverless induction rail transit (DIRT) line in Coquitlam (11 km extension to the Millennium Line).Ai?? If TransLink doesnai??i??t add more service hours to recycle existing transit-bus users to the new 11 km extension to the Millennium Line, TransLink canai??i??t conceal that the new 11 km extension to the Millennium Line is a flop, like all the other ones in the past.

Express service (B-Line or DIRT) increasing ridership doesnai??i??t make drivers take public transit more; express service just makes existing transit users make more transfers and board public transit more (inflate ridership).Ai?? At least, this is what the facts say and the percentage of trips by drivers which TransLink published last in 2011 was the same then (57%) as it was in 1999 (57%) when TransLink was formed.Ai?? Maybe you can find out whatai??i??s preventing TransLink from publishing the percentage of trips by drivers in 2015.Ai?? Iai??i??m guessing; it is over 57%.

TransLinkai??i??s whole transit system based on express service is a hoax as is TransLink.Ai?? Conventional transit with transit buses or trams in regular service does a better job of moving transit users more quickly and economically than B-Line buses or DIRT trains in express service as the attached article by Charlie Smith (a real journalist) pointed out 17 years ago.

Ironically, increasing ridership through more transfers deters people from using public transit.Ai?? Hapless individuals who have no choice but to use public transit end up making more transfers (to lengthen their commuting times).Ai?? As ridership with express service (B-Line and DIRT) goes up, transit use in terms of the number of people using public falls.Ai?? This slashes TransLinkai??i??s fare revenue. Ai??It is no accident that TransLink keeps losing money as its ai???ridershipai??? (number of transfers) keeps going up in number.

According to scientific evidence, public transit by TransLink can be correlated to increased road congestion, unaffordable housing, increased cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and increased carbon emissions.Ai?? These are good reasons to fund TransLink?

Finally, TransLink doesnai??i??t have a 10 year plan to fund for public transit, any longer. Remember?Ai?? It was defeated in the transit plebiscite.

http://www.notranslinktax.ca/translink_tax_defeated

Get the facts right.Ai?? You arenai??i??t a journalist presenting the facts.Ai?? Advertising fees by TransLink to the The Vancouver Sun over the years have paid for your salary.Ai?? You are indirectly working for TransLink and likely would not have a job if you wrote the truth about public transit here.Ai?? So, kindly make it clear that the opinions expressed by you in your articles contradicting reality are nothing more than advertorials for TransLink.Ai?? Okay?

http://www.railforthevalley.com/latest-news/zweisystem/sorry-david-suzuki-you-are-wrong/