“Lightness” of light rail

TransLink, BC Transit, SNC Lavalin, UBC, SFU, and a host of North American Engineering firms, please take note! ThisAi??”lightness” of light rail – a combination of flexibility, low impact,Ai??modest cost, and environmental softness – is ephemeral. It mustAi??be carefullyAi??guarded. Ignorance orAi??ineptitude during the planning, design, specification writing, engineering, orAi??construction phases of a project can lose […]

Eric Chris’s Broadside At TransLink

Transit advovate, Eric Chris, again tackles TransLink on various trolleybus related issues in the City of Vancouver. Electric buses are quiet, pollution freeAi??and able to tackle steeper grades than diesel buses, are used on many Vancouver transit routes. Haydn Acheson, President and General Manager, Coast Mountain Bus Company:   Coast Mountain Bus Company (CMBC) under […]

City ordered to address railway-crossing safety

It seems the City of Abbotsford can’t deal with a simple rail crossing in the city and is hiring flaggers at a cost of $500 a day to control the railway crossing. This is something reminiscent of 1820’s England where a man on a horse waving a red flag had to precede early trains. My […]

Adios South Fraser Rapidbus

One has to laugh at the mind games being played by TransLink. First, they call express bus service Rapidbus, then theAi??so called rapid bus isn’t so rapid as one would think as South Fraser transit users will be dumped onto the Skytrain Line, reminiscent of South Delta and South Surrey express bus passengers are dumped […]

Karlsruhe – More fuel on the fire

A few weeks back, Zwei created a firestorm of denial by the anti-tram crowd, when I reported that the main tram route in the city was being replaced by a subway; “because of the success of Karlsruhe’sAi??regional tramtrain service, the main tram route through the city was seeing 45 second headways“. All Zwei did was […]

A recent spike: Canadaai??i??s abandoned railway lines given second life by search for cheaper transport

An interesting article from the National Post. Of course, Rail for the Valley has been advocating for this for the past four years! A recent spike: Canadaai??i??s abandoned railway lines given second life by search for cheaper transport Tristin Hopper Apr 27, 2012 One hundred and 26 years after Sir John A. Macdonald drove its […]

Eric Chris on Bi-Articulated Buses For The 99-B

A bi-articulated bus or double-articulated bus is a higher-capacity type of articulated bus. It is an extension of a conventional or single-articulated bus, in that it has three passenger compartment sections instead of two. This also involves the addition of an extra axle and a second articulation joint. Due to the extended length, bi-articulated buses […]

TransLink eliminates planning VP – The Sacrificial Lamb

It seems that transit planning is/was not aAi??TransLink forte, in fact the move to remove the VP of Planning certainly indicates that the Premier’s office is in full control of Metro Vancouver transportation planning and no encumbrances from the TransLink bureaucracy is needed.Ai??TransLink’s VP of planning has been determined to be the sacrificial lamb with […]

Where’s The Density? Oh, I Guess Density Is Not An Issue With TramTrain.

Ever wanted to see what the Rail for the Valley/Leewood tramtram ride would be like, well the following video from U-Tube gives the feel of what a Vancouver to Chilliwack servcie would be like. The following is a cab-eye view of a German regional railway, not unlike the former BC Electric line from Vancouver to […]

Montpellier opens new lines – A lesson unlearned for TransLink!

What is very interesting about this news item from the Light Rail Transit Associations web siteAi??( www.lrta.org ) is that the cost for Montpellier’s two new light rail/tram lines 3 & 4 (28.2 km) is about CAD $688.8 million or about $24.45 million/km. to build! The cost of Montpellier’s two new tram lines are less […]