Mayor Kennedy Stewart Enters The Silly Season With Gusto!

Back of an envelope Dept. Civic election time in the Lower mainland is often called the “silly season”, by pundits because of the “silly” promises made by politicians. Present Mayor Kennedy Stewart has promised to build a SkyTrain loop in central Vancouver, Really? What will be the cost of this SkyTrain subway loop Mr. Mayor? […]

Cement and Carbon – The Pollution Vancouver’s Greens Politely Ignore

Vancouver council prides itself on being Green. Vancouver Council, especially the Green members and the pretend Green mayor want a subway. Their problem is, a subway consumes a lot of cement, which in turn creates a lot of pollution in the form of CO2 emissions. Here we have a conundrum, in order to continue the […]

Driverless Trains

Old Zwei has told you so, operating driverless trains is very expensive. In December 2019, it was reveled that the SkyTrain Light metro system (Expo and millennium Lines, had over 900 employees. That is over 900 workers for just two rail lines. The Canada line, being a P-3, has it own employees and the number […]

When Politicans Play Trains

It is the sad, same old story, when politicians play trains with multi billion dollar transit projects, things go south all too quickly. In 2018, then mayoralty candidate, Doug McCallum claimed he was an expert and he could build the Expo Line extension for $1.63 billion. Fast forward to 2022 and the cost for the […]

The Expo Line Land Rush

Like the Millennium Line extension to Arbutus more commonly known as the Broadway subway, the main reason for extending the SkyTrain light metro system is to give politcal friends and insiders, mainly land speculators and land developers the ability of make large profits by assembling land, having council up-zone the land to allow for higher […]

Rural Railways- Time to Invest.

Recommendations to save Japan’s rural railways issued 28 July 2022 JAPAN: A study group formed by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport & Tourism has published its report into whether and to what extent rural railways across the country can be revived. From the Railway Gazette. The following was sent to the usual suspects.   Around […]

Political Documents Masquerading As Technical Documents

In BC, Business Cases are a dime a dozen and are merely politcal documents masquerading as technical ones. It is photo-op silly season and with premier Horgan desperately trying to find a legacy project, the Expo Line extension to Langley is his current baby. NDP leadership hopefuls where also there vying for their 10 second […]

When Politicians Think They Know Better – Watch Out!

When a new transit line is built, months of testing must take place before commissioning the line for public service. This did not happen in Ottawa. Many people do not realize that the Ottawa LRT operation is automatic, just like Vancouver’s light metro system and the new line suffers the same ills that plague Automatic […]

TransLink Does Something Right – Who Knew!

Zwei has been long advocating for bus services dedicated to cyclists on important routes and the new 900 bus from Bridgeport Station to the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal, via the Ladner Loop, certainly fits the bill. Well done! TransLink launches new summer bike bus in Tsawwassen The Bike Bus will follow the existing 620 route, with […]

Australia’s Gold Coast Tram

As the Horgan government seems to be on snooze control, transit issues, except for the E&N (more on that in a future post) which continues to rot away, a look at Australia’s Gold Coast tram is in order. A modern tramway that defies the current dated thinking in BC and metro Vancouver. Stage 1 In […]