Over to You Mr. Cow – The Vancouver Sun’s Recent “Puff” SkyTrain Story

This comment from Mr. Cow deserves a post of its own as there is so much information here, it deserves a wider audience. As Mr. Cow is a Canadian Transit Engineer, his comments are well worth reading. When SkyTrain ‘crapped-out’ in the Summer of 2014 there were no drivers or attendants to oversee the evacuation […]

More SkyTrain “Puff “Stories From the Vancouver Sun

The Vancouver Sun is famous for its ‘puff’” stories about SkyTrain but with each “puff” story comes little slips and new information. 870 employees seems a lot for a “driverless” system, which was sold to the public that it had fewer employees, thus cheaper to operate than light rail. Somewhat inconveniently, SkyTrain costs about 40% […]

Rail for the Valley – Where do we go from here?

It has been six years since the release of the Leewood Study,Ai?? yet to date most regional politicians do not even realize that it exists. Internationally, the Leewood Study is a winner, featured in two international transportation magazines, locally though the Leewood Study has been ignored or discredited by neanderthal thinking municipal politicians. There are […]

Montreal, Quebec – op-ed: death of Canadian light metro ??

An interesting read. Why would Quebec’s Caisse de dAi??pA?t et placement du QuAi??bec, invest in the obsolete SkyTrain? Could the real reason be to help Bombardier out of its aerospace financial embarrassment, by buying ART? At the current rate, the proposed 67 km Montreal ART light-metro system will cost well over $8 billion or more […]

Port Mann Fiasco

Gridlock is endemic in metro Vancouver. TransLink has become the “clown of transit planning” and now with with two very expensive vanity projects, the truncated Broadway SkyTrain subway and the Surrey LRT, which is being planned as a “poor man’s” SkyTrain, the clown is turning into a nightmare. TransLink has had good teachers. Now, all […]

The Desperate Hours – Basket Weaving Grade For TransLink

The only agency that can come close is assessing public transit systems in Canada is the Canadian urban Transit Association and they do a reasonable job at it. The preceding graph is from C.U.T.A. and shows that the cost per revenue passenger in Metro Vancouver is about one third higher than Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto. […]

The 1945 FRA Standards – Are they Obsolete?

The FRA standards for rail cars in the USA also sets the standards for railcars in Canada and a change in crash worthiness of new cars is big news as it would make the realization of TramTrain much easier. Is it not time to build ‘rail’ transit vehicles for the 21st century and not for […]

First CA?diz tram-train arrives – While the Fraser Valley waits for a train that never comes!

As Fraser Valley mayors twiddle their thumbs and do nothing but invent excuse after excuse for not wanting a passenger rail service in the Fraser Valley, new TramTrain operations continue to expand elsewhere. Our regional mayors are lost in a time capsule, wanting what will not work and ignoring what will. The transit customer, as […]

Now do you beleive Zwei!

Zwei has stated over and over again, one modern tram and tram driver is as efficient as six to eight buses and six to eight bus drivers and for every tram or bus operated one needs a minimum of four people to drive, maintain and manage them. As wages account for 70% or more of […]

For Whom The Toll Tolls

Not surprised at all about this as a similar issue arose in children sports. Last year my child’s sports team saw a dramatic drop in players, from what was about 50 to less than 15. The team manager, upon inquiries, soon found the answer. Because of the new toll on the Port Mann Bridge, was […]