Understanding the benefits of modern light rail

What is good for New South Wales in Australia, is certainly good for BC. The benefits of building with light rail and I so wish local politicians take the time and read the following. ITLS_presentation_5_May_2015_-_McKibbin_-_Light_Rail[1] The key building with light rail is building it right, serving major transit destinations as well as areas of housing, […]

Metro Madness

In one of the silliest items written in Canada about public transit, The Globe and Mail’s (Mop & Pail) Jeffery Simpson has inked a article about how the taxpayer in the lower mainland should vote YES to build subways because Asia builds them. * Why then are subways built? * The answer is simple, subways […]

The Perils of Proprietary Railways

The Sydney Australia monorail was another expensive and short lived line. Now torn down, Sydney is now investing in light rail. The pitfalls of buying into a proprietary railway are many; for what was once “high tech” and “state of the art”, soon becomes yesterday’s tech and obsolete. Owners of proprietary railways, like to sell […]

How to build light rail in our cities without emptying the public purse

An interesting read and quite pertinent to our transit situation in the lower mainland. Both the BRT and SkyTrain Lobby’s have so perverted the concept of modern light rail, to support their own projects, that the concept of affordable LRT has all but disappeared from the TransLink lexicon. The following quote; “……….while cities with rubber-wheeled […]

The Compass Card – Another Gordon Campbell Fiasco!

The Compass Card fiasco is not really a TransLink problem, rather it is the epitome of why TransLink has problems; TransLink is a tool of the Premier’s Office and it must do the Premier’s bidding or face serious repercussions. Premier Gordon Campbell’s best friend, Ken Dobell, was the lobbyist for Cubit Industries makers of fare […]

The $14 billion transit plan the B.C. Liberals conveniently forgot about

How soon we forget, the BC Liberals had a $14 billion transit plan for Metro Vancouver and what ever happened to that? The following from Vancouver Buzz explains events from seven years go.

It is these debt-servicing costs that are contributing greatly to the need for the additional taxes

A little food for thought. From Liz James and the North Shore News. From the North Shore News JAMES: Get facts before marking your ballot Elizabeth James , contributing writer / North Shore News March 4, 2015 – See more at: Emotion will trump facts every time.ai??? ai??i?? Keith Baldrey, North Shore News, Feb. 11, […]

Aussie Companies Ante Up For Trams

Love to see this happen in Vancouver! I wonder if the Board of Trade would be supporting TransLink’s initiative if their members had to come up with $300 or $400 million for transit improvements or if their members had to pay for the extra cost of subway construction under Broadway? Parramatta Powerful corporate syndicate hatch […]

Crystal ball department.

This could be the headline for the metro Vancouver Region is a few years hence.   February 16, 2015 York Region pulls back on infrastructure projects in effort to rein in debt Torstar News Service VIVA Rapid Transit, launched in 2005 to carry residents across York Region. York Region is starting to feel the burden […]

And you think TransLink has problems………

Vancouver is not the only city having financial problems with transit. Toronto is mired in political vanity subway projects and the TTC is steaming full speed ahead into a financial iceberg as well.   The Scarborough Subway and Smart Track are about to collide February 12, 2015 | By John Lorinc Anyone who thinks they […]