More transit, more traffic problems, says think tank. But is that really the problem?

Interesting study out of the USA, but unfortunately wrong conclusions will be made, especially by the roads lobby. As for buses not attracting new customers, well duh, that little gem has been known for at least 30 years and if this were not so, we would not have been building new light rail lines in the […]

Added costs for the Canada Line – Has The Taxpayer Assumed Risk?

It seems that TransLink’s costs are rising but what peaked Zweisysytem’s interest is that there has been a cost escalation of the Canada Line contract – what cost escalation? Isn’t the Canada Line supposed to be a P-3 project and that SNC Lavalin and not the taxpayerAi??assumed risk? Now we know all the hype and […]

More Porkies – The Port Mann Bridge

It has been said that a picture is worth a thousands words……………………….. ……………..but this picture of a cross section of the new ten lane Port Mann Bridge says it all – there is no rail transit being planned for the bridge! Even Zweisystem, with his rudimentary knowledge of engineering knows if that a bridge is […]

Staffing on light rail systems

From a previous post http://www.railforthevalley.com/latest-news/zweisystem/now-we-know-why-skytrain-is-so-expensive-to-operate/ we find that there are 600 or more employees (530 in the CUPE Union) that work on the SkyTrain Expo and Millennium Lines. The Canada Line is a conventional metro and employs over 200 people (with 180 in the CUPE union) and both metro systems are quite separate. The Canada Line, a […]

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=