Tales of Buffoonery – Rob FordA?ai??i??ai???s anti streetcar/light rail saga continues!

Mr. Ford's utter stupidity is breathtaking and the financial roller coaster ride he is taking the Toronto taxpayer on is beyond belief. This is the sort of simpleton anti tram, anti light rail planning which seems to be the rigour of right-wing politicians in North America and Europe – to hide their real agendas of increasing car use, […]

Flagship BRT Fizzles in the USA

Bus Rapid Transit or BRT is the transit flavour ‘du jour’ of BC politicians. Any mention of transit in the region ultimately leads to BRT, as if it was the grand panacea to solve our transit woes. The trouble is, our politicos have never read a book about public transit,Ai??let aloneAi??perused the chapter on buses. […]

Susan Heyes and the Canada Line fiasco – Justice denied!

The Canada Line was never about providing good public transitAi??for the region, rather the metro was all about political and corporate prestige. The Vancouver International Airport gang wanted a prestigious metro to connect YVR to downtown Vancouver, for corporate prestige because they thought that a metro would make YVR ‘world class’; the City of Vancouver […]

Now we know why SkyTrain is so expensive to operate.

The main story here is not the strike vote taken by Expo and Millennium Line workers, but the amount of workers that are needed to operate the SkyTrain mini-metro. According to the article, there are 530 CUPE members that work on the Expo and Millennium Lines, then add in senior non-union managerial staff, transit police and […]

Porkies from TransLink!

In the UK, London's Cockney's (the East End crowd) have long had an interesting rhyming slang tradition – examples: jam jar is a car; dicky dirt a shirt and so on. Well, a pork pie or porkie is – well you guessed it. The following letter from Ken Hardie, to the Delta Optimist, is full of "Porkies" […]

A note from Zweisystem and Modern Track laying

 Just to let everyone know, Zweisystem is on the road to recovery after a serious illness. Many thanks to Cardinal Fang for his timely and interesting posts. The following is an interesting link to a video showing modern track laying and replacing technique – click and play. http://dc132.file.qip.ru/flash/player.swf?file=http://dc132.file.qip.ru/img/135218468/cfbba8b3/dlink__2Fdownload_2Fx3UWWolQ_3Ftsid_3D20100723-132526f1240c3b/preview.flv&image=http://dc132.file.qip.ru/img/135218468/cfbba8b3/aefc0a75_kak_kladut_relsi.flv&logo.link=http://file.qip.ru/video/x3UWWolQ/aefc0a75_kak_kladut_relsi.html&logo.hide=false&logo.file=http://dc132.file.qip.ru/images/logo.png&logo.position=top-left&plugins=sharing&sharing.link=http://file.qip.ru/video/x3UWWolQ/aefc0a75_kak_kladut_relsi.html&sharing.code=%3cINCREDI_EMBED+src=

Delta Politicians Mull Leaving TransLink

As predicted, the South Fraser municipality of Delta is mulling over the proposal to leave TransLink. Delta is the first, but if TransLink doesn't change its current very expensive metro only policy, then providing second rate transit services for customers, then more South Fraser municipalities will contemplate leaving. If TransLink stopped being devious and actually told […]

The Light Rail Committee Sends a Message

The Light Rail Committee sent the following letter to all municipal governments in the lower mainland, to inform municipal politicians about upcoming transit funding discussions by the mayors council, with Transportation Minister Shirley Bond for the Evergreen Line. One wishes that Mayor Walton tell Minister Bond to "take a powder", and "if the provincial government wants more […]

Last Weeks Snowfall Stalls The Canada Line Again!

Not reported in the mainstream media is that a Canada Line Train stalled again during last weeks snow storm! The timed out explanation, given by officials doesn't make sense, as we have a near new metro systems, operating on a totally segregated rights-of-way – what could possibly go wrong? I'm sorry, but there seems to […]

Canada Line workers take a strike vote – Is The Driverless Myth About To Be Exposed? (Updated)

Well, well, well, the 180 control room workers, maintenance personnel and attendants for the Canada Line are taking a strike vote and TransLink is very worried. Since the SkyTrain light-metro was built over 30 years ago, the mainstream media and politicians sang in chorus that automatic metros were good because they did not need drivers and […]