A Repost From November 2018 – Mayor McCallum Has Screwed The City of Surrey

After three years, the news about rapid transit goes from bad to worse. The Expo Line extension to Langley is now costing more than the revised cost of $3.95 billion and despite much false information that the line is fully funded, it is not. The claim that Prime minister Trudeau’s Liberal government will fully fund […]

A Repost From 2019 – Here We go Again……

 A repost from Wednesday, June 19, 2019. Some things have changes since this item was posted in 2019. Alstom now owns the proprietary Movia Automatic Light Metro system, when they finalized purchasing Bombardier’s rail division earlier in the year. The estimated cost for the Langley extension is now over $3.95 billion mark and heading north […]

TramTrain For 2022

A re-post from earlier this year. With the devastation caused by this years heat dome, wild fires, tornado, atmospheric rivers, flood and of course our modern day plague, Covid, the provincial government must rethink its plans to spend over $10 billion to build less than 22 km of the SkyTrain light metro network. $10 billion […]

First Hungarian TramTrain Service Begins

Good news, the opening of the first TramTrain service in Hungary. What is largely of interest is that the TramTrain route is mainly single track with passing loops, using hybrid vehicles, built by Stadler and can operate either by electricity and diesel.There is a lot of scope for TramTrain to operate in the Fraser Valley, […]

A Renewed Call For Judicial Inquiry on TransLink and the Mayor’s Council on Transit

November 22, 2022The Hon. David Eby, Q.C. Attorney General, The Province of BC.Dear Sir, A renewed call for a Judicial Inquiry on TransLink and the Mayor’s Council on Transit with the proposed SkyTrain Broadway subway and the SkyTrain extension in Surrey to Langley. I am writing to you on the above matter. The Broadway subway. […]

A Repost – McCallum’s $2.9 Billion Question – From 2018 – Updated To 2021

From October 20, 2018; well its November 2022 and the cost for The Expo Line extension to Langley has now surpassed $4 billion and Zwei’s prediction has come true. SkyTrain construction is not to be started until 2028, if ever and transit for the Fraser Valley has been set back not 20 years, but 40 […]

FROM THE LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT ASSOCIATION – TRAMS ARE SYMBOLS OF CITIES

From the LRTA, the modern tram, workhorse of today’s public transit systems in over 600 cities around the world, yet noticeably missing in Metro Vancouver. Indeed, the modern tram is absent in soulless Vancouver and it is time to change this. Let’s put some soul into Vancouver; let’s plan for trams! For the Fraser Valley […]

Entering The Land of Unicorns and Pixie Dust – TransLink’s Current P.R. Gamble

Well, the first surprise was that this news item came via the Alaska Highway News of all places. This tells me TransLink is spinning the story to everyone it can to give the good news to! The big problem that there is no money to fund these grand schemes and the post Covid economy may […]

Letters

Letters From the Langley Advance Times Dear Editor, For over 12 years, Rail for the Valley has been advocating the reinstatement of the Vancouver to Chilliwack interurban service and in doing so, are being advised by professionals and engineers who have a sound knowledge of public transit systems and transportation modes. The following are pertinent […]

Premier Horgan’s FastFerry Redux!

  Before reading on, please remember this figure of $1.3 billion, as it represents an updated (2021) cost for Rail for the Valley’s Leewood Study, offering a three trains per hour per direction from Vancouver to Chilliwack. Doing the Rail for the Valley blog for the past 12 years has been an interesting experience and […]