The MetroTown Express?

I have to ask, why an express bus to MetroTown? It is puzzling that TransLink would waste valuable money on an express bus to, transit wise, nowhere. It’s like the Broadway subway stopping at Arbutus and it just does not make sense. The 99-B “Rapid” (Express Bus) is successful because it largely serves UBC and […]

TransLink for Dummies – Updated

TransLink for Dummies ……….. or cutting through the BS about Local Transit. The following is a guide plus definitions. ALM: Automatic Light metro, the fourth marketing name given for the SkyTrain family of light-metros, when Lavalin briefly owned SkyTrain before going bankrupt. ALRT (1): Advanced Light Rail Transit, the second marketing name after ICTS for […]

Des Sain-Bel to Lyon TramTrain

The West Lyon tram-train is a French light rail network, whose ticketing is integrated into the TER Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes service, connecting the center of the metropolis of Lyon to the west of the city The service was partially inaugurated from Lyon-Saint-Paul to Sain-Bel on September 22 and from Tassin to Brignais including the Tassin shunt, Saturday, […]

TramTrain – Success Ignored

The birth of what we call TramTrain or a streetcar that can operate on the mainline railways, came about after much research and public consultation, to provide the the city of Karlsruhe and region with a ‘user-friendly’ public transit system. In the 1980’s cities with trams or streetcars were seeing a steady decline in patronage […]

Where Has The Ridership Gone?

TransLink- Metro Vancouver & BC Transit -Greater Victoria ridership 2025 According to statistics Canada TransLink ridership, in 2025 was 235.12 M journeys vs 2024 239.36 M journeys ( 3.1 % less ) Where has the ridership gone? We have now invested, including the current $16 billion, full program, to extend the Expo and millennium lines […]

The Realities of Subway Mania In Lotus Land: A Repost From 2020 – The Song Remains The Same!

First posted by zweisystem on Wednesday, March 4, 2020 This was posted almost six years ago and the realities of subway construction are today, hitting home. The Broadway Subway, the 5.7 km continuation of the the Millennium Line, first pegged to cost $2.7 billion and open in 2024, has now well passed the $3 billion […]

De-spinning The Spin – The Broadway Subway

First published on July 8, 2022 under the title “The $1.47 Billion Solution”, recent comments about the Broadway subway need clarifying. The following quote sums up the capacity issue for the Millennium Line (Broadway subway). When the programme is fully implemented, the Expo Line will be able to accommodate 17,500 passengers per hour per direction, […]

Failure

Failure noun 1. lack of success: “an economic policy that is doomed to failure” 2. the neglect or omission of expected or required action: “their failure to comply with the basic rules” A rather intense phone call has prompted me to post this. The caller irately stated: “SkyTrain is not proprietary” and “Vancouver has the […]

Karma

karma /ˈkɑːmə/ noun The following is from the LRPPro: Alstom has a problem on their hands with their Citadis Spirits LRV’s and they are not going to get into the LRT market in NA over it. They are no longer building the Flexity after TTC order and Kitchener will need 18 of the for the next […]

Slander

The continued debate about the trains that operate on the Expo and Millennium Lines continues. The SkyTrain for Surrey folks have crossed the line on this issue and Rail for the Valley call for a retraction of their recent News Release or face possible legal action. The claim that Rail for the Valley and others […]