Ottawa’s LRT Is Opening

Ottawa’s LRT is Opening. The term choo-choo, used by ill informed opponents of light rail is standard across the country but really has no basis as LRT remains one of the most effective way to move people. The problem in North America is that our universities are still mired in the 1950’s and all subjects […]

Caen Opens Its New 16km, $373 Million Tram/LRT System

The new 16.2 km tramway in Caen, France has opened after a nineteen month build. Granted the new tramway has used the the previous trouble prone, 15.7 km,  TVR rubber tire guided bus line, which opened in 20o2 and abandoned in 2017. The Euro €260 million (CAD $373 million) tramway opened six weeks earlier than […]

Streets Paved With Gold – Transit Planning is Driven By Politics

Footnotes: The author,  Adrienne Tanner,  was city editor at the Sun, a newspaper that prevented any real reporting of our regional transit issues and took orders from back east to report “SkyTrain” in a positive light. As well, there was little investigative reporting on SNC-Lavalin’s B.C. operations. Detroit’s ALRT system officially called a People Mover […]

Holiday Post – The Modern Tram

Here are some pictures of trams in operation around the world.          

Less Transit For More Money – The Canadain Way

Here we go again. The combined naivete of regional mayors about regional transportation and the abandonment of their fiduciary duty protecting the taxpayer from ill advised “prestige projects” such as the Broadway subway and the Expo Line extension in Surrey, is just simply breathtaking! * Both the ill conceived Broadway subway and the now equally […]

Quebec City’s $3.3 Billion Transit Plan – 23 km of LRT, 16 km Of Real BRT & More!

An interesting comparison can be made with the just approved Quebec City light rail and BRT projects and Metro Vancouver’s Mayor’s Council/TransLink project, extending the light-metro system. In Quebec City, $3.3 billion will buy you 3.5 km of tunnel, 23 km of LRT, 2 lines totaling 15 km of electric powered BRT, 16 km of […]

Calgary LRT Angst

The anti LRT schlock continues from the mainstream media. The BRT/LRT debate has been long over, but not in Canada it seems, where disgruntled bus-boy types whine that buses are cheaper. Well no, not really. The problem is that about $2 billion of the estimated $4.9 billion cost is a 4.2 km subway under the […]

The Canada Line – Mediocrity Is Deemed Successful In Metro Vancouver

In one of the most biased reporting yet by the media yet, the Canada line is deemed a success. Really? The $2.4 billion plus projects paved the way for Vancouver to get rather ineffectual regional and provincial politicians to sign blank cheques for subways in Vancouver; paid for of course, by higher gas property taxes. […]

No, It Does Not Make Sense

It is as I predicted, the people in the Fraser Valley are awakening to the realities of TransLink, poor transit and high taxes. Politicians have such poor memories of the 2015 plebiscite. For too long TransLink has done what the City of Vancouver’s wants, continuing the city’s perverse desire to have a gold plated, Edsel […]

Vancouver Will Need To Adopt Lower-Cost LRT In Its Lesser Corridors

But, eventually, Vancouver will need to adopt lower-cost LRT in its lesser corridors, or else limit the extent of its rail system. And that seems to make some TransLink people very nervous. Gerald Fox, 2008.   Here is the big crunch which TransLink seems deathly afraid of, do they continue with the now obsolete and […]