A Novice’s Guide To Transit…………..

ai??i??ai??i??ai??i?? or cutting through the BS about light rail, SkyTrain and BRT. The following is a guide plus definitions about ai???railai??? transit. ALM: Automatic Light metro, the fourthAi??marketing name given for the SkyTrain family of light-metros, when Lavalin briefly ownedAi??SkyTrain before going bankrupt. ALRT (1): Advanced Light Rail Transit, the secondAi??marketing name for SkyTrain. ALRT […]

TramTrain – It’s Time To Have Another Look At The Leewood Project

While local politicians squabble about expensive transit planning and gouging the taxpayer to pay for multi billion dollar transportation vanity projects, economic and user friendly TramTrain construction and operation continue to increase. Isn’t time for politicians have another look at the Leewood/Rail for the Valley Study?   Stadler selected to supply Szeged tram-trains 19 Apr […]

Are SkyTrain’s MK. 1 Cars Safe?

As the Scarborough ICTS cars and Vancouver’s MK.1 cars are the same, one would surmise there are corrosion problems with Vancouver’s cars, especially in Vancouver with airborne salt from the sea. Does the public have the confidence in TransLink to keep them safe? Scarborough RT vehicles need repairs to avoid ai???catastrophicai??i?? corrosion failures TTC asking […]

Tram-trains on test in Sheffield

TramTrain operation is expanding at a good pace in Europe, where the economy and customer friendliness of the mode is now established. Is it not time our politicians, planners and especially BC Transit and TransLink have a look at the mode? I find it disturbing that TransLink is so ready to foist an European road […]

More Highways On the Horizon

New highways always bring the so called experts into the fray. The problem is; we don’t have any, rather the region has a hodge podge of academics, planners and engineers calling themselves experts and the result is what is happening now. The real problem is this; the population is growing at a huge pace in […]

Freight Tram Rides Again

Dresden’s famous freight tram is back in service. One of the most under rated tram success stories is the Dresden freight tram, which conveyed car parts between two factories, using the cities tram network. It is easy to see why freight trams have not been talked about much in North America, because many North American […]

Transportation planning has become a bullshit field

Interesting article on Toronto’s transit scene which mirrors Vancouver’s. In Vancouver, decades of bad planning, based on up-zoning properties adjacent to SkyTrain Lines to obtain higher densities, which benefits the “condo kings” and land speculators more than transit customers has lead to a litany of unintended consequences. One of those unintended consequences has brought a […]

A DMU Service, Not Gondolas, Best Option to Link North Shore!

Gondolas are a niche transit system used for solving unique transit problems. While transit servicing SFU mayAi?? present niche transit problems, especially in winter, crossing Burrard inlet does not. The SFU gondola has been reported in this blog several times; in May 2011; in June 2011; and in October 2011.It is now six years later, […]

The Liberals Dangle A Very Stale Carrot

The BC Liberal election BS machine is now in full swing. The Liberals announced a “commuter rail working group” to confirm the viability of commuter rail for the Capitol Region. This begs the question: “Who has the capability and knowledge to come to an answer on commuter rail? What should be done, is what Rail […]

Rapid Transit to the North Shore – 4 to 6 Billion Reasons Not!

I see politicians are floating trialAi?? balloons about transit, before the upcoming election and from the North Shore it is extending rapid transit to North Vancouver and beyond. The cost to extend the Canada Line or the ALRT/ART Lines (both lines are incompatible in operation) to North Vancouver is around $4 billion to $6 billion, […]