Calgary, Alberta: Green Line LRT tunnel option approved in principle by Calgary city council

Everyone wants tunnels and subways. Victorian railway companies in the UK, bankrupted themselves with needless and over engineered tunnels because they were in vogue. Calgary’s LRT was designed more as a light metro than light rail, but that still did not stop transit planners from putting the C-Train mostly at grade, with on-street operation in […]

A Tale of Two Cities – The Utsunomiya LRT Versus The Shambles in Surrey

This article should give a good indication of the cost of modern light rail being built today. The proposed Utsunomiya LRT, is of course narrow gaugeAi?? and will have somewhat narrower trams, with a reduced capacity than LRT built inAi?? Canada, but it is the cost of construction which is important. The 14.6 km., 19 […]

Subways – Red Flags in Ontario – Should The Same Be Happening Here?

It now seems Ontario’s big subway plans are costing more, a lot more to build than what was first proposed as exampled by the Toronto York Spadina Subway Extension, whose cost soared over from $1.5 billion to $3.2 billion! TransLink is blithely planning away for both a hugely expensive SkyTrain subway under Broadway and an […]

Horgan Doesn’t Get It

John Horgan and the NDP just do not get it and they never will and by only consulting with the party faithful, all they have is a self-serving transit and transportation policy that is both unaffordable but unworkable. TransLink does not have an income problem, they have a spending problem; the spend far too much […]

What about the Patullo Bridge? Updated

In light of today’s news that the Pattullo Bridge not only will collapse in a seismic event, it may topple in a wind storm. Pattullo Bridge vulnerable during seismic or ai???high-windai??i?? events: Report Zwei believes the old child’s song should be updated to: Pattullo bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down Pattullo Bridge is […]

SkyTrain doesn’t Breakdown – Well Almost Never

The aging SkyTrain seems to be having a rough time lately, but it is to be expected as most proprietary transit systems age badly. TransLink has a new word for its lexicon, “temporary” and lest us hope that the delays are not permanent. The problem with SkyTrain breaking down is that there is no alternative […]

Is TransLink’s Real Problem Just Bad Management

No surprises here, where over 130,000 deep discounted U-Pass ‘cheap fare cards’ (unlimited travel for a $1 a day) issued to post secondary students comes into play. As rental costs soar past the unaffordable, post secondary students must either commute from home or commute from areas of cheaper rent. This means more students, taking more […]

An Open Letter To The NDP & Leader John Horgan

To the Leader of the Official Opposition, John Horgan, Dear Sir; As the NDP have been extremely weak with urban and metro transportation policies in the past two elections, may I offer a suggestion that the NDP take another look at the Rail for the Valley TramTrain plan, providing a TramTrain service from Vancouver to […]

Over to You Mr. Cow – The Vancouver Sun’s Recent “Puff” SkyTrain Story

This comment from Mr. Cow deserves a post of its own as there is so much information here, it deserves a wider audience. As Mr. Cow is a Canadian Transit Engineer, his comments are well worth reading. When SkyTrain ‘crapped-out’ in the Summer of 2014 there were no drivers or attendants to oversee the evacuation […]

Rail for the Valley – Where do we go from here?

It has been six years since the release of the Leewood Study,Ai?? yet to date most regional politicians do not even realize that it exists. Internationally, the Leewood Study is a winner, featured in two international transportation magazines, locally though the Leewood Study has been ignored or discredited by neanderthal thinking municipal politicians. There are […]