Canada line Goes Ka-Put – Could Dirty Tunnels Be The Culprit?

The Canada Line was down for three hours on Friday, but if one was looking for evidence of it, well TransLink is doing its best to cleanse the internet from reporting the problem. Trying to avoid the fiasco of last winter, where TransLink abandoned customers, when the Canada Line failed in the snow, officials were […]

Bombardier’s Blundering Is Alstom’s Gain

Recent problems with Bombardier’s delivery of new trams for Toronto has made Canadian customers look elsewhere. For two long, Ottawa has twisted arms of Canadian transit operators to buy the Canadian Bombardier product, to keep production going, propping up the giant multinational company and garnering votes from Ontario and Quebec. This is not to say […]

TransLink Spinning In Circles

So, it took the compass Card to make transit more user friendly – NOT! Is not TransLink’s main function to make transit user friendly, so more people perceive it is a good product, use itAi?? and hope, vote accordingly if there is another plebiscite? This is pure spin, by an organization, that can’t seem to […]

China’s Loneliest Subway Station

Metro madness gone wild in China. Looking like a set from a Sci-fi series, building a subway, for the sake of being a subway, has major financial consequences. Let us not make the same mistake in Vancouver, where transit traffic flows along Broadway are less than a third that would justify a subway. Take a […]

A Subway Conversation Unheard in Vancouver

Subways sound great – at first, but when the realities of subway operation, including extremely high costs and user unfriendliness, the love affair with subways tend to wane with customers. The huge cost of subway construction, means economies must be had and in Scarborough, those economies mean a lack of stations. Subway stations are both […]

An Election come And Gone

Just brief notes on the election or deciphering the entrails before they get cold. It seems the SkyTrain/TransLink curse has now caused the Liberal Minister responsible for TransLink, Peter Fassbender to lose his seat. Regional transportation has been made the “kiss of death” for politicians by successive NDP and Liberal governments and combined with weak […]

Proposed Massey Tunnel Bridge Replacement Is Now Said To Be $8 Billion More!

$8 billion is a lot of ‘spreadin around‘ money and $8 billion for one bridge seems a tad pricey. This bridge is not about traffic congestion or better transportation, this bridge is a gift to the Vancouver Port Authority so massive Panama Max. and Cape Max. colliers and tankers can navigate up the Fraser to […]

If Children Can do It, So Can We!

An interesting article about Hungary’s “Children’s Railway”. Light reading for the weekend. The Rail Line Operated By Children. By Mike MacEacheran, BBC 5 May 2017 With its shelves lined with worn textbooks and corridors plastered with drawings, noisy GyermekvasA?tas Otthon on the western outskirts of Budapest seems like any normal school before the bell rings. […]

The Second letter Sent To Surrey Council

April 18, 2017 The second letter sent by Malcolm Johnston to Surrey council and a possible solution for South of the Fraser transportation woes. Mayor and council; Two weeks ago I sent a letter to Mayor and Council about modern light rail and this letter is a follow up. Our urban transit planning is an […]

UK Developer Must Help pay for Rail Connection

The UK is reopening once abandoned rail lines to cope with congestion and increased population. A UK developer must pay A?13.2m (CAD $23.25m) towards the restoration of the Bere Alston Tavistock railway route before building 750 new homes. This works out to CAD $31,000 per home. When one looks at the massive developments happening in […]