TransLink’s Compass Card Boondoggle Revisited

Well, here we go again, new numbers from TransLink clearly shows that the much touted Compass Card is $23 million over budget and Cubit Industries will be paid $12 million annually to operated the system – more money than was thought lost through fare evasion! So, let’s look at more TransLink expenditures. *TransLink CEO Ian […]

Bombardier’s Porto Metro (well it is really LRT) Wins Prize.

Well, Bombardier can build light rail and award winning LRT at that, which is something that will be hard to admit in Vancouver. The Porto Metro uses Bombardier’s (ABB) Euro and Flexity trams in a combination of subway and at-grade rights-of-ways and there is not even a hint of ALRT/ART automatic operation. There is no […]

Minister Know Nothing

Ministers of Transportation in BC recently have been generally “know-nothings”, as they know very little about transit, public transit, and transportation in general. To keep their highly paid position, they do exactly what the premier tells them to do. Premier Clark announced a new bridge to replace the Massey tunnel and Minister of Transportation, Todd […]

Transit Can Only Improve If TransLink Is Dissolved

The following PostScript to a letter sent by Eric Chris, a professional engineer, is worthy of a post because he addresses the hidden issues of the U-Pass. For those who live outside of TransLink’s realm, the U-Pass is a universal transit pass giving unlimited travel, forcibly sold to over 110,000 post secondary students in Metro […]

TransLink CEO, Ian Jervis Made Over $394,000 Last Year

Not bad for a career bureaucrat who has no background in public transit. Maybe a little thrift in TransLink’s senior bureaucrats stipends, would translate to a little thrift in operations, resulting in realistic planning, financingAi?? and operation. From CKWX News 1130 radio. TransLink CEO making thousands more than counterpartsIan Jarvis makes $100,000 more than head […]

The Real Costs of Subways – Is The Provincial Government Listening?

There is a misconception by Vancouver politicians and engineers; TransLink’s planners and bureaucrats; Ministry of Transportation bureaucrats; and The Minister of Transportation and the Premier, that subways are rather cheap to build. TransLink has fortified this perception by deliberately over-engineering light rail to sell the idea that the cost of at-grade and or on-street light […]

GetOnBoard Want’s Valley Tax Money

The pro transit group GetOnBoard BC (well Rail for the Valley is a pro transit group as well) wants a yes vote in the upcoming TransLink referendum, but they seem to be a little naive about public transit in general and firmly believe that the more money you throw at TransLink, the better it will […]

The Current Vacuum In Regional Transit Planning

Where’s the transit? This question is being asked more and more and despite the hype an hoopla from Translink in their quest for more money, there is absolutely no concept of a regional transit strategy. Oh yes, we have SkyTrain for Vancouver; light rail for Surrey; and express buses (BRT is somewhat a fraudulent term) […]

The Bus Lobby Uses the SkyTrain Lobby’s Tacticts

A bus jam in Ottawa. One modern tram would be as efficient as 6 buses. If there is any doubt that the bus lobby misrepresents the truth, the following will dispel it immediately. The Vancouver Observer ran an item by Eric Doherty entitled, Humble trolley bus reborn as climate superhero, which the truth is so […]

The Broadway Follies – TransLink does the Gong Show

Here we go again, TransLink’s famous planning exercises that in the end will please no one and achieve very little. There is no bold ‘grand plan’ but more of the same, a little BRT here; a little SkyTrain there, with a hint of LRT thrown in to keep the trolley-jolly types happy. With all the […]