Another letter the media ignores

Another letter from a friend of Rail for the Valley,Ai??which the mainstream media wish to ignore. HereAi??is the problem with our current financial transit debacle, very few, if any in the region understandsAi??what SkyTrain is and why the Vancouver region has it. Most politicos just repeat TransLink’s bumf ad nauseoum! SkyTrain, both the Expo and […]

Death, taxes and TransLink

We all want better transit options, but are we willing to pay for them? Well our rather confused regional mayors think so. The root of TransLink's financial woes has been the SkyTrain proprietary mini-metro system and its clone, the Canada Line. Skytrain costs about four to five times more to build than LRT and about fifteen times more […]

News Release from RftV

Media Release For immediate release Evergreen Line gas tax, vehicle levy – reaction from Rail For the Valley Rail For the Valley demands the Provincial Government get started on building South of Fraser Light Rail, now that residents are being asked to pay more in vehicle and gas taxes. Dr. John Buker, spokesman for the […]

Will They Or Won’t They – The (N)Evergreen Line Debate and The 40,000 Person Question

 Like a good soap opera, the Evergreen Line debate goes on.   Again, a BC premier has appointed a Minister of Transportation who hasn't an inkling about modern public transportation, metro, and light rail, with the obvious reason of being held to the mercy of his bureaucrats.   There is more BS about SkyTrain and […]

News Flash – SkyTrain down again

Here we go again. SkyTrain, as with all other automatic metros, has an Achilles heel – they stop working and more frequently as the metro ages. This is not a problem for light rail, as it is designed to operate when there are minor glitches. But there is another problem with TransLink and its SkyTrain "transit backbone" […]

Copenhagen to get light-rail network by 2020: transport ministry

LRT in Copenhagen One welcomes the announcement that Copenhagen will have its first tram/LRT line built by 2020.  In several transit oriented blogs, much has been made that the Danish capital, Copenhagen, opted to have a driverless metro, instead of light rail. Automatic metro is the way of the future, was the clarion call by many […]

By coincidence

Strange thing that, on the same day the RftV blog exposed certain connections with the TransLink board and Simon Fraser University, the TransLink Board pulled the plug of the Univercity cheap transit passes. One wonders if the same treatment will happen to the SFU aerial tramway as well? TransLink pulls plug on UniverCity cut-rate pass […]

The Nevergreen Line saga continues

Mayor Trasolini adds his two cents worth in the Evergreen line debate. Nowhere in the letter does he admit that SkyTrain is just too expensive to build and/or that the SkyTrain light-metro system is a dated transit mode, made obsolete by much cheaper and just as effective light rail. Until regional and provincial politicians actually […]

Cutting edge to the cutter’s torch.

What happens to old transportation technology? It becomes less valuable than scrap! The Birmingham airport MAGLEV was cutting edge transportation technology in 1984 (two years before the SkyTrain Expo Line opened) but by 1995 was scrapped as obsolete. This is reminiscent of another cutting edge transportation technology more than a century ago, the atmospheric railway. […]

Metro mayors pitch ideas to keep Evergreen Line from going off the rails

Looks like the regional mayors are trying to save face with the delay in building the Evergreen Line. How about just saying no. Regional mayors should tell the Minister of Transportation and TransLink this: "If your government compels TransLink to plan and build with the proprietary SkyTrain light-metro system, then your government should pay the […]