The Emperor has no Clothes and no Transit
Zwei has decided to reprint this post from 2010, written by someone outside the metro Vancouver bubble, who tried to better the region’s transit.
In the ensuing time nothing has changed; the same oldAi??tired cast of charlatans trundling out the same old tired transit plans,Ai??desperately tryingAi??to convinceAi??the ever increasingly skeptical taxpayerAi??to ante up more and more tax money to fund transit improvements that everyone knows will fail to deliver what is promised.
The regional mayors, act as a collectiveAi??ai???Ship of Foolsai??? pretending they want better transit, when most secretly want miles and miles of new blacktop in their municipalities so their political friends can develop the ever diminishing ALR lands. The mainstream media,Ai?? desperate to retain advertising revenue form those in power and those who wield power, have acquiredAi??collective amnesia regarding transit and transit news and print, what they are told to print.
Herr Goebbels would be soAi??pleased.
The region has no real transit plan and no transit.
The Emperor has no Clothes and no Transit
Posted by Cardinal Fang on Sunday, March 27, 2011
Vancouver is at first glance a beautiful city. It is surrounded by sweeping vistas and a dramatic skyline.
The climate is moderate but spend some time here and scratch the surface and it becomes far less attractive. It is a city that is divided politically; it is parochial, narrow minded and shallow. The people are characterless, flaky and disingenuous. Vancouver is the scam capital of North America, a skill set for which the local population is particularly adept.
There are times when I am certain that Vancouver is something straight out of Conradai??i??s Heart of Darkness.
It is a cold place, people in the same business do not interact of share information they do not network or help each other. There is an almost a Darwinian or Hobbesian social culture ai??i?? Vancouver is an empty void.
The political environment is polarized and doctrinaire. The left adheres to ideas that are at least a generation out of date. Vancouverites think that Naomi Klein is an intellectual when in reality she is a very silly charlatan. To Vancouverites the secret is a serious work of self help. The right is equally foolish in the banality of their free market ideology.
You donai??i??t meet people of substance here. You meet flakes. The press is dominated by yellow journalism. Rarely if ever have I read a real piece of investigative journalism. You do not meet people who form their opinions based upon facts. When you encounter Vancouverites and engage them in the discussion of social issues the argument usually become circular and they end of talking only about themselves. There is a kind of deep insecurity that comes from profound feeling of self loathing that is hard wired into the political culture here. Narcissism is the dominate religion and worshiping at the Temple of Mammon ai??i?? real estate speculation is the Holy Grail.
People here (generally speaking of course) are stuck up, materialistic yuppies. The downtown scene used to have decent variety, now itai??i??s full of ai???cookie-cutterai??? clubs and bars that cater to Armani clones.
Go east of here, or especially south of here, and youai??i??ll find friendlier people that arenai??i??t so consumed with cliques and materialism. If one hails from Harare, Timbuktu, Tripoli, or Darfur then yes, Vancouver appears pretty good, but ai???the most livable city on Earthai????Not only is this pretentious, itai??i??s just plain wrong.
No where is the contrast more apparent, than in Coquitlam and Port Moody; cities like Surrey, Delta and Langley, South of the Fraser River and east along the Valley to Abbotsford and Chilliwack.
Politicians, planners, decision makers, wealthy Vancouver suburbanites and the `movers & shakersai??i?? contemptuously dismiss the communities beyond downtown as the boondocks; the disdain for the citizens of the Greater Vancouver Regional District and the Fraser Valley is illustrated in the attitude of the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, BC Transit and TransLink, to public transport in these areas.
The Emperor has no Clothes and no Transit.
From December 2010;The Rail for the Valley movement has long campaigned against this inequity:
Whereai??i??s The Transit?
http://www.railforthevalley.com/latest-news/zweisystem/wheres-the-transit/
Transit Planning In Metro Vancouver ai??i?? Where Have We Gone Wrong?
Added costs for the Canada Line ai??i?? Has The Taxpayer Assumed Risk?
The truth is now beginning to be realised by the wider community; The Globe & Mail published the two following articles on March 25 & 26th.
Transit a hit-and-miss affair in B.C.ai??i??s Lower Mainland
Transit problems across Canada prompt calls for politicians to address issue
We can only hope that the upcoming May (2017) election will end to the sixteen years of ineptitude, inequality, corruption & nepotism which started in Gordon Campbellai??i??s BC Liberal administration and now continued by premier Chritsy Clark and echoed by the provincial NDP will improve the outlook; I doubt it but, we can but hope and wish.
One should have some basis for comparison before showering such hyperbole on the overpriced, congested, and conceited squalor that is the most livable city in the world. If any city (or province) is presumptuous enough to put ai???the best place on Earthai??? on its license plates; itai??i??d better well be the case, because itai??i??s citizens donai??i??t uphold the credibility.
Vancouver is a poor-manai??i??s version of Seattle that, ironically, costs five times at much. Unlike Seattle, however, Vancouver has a dearth of friendly (and English-speaking) people, good music, and reasonably-priced beer. The self-satisfied smugness Vancouverites have toward their neighbour city to the south (or any metropolis, for that matter) stems from an amalgamation of an inferiority complex coupled with an identity crisis. Canada is like the U.S. in every way, except not quite as good. Nowhere is this exemplified more than in Vancouver.
Phase One To Oblivion
Well, it had to happen, the fools council has approved ‘phase one’ of Translink’s ten year plan.
I doubt that any of the mayors in this old boys/girls club know very much about transit, but they certainly know what gets them votes and transit is a motherhood and apple pie issue.
Buying new SkyTrain cars is a no-brainer as the majority of the MK.1 cars have now operated since 1985 and now are over 30 years old. As well, buying new SkyTrain cars keeps the production line intact and with SkyTrain being a proprietary railway, this is important, lest one day new SkyTrain cars are ordered but no production line to produce them.
The pre-production work on both the Broadway subway and Surrey LRT is a complete waste of money, but TransLink is very good at wasting the public’s money.
What TransLink has not done, is to make the regional transit service more customer friendly, but then to do that, the six figured a year salaried mandarins in TransLink’s expensive ‘ivory towers’ would have face some very unpleasant questions.
The key to a better regional transit service is not more buses, SkyTrain cars and employees, rather it is providing a transit service that naturally attracts customers to transit. Flooding the system with 130,000 deep discounted U-Passes and double and triple counting ‘boarded’ passengers is not the way to run a transit system, but without public scrutiny, TransLink can and deso as it pleases.
The 2015 plebiscite showed that the majority of the public had no confidence in this obtuse bureaucratic empire, called TransLink and the ‘phase one’ spend-a-thon shows that those running TransLink learned nothing and remember nothing.
Phase one of 10-year transit and transportation plan for Metro Vancouver approved
Vancouver, BC, Canada / News Talk 980 CKNW | Vancouver’s News. Vancouver’s TalkPosted: November 23, 2016
The Mayorsai??i?? Council and TransLink Board of Directors have approved Phase One of the 10-year Vision for Metro Vancouver Transit and Transportation.
TransLink will roll out Phase One in January 2017.
The $2 billion-dollar planAi??will ai???bring noticeable improvements to the way residents travel throughout Metro Vancouver, by reducing overcrowding on transit and on HandyDart, providing new services to areas which havenai??i??t had transit before, helping to address bottlenecks on the regionai??i??s major road networks, and creating pedestrian walkways and bike paths.ai???
Map of the proposed improvements:
Funding Phase One
Phase One of the plan will be funded by a $370 million from the Federal Government and $246 million from the Provincial Government. The remaining $1.3 billion will be coming from TransLink.
Phase one will be partially funded by transit fare and property tax increases.
Translink says the fare increase will be 5 to 10 cents on a single fare and $1 to $3 on a monthly pass.
The property tax increase will be based on growth and development in the region.
There will also be a new region-wide development fee for transit and transportation and Translink will sell surplus property.
Unifor, which represents 4,700 transit operators, mechanics, maintenance and SeaBus workers, calls the phase one approval a ai???big winai??? but calls on the province to increase its contribution to capital costs from 33 per cent to 40 per cent.
Unifor says commuters can expect to see a 10% increase in bus service starting in April 2017 and new buses on the road.
With files from Jeremy Lye and Shelby Thom
The 1986 LRTA Study: Bus – LRT – Metro Comparison
Every year I reprint this post to remind everyone of the ability to move large amount of people at an affordable cost.
There is an ongoing debate today that LRT can only carry a limited number of riders and that the magic number for a subway is about 100,000 riders a day on a transit line. This may have been true in the 197’s, but not the 21st century, where modern multi-articulated low-floor light rail vehicles (tram is much easier to say!) are able to easily carry three or four times this number, thus negating the need for expensive subway construction, except on the most heavily used routes. The LRTA shows that modern LRT can carry over 20,000 pphpd in 1986 and in 2010, in Karlsruhe Germany, one tram or LRT line on Kaisserstrasse was seeing traffic flows over 35,000 pphpd.
Karlsruhe also shows what the threshold for traffic flows necessitating subway construction in Germany, after many very expensive lessons with subways built on lesser routes.
Those who demand a SkyTrain Broadway subway should take note.
The 1986 LRTA Study: Bus LRT Metro Comparison
The following is from the Light Rail Transit Associations hand book Light Rail Transit Today, comparing the operating parameters of bus, light rail, and metro on an unimpeded 8 kilometre route with stations every 450 metres. Using real data based on acceleration, deceleration, dwell time, etc., the study gives real time information for the three transit modes.
Please note: This study has been abridged for brevity and clarity.
The study assumes a vehicle capacity for a bus at 90 persons; LRT 240 persons (running in multiple unit doubles capacity); and metro at 1000 persons.
The time to over the 8 km. route would be:
- Bus 22.4 minutes
- LRT 18 .6 minutes
- Metro 16.3 minutes
The Round trip time, including a 5 minute layover:
- Bus 54.8 minutes
- LRT 47.2 minutes
- Metro 42.6 minutes
The comparative frequency of service in relation to passenger flows would be:
At 2,000 persons per hour per direction:
- Bus 2.7 minute headways, with 22 trips.
- LRT 7.5 minute headways, with 8 trips.
- LRT (2-car) 15 minute headways, with 4 trips.
- Metro 30 minute headways, with 2 trips.
At 6,000 pphpd:
- 1 Bus 0.9 minute headways, with 67 trips.
- LRT 2.4 minute headways, with 17 trips.
- LRT (2-car) 4.8 minutes, with 13 trips.
- Metro 10 minute headways with 6 trips.
At 10,000 pphpd:
- Bus 30 second headways, with 111 trips (traffic flows above 10,000 pphpd impractical).
- LRT 1.4 minute headways, with 42 trips.
- LRT (2 car) 2.8 minute headways, 21 trips
- Metro 6 minute headways, 10 trips.
At 20,000 pphpd:
- LRT 0.7 minute headways, with 83 trips.
- LRT (2 car) 1.4 minute headways, with 42 trips.
- Metro 3 minute headways, with 20 trips.
Comparative Staff Requirements on vehicles in relation to passenger flows. Station staff in brackets ().
At 2,000 pphpd:
- Bus 21 (0)
- LRT 7 (0)
- LRT (2 car) 4 (0)
- metro 2 (up to 38)
At 6,000 pphpd:
- Bus 61 (0)
- LRT 20 (0)
- LRT (2 car) 10 (0)
- Metro 5 (up to 38)
At 10,000 pphpd:
- Bus 110 (traffic flows above 10,000 pphpd impractical) (0).
- LRT 34 (0)
- LRT (2 car) 17 (0)
- Metro 8 (up to 38)
At 20,000 pphpd:
- LRT 69 (0)
- LRT (2 car) 34 (0)
- Metro 15 (up to 38)
Though the study is 30 years old and completed before the advent of low-floor trams (which decreased dwell times), it still give a good comparison of employee needs for each mode. Metro, especially automatic metro systems do require a much larger maintenance staff than for bus or LRT and when one factors in the added high cost of subway or viaduct construction plus higher operational costs, Metro only become a viable proposition when traffic flows exceed 16,000 pphpd to 20,000 pphpd on a transit route.
Claims from other blogs that automatic metros can operate more frequent headway’s than LRT are untrue; automatic metros can not operate at higher frequencies than LRT, but if Metro is operated at close headway’s in times of low traffic flows, they do so with a penalty in higher maintenance costs and operational costs.
Taking into account the almost universal use of low-floor trams, operating in reserved rights-of-ways, combined with advances in safe signal priority at intersections; given an identical transit route with equal stations or stops, LRT operating on the surface (on-street) would be just as fast as a metro operating either elevated or in a subway at a fraction of the overall cost grade separated R-o-Wai??i??s. Also, automatic (driverless) metros, though not having drivers have attendants and station staff, which negate any claim that automatic metros use less staff than light rail.
The LRTA study does give good evidence why LRT has made light-metros such a as SkyTrain and VAL obsolete.
http://www.railforthevalley.com/latest-news/zweisystem/the-1986-lrta-study-bus-lrt-metro-comparison/
Sounds of Silence
No surprise here, as Zwei has been sounding alarm bells over this upcoming fiasco for years
Now TransLink has an American out of Seattle as the new CEO and this means the sky is the limit for spending on rail transit.
Seattle’s LRT is LRT in name only as it is actually a light metro with over 90% of its route either in a subway or on a viaduct. The European light rail Renaissance, did reach the shores of North America but “big money” interests prevented much traction and in the USA and Canada, the race is on on how one can spend the most amount of money for the least amount of transit.
As repeated many times, TransLink does not plan transit, rather it implements what the premier’s Office tells it to do and the premier’s office will only invest in transit to satisfy the needs of friends and cronies of the government.
In Vancouver, rapid transit is used to subsidize development and nothing more and the transit customer, as always in Metro Vancouver, is left waiting at a station with no service.
Cone of silence over cost estimates for Broadway subway, Surrey LRT
A week after its Mayorsai??i?? Council endorsed a plan to raise property taxes and hike transit fares to begin its expansion, TransLink is refusing to …By Bob Mackin | Sept. 23, 2016
A week after its Mayorsai??i?? Council endorsed a plan to raise property taxes and hike transit fares to begin its expansion, TransLink is refusing to provide the latest cost estimates for the biggest items on its long-term wish list.
*
The Broadway subway and Surrey light rail were estimated in 2014 to cost $1.98 billion and $2.14 billion, respectively. Last March, City of Surrey rapid transit project manager Paul Lee admitted rising real estate prices had pushed the Surrey proposalai??i??s estimated budget to $2.6 billion.*
The public portion of the Sept. 23 quarterly meeting contained no mention about either project. Business in Vancouver asked TransLink CEO Kevin Desmond at a post-meeting news conference for an update and whether the cost estimates had increased by a billion dollars each.*
ai???Weai??i??re not prepared to talk about what the estimates are,ai??? Desmond said. ai???Itai??i??s during that period of time in the months ahead that we [will] further will pin down the cost estimates going forward. By the time weai??i??re ready to proceed with the investment plan on phase two, weai??i??ll be in a much better position to have more accurate estimates associated.ai???*
On March 30, TransLink CFO Cathy McClay admitted the cost estimates had gone up, but she wouldnai??i??t provide numbers. She said consultants were given extra time, until June 30, to deliver their reports. She blamed the high cost of real estate and the decrease in the loonieai??i??s buying power for materials.*
In early 2015, Steer Davies Gleave and Hatch Mott MacDonald were hired on a $1.56 million conceptual design and cost estimate study for the Surrey proposal. They subcontracted Stantec (TSX:STN), Via Architecture, Anthony Steadman and Associates and the Stewart Group. Stantec is leading the $1.4 million study on the Broadway proposal with subcontractors Jacobs Associates, Golder Associates, Allen Parker Consulting, Site Economics, Westco Consulting, Edward LeFlufy Urban Design & Architecture, Locke & Locke, Dessau, BTY Group and Anthony Steadman and Associates.*
ai???These are both very, very complicated projects and you go thorough a design process that is highly iterative,ai??? Desmond said. ai???During a prolonged design and engineering process for very complicated public works projects you go through eventually value engineering exercise as well, and weai??i??re not there yet.ai???*
Meanwhile, Desmond declined to comment on the impending sale of the Oakridge Transit Centre to Intergulf Development Group. BIV sources say the transaction for the 13.8 acre, mixed-use residential building opportunity could be worth as much as $400 million.*
ai???We have no further information on that property transaction at this point in time,ai??? Desmond said.
Rail for the Valley’s Canada 150th Anniversary Treat!
Passenger train’s operating on the old Vancouver to Chilliwack interurban line may happen for two weeks during Canada’s 150th celebrations and the RftV group needs your help to make it happen!
The West Coast Railway Association, in conjunction with Rail for the Valley and the Southern Railway ofAi?? BC have put together a package, seeing a heritage diesel loco and four passenger cars, tentatively to operate on two weekends in the summer of 2017.
The upfront cost for this to happen is around $90,000.
Expensive yes, but consider this; the cost for just the ‘train’ rental is $25,000 and the cost to bring it from Squamish to Chilliwack is $15,000!
Other costs are buses, $24,000 for bus rentals for those making one way trips the rest of the costs is made up of insurance, advertising, etc.
RftV needs $6,000 now, $6,000 a month before the train leaves and $6,000 the day of departure.
Ticket sales are designed to meet the cost of the event and based on 90% sold tickets, the cost of a one way would be around $43.75, but this has not been finalized.
What is important now is to secure funding for this event and if you or anyone wishes to donate to this event, make inquiries via the rail for the valley web site.
This is an exciting event and please get involved!
Unlike Toronto, TransLink Can’t Cancel A SkyTrain Contract
Toronto is cancelling its contract with Bombardier, which would have provided light rail vehicles for Toronto’s planned LRT network and the TTC is also looking at dumping Bombardier as the supplier for their tram replacement program due to non delivery of new trams as per the contract schedule
This is why Bombardier Inc. love proprietary railways like our ALRT/ART (SkyTrain) system because the customer is tied to one supplier and it is far too expensive for the competition to design a new rail vehicle, for a small order, to operate on another’sAi?? proprietary railway.
The Canada Line is a good example because it is in reality a heavy-rail metro dumbed down as a light metro but it is also a generic railway vehicle and can operate on almost any railway and metro system around the world, but it cannot operate in conjunction with our proprietary ALRT/ART mini-metro.
This means through running is impossible and now the Canada line has become a stand alone mini-metro line and being so, is slowly becoming more and more apparent with politicians that it is a “white elephant”.
Back to Toronto; Siemens, Alstom, Stadler, and more are waiting to pick up the Toronto LRV contract, something that would not happen in Vancouver.
The proprietaryAi?? LIM powered ALRT/ART SkyTrain system is
not compatible in operation with conventional railways.
Bombardierai??i??s arrogance costs commuters in light-rail setback
Bombardier reaped what it sowed when it lost the Toronto LRT contract, writes David Olive.
Bumai??i??s rush for Bombardier
The pressure will soon be on Bombardier Inc. to get serious about splitting the company into its rail and aerospace operations.
Each are troubled, but might fare better on its own, solely focused on their respective businesses.
Ontario last week told the Montreal-based Bombardier it is terminating its $770-million contract to buy all 182 light-rail vehicles (LRVs) needed for extensive expansion to Torontoai??i??s public transit network.
A pilot Bombardier LRV to have arrived in Toronto three years ago missed its latest delivery deadline last week. By the time it does arrive, Ontario will have given part of the LRT contract to eager bidders Siemens AG of Germany and Franceai??i??s Alstom S.A.
In a separate fiasco, Bombardier has been a chronic annoyance for Toronto Transit Commission commuters, made to cope with unreliable and late Bombardier equipment.
Post-Nortel and the halcyon days of BlackBerry, Bombardier is Canadaai??i??s biggest tech champion. It has long been nurtured by corporate welfare, and informal but real Buy Canada practices, notably in Ontario.
Squandering those advantages, Bombardier has worked hard to exemplify what a customer-unfriendly enterprise looks like. It deserves its bumai??i??s rush, which might finally teach Bombardier to shed the arrogance that drove Nortel to an early grave.
Broadway Subway Is Luxury Wrapped In Opulence – Designed To Sell A Mock P-3?
It did not take long for the Liberal fixers in Ottawa to hatch a scheme to keep their political friends awash in taxpayer`s dollars.
Public transit schemes are generally not money makers, in fact the vast majority of public transit operations around the globe are subsidized, many heavily subsidized.
A few light rail transit lines operate in what is called a P-3 or a Public, Private, Partnership, which has different meanings in different countries.
In the UK and Europe a P-3 ensures a well designed transit system, with complete public input and full disclosure. An integral part of a P-3 is that the operating consortium undertakes risk and by doing so also enables the operating consortium to enjoy the proceeds of an operating profit.
By undertaking risk, the P-3 consortium is entitled to make a profit from revenue generated from the transit line: including debt servicing! This type of P-3 generally results in a well designed, well run and user friendly transit system.
Because of the nuances of a P-3, expensive metros, light-metros and subways are almost never considered and instead LRT is considered a good vehicle for a P-3, with Dublin’s LUAS and Nottingham’s LRT operations being a good example.
Not so in BC and now Canada it seems as a P-3 tends to be a taxpayer subsidized payoff to friends in government. In fact it can be called a money laundering scheme!
The RAV/Canada line is a good example.
The RAV/Canada Line was supposed to be a BC Liberal showcase P-3 and with a compliant mainstream media the real story of the P-3 has never been told.
The then Premier Gordon Campbell and Minister of Transportation, Kevin Falcon were so ignorant of rapid transit they tried to make the planned RAV (Richmond, Airport, Vancouver) ALRT/ART proprietary SkyTrain Line a P-3.
To their combined shock and horror, they found out that SkyTrain was a “proprietary” transit system and incompatible in operation with other transit systems. It would be impossible to have a ALRT/ART SkyTrain P-3 because there could be only one bidder, thus the government held a mock P-3 where ART/ALRT (SkyTrain) patent holder SNC lavalin, in consortium with Bombardier pretended to bid against an SNC Lavalin/Hyundai, Siemens and Alstom. Siemens and Alstom were tossed out of the bidding process because they dared to use LRT vehicles (like Seattle) instead of a light/heavy rail metro vehicles.
The P-3 had turned into nothing more than a conspiracy to enrich SNC Lavalin at the taxpayer’s expense.
In the end the SNC/Hyundai consortium won, but the proposed RAV light-metro costs escalated from $1.3 billion to now over $2.4 billion and in order to SNC Lavalin/Hyundai consortium to build the RAV Line, they refused to except risk. Thus the RAV/Canada Line is nothing more than a taxpayer fed money laundering scheme designed to enrich SNC Lavalin lead consortium, now receiving over $110 million annually in taxpayer funded subsidies as the now named Canada Line does not have an operating profit.
Judge Pittfield, presiding over the failed Susan Heyes lawsuit and against TransLink, called the RAV/Canada line bidding process a “charade“!
And what did the taxpayer get for his/hers $2.4 billion? The only heavy rail metro in the world, build as a light metro, with less capacity than a simple streetcar costing a fraction to build.
What the BC Liberals have done in BC, has now been refined by the federal Liberals to ensure their political friends and insiders are able to slurp at the mock P-3 trough for generations to come!
The Canada Line, the model for federal Liberal corruption to come!
Liberals redirect $15B to infrastructure projects that ‘generate revenue’ for private investors
Finance Minister Bill Morneau delivered his fall fiscal updateTuesday afternoon.
The good news is Morneau announced the creation of a new “Canadian Infrastructure Development Bank” that will invest billions of dollars into infrastructure.
The bad news is Morneau is funding the new bank with $15 billion in previously announced spending earmarked for “socially useful, non-commercial projects like child care or affordable housing to cash-strapped cities.”
The other bad news is the only projects that will see a dime from the new bank are projects that have “revenue-generating potential” for the government’s private sector partnersAi??ai??i??Ai??a scheme to use public funds to subsidize and finance private infrastructure, in other words.
According to Finance Canada, much of the infrastructure spending will be privately-financed, with federal, provincial and municipal governments making up the difference.
Details show the federal government’s contribution will be $35 billion, although since the bank will only invest in “revenue-generating” projects, Canadians will possibly pay tolls and other fees to use infrastructure their tax dollars helped finance.
At the same time, the Liberal government says it will redirect $15 billion in previously announced spending that had been specifically earmarked for infrastructure projects relating to public transit, climate change, affordable housing and indigenous communities to projects that generate revenues for private investors.
Other recent reports have suggested theAi??Liberal government is also considering auctioning off public assets, like airports, to recoup costs.
SkyTrain Ka-Put Again. Is TransLink Out Of It’s Depth?
It is becoming all to regular, the Expo and Millennium Lines go down; TransLink can’t cope with the problem and transit customers are badly dealt with.
I think new TransLink CEO, Kevin Desmond is out of his league and if these frequent stoppages do not cease, he must resign.
What is even more disturbing is one TransLink spokesperson states that the problem is “mechanical”, while another spokesperson states the problem is “communications”.
TransLink, it seems, can’t even get their story straight, yet regional mayors want more and more taxes to keep this “ship of fools” in operation.
A “Ship of fools” indeed!
SkyTrain service resumes after multiple trains fail
Vancouver, BC, Canada / News Talk 980 CKNW | Vancouver’s News. Vancouver’s TalkPosted: November 01, 2016
Ai??Good news if youai??i??re getting ready to head home for the evening commute.
TransLink says itai??i??s cleared a backlog of disabled trains and regular service is resuming after after a mid-afternoon meltdown left a dozen trains out of commission.
TransLink spokesperson Ann Drennan says a technical issue around 1Ai??p.m.Ai??impacted service on the Expo Line in both directions from Waterfront to King George.
ai???There were 12 trains are impacted by the issues and those trains have to be manually driven back to the stations, six of them have already been brought back in.ai???
From News 1130 Radio
Mechanical issues cause SkyTrain delays
Posted Nov 1, 2016 1:46 pm PDT
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) ai??i?? Service is slowly returning to normal after major delays on the Expo and Millenium Lines this afternoon.
TransLink says there were temporary service delays due to mechanical issues on several trains across both lines. TransLink says the trains lost communication with computer systems.
Some SkyTrain users say the trains were stopped between stations for over an hour. Many people on Twitter were expressing their outrage and panic, calling on on TransLink to tell them what was going on and to make more announcements on the train. One person tweeted they were stuck on a train in the middle of the tracks for nearly 90 minutes before the train moved again.
Millennium Line wasAi??temporarily extended to Edmonds, while the Expo Line wasAi??running between King George and Edmonds stations only, with service to downtown paralyzed.
Drennan says the problem was a ai???train control communications issue,ai??? in which the 12 impacted trains lost contact with the main computer system and froze.
The Canada Line wasAi??unaffected.
The Railway for the Dead – Halloween Special
For Halloween
Devoted to carrying corpses, the London Necropolis Railway was the spookiest, strangest train line in British history ai??i?? but also possibly the most useful.
- By Amanda Ruggeri
18 October 2016
For 87 years, nearly every day, a single train ran out of London and back. It left from a dedicated station near Waterloo built specifically for the line and its passengers. The 23-mile journey, which had no stops after leaving London, took 40 minutes. Along the way to their destination, riders glimpsed the lovely landscapes of Westminster, Richmond Park and Hampton Court ai??i?? no mistake, as the route was chosen partly for its ai???comforting sceneryai???, as one of the railwayai??i??s masterminds noted.
How much comfort a route gives passengers isnai??i??t a usual consideration for a train line. But this was no normal train line.
Many of the passengers on the train would be distraught. The others ai??i?? those passengersai??i?? loved ones ai??i?? be dead. Their destination: the cemetery.
A rare view of the first London Necropolis Railway station, built in 1854; it was demolished after the new station was built in 1902 (Credit: SSPL)
In operation from 1854 to 1941, the London Necropolis Railway was the spookiest, strangest train line in British history. It transported Londonai??i??s dead south-west to Brookwood Cemetery, near Woking, in Surrey, a cemetery that was built in tandem with the railway. At its peak, from 1894 to 1903, the train carried more than 2,000 bodies a year.
It also transported their families and friends. Guests could leave with their dearly departed at 11:40am, attend the burial, have a funeral party at one of the cemeteryai??i??s two train stations (complete with home-cooked ham sandwiches and fairy cakes), and then take the same train back, returning to London by 3:30pm.
I consider it improper” ai??i?? Bishop of London, 1842
The pairing of grief and efficiency may seem a little jarring. It did then, too. ai???I consider it improper,ai??? sniffed the Bishop of London, testifying on the proposal before a House of Commons Select Committee in 1842. ai???At present we are not sufficiently habituated to that mode of travelling not to consider the hurry and bustle connected with it as inconsistent with the solemnity of a Christian funeral.ai???
But people became accustomed to it, says John Clarke, a historian who has written a book on the railway ai??i?? so much so, some failed to see what was odd about it at all. During his research, Clarke says, he asked one of the railway companyai??i??s former stonemasons if he had any photographs of the train. The stonemason, surprised, asked, ai???No ai??i?? why would I have that?ai???
Clarke explains: ai???For the people who worked at the cemetery, and for the [railway] company, it was what they did ai??i?? and it wasnai??i??t unusual.ai???
Still, thatai??i??s not to say that the idea of operating a train that exclusively transported dead bodies and mourners to a cemetery seemed ai???normalai??i?? when it was first proposed. Critics claimed that a train was too mechanical, too perfunctory, for the delicate work of funeral rites. They also worried that trains carrying corpses would later carry passengers ai??i?? a mix of living and dead riders would make for an unpalatable commute. That was one reason that the line had its own dedicated train stock.
Others expressed concern that different social classes would mix. There were separate carriages for each class, as was the custom at the time ai??i?? and continues to be the case on many British trains today. Even so, the fact that both banker and beggar would ride the same train and alight at the same cemetery station was somewhat egalitarian. So was the cemetery itself, which was divided not by class or status, but by religion ai??i?? Anglican burials, for example, were separated from other Christian denominations.
Opened in 1854, Brookwood Cemetery, also called the London Necropolis, remains the largest cemetery in Western Europe today (Credit: Peter Lane/Alamy)
Despite trepidation, the government went ahead with the plan anyway. In many ways, it had to.
By mid-19th Century, Londonai??i??s cemeteries were notoriously overcrowded. And as the cityai??i??s population grew, more than doubling from 1801 to 1851, the situation only worsened. Every year, London was burying another 50,000 dead ai??i?? but burial space remained less than 300 acres. That left gravediggers to turn to some particularly distasteful solutions, like digging up previously-buried bodies and cremating them at night. (Find out more about Londonai??i??s abundance of human remains and how they affect even modern train lines in our recent story about London rail and mass graves of plague victims). Only those who could afford spots in new, exclusive burial grounds like Highgate Cemetery, Londonai??i??s most famous cemetery, were exempt from possibly being exhumed and unceremonially cremated.
Stupid Is As Stupid Does – I Expect Nothing More From TransLink
So, what do the three new board members know about transit?
Zilch, nada, nothing.
But, I bet they all know how to cash a stipend.
Thus the farce we call TransLink, continues.
This is pork barrel politics at its very worst!
Three new members appointed to TransLink Board
Vancouver, BC, Canada / News Talk 980 CKNW | Vancouver’s News. Vancouver’s TalkPosted: October 26, 2016Ai??Ai??| Last Updated: October 26, 2016 10:19 am
There are three new members on the TransLink Board.
The Mayorsai??i?? Council has appointed Janet Austin, Sarah Clark, and Anne Giardini.
Austin is the CEO of YWCA Metro Vancouver, Clark is the COO of Fraser River Pile and Dredge, and Giardini is a lawyer, director and chancellor of Simon Fraser University.
Outgoing board members are Brenda Eaton, Barry Forbes, and current board chair Don Rose.
They will have completed their terms at the end of 2016.
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