Is TGV Coming To The North Shore?

Yesterday’s NDP pre election telly-op on local television stations of the standard TransLink fare of having five options for rapid transit to the North Shore showed some very strange animations. Instead of animations of SkyTrain trundling through tunnels, it showed TGV style trains instead. One wonders if the NDP are going to have surprise announcement […]

An Election Is Coming. The NDP Follows The Old Script.

As with all Metro Vancouver transit projects, they are good for three or four election cycles. The NDP are just using their tired playbook from the 90’s, nothing more and, shock and disbelief, Parliamentary Secretary for TransLink, Browinn Ma is the do nothing MLA for North Vancouver Lonsdale. Need I say more. “Our government is […]

How Much Will The SFU Aerial Tramway Cost To Operate?

Cutting through TransLink’s hype and hoopla about the proposed aerial tramway to Simon Fraser University and despite their sham public input process, they remain mute on operating costs. This is a Trojan Horse, because the annual subsidies need to operate it must come from other regions in TransLink’s vast empire, notably the South Fraser. The […]

Another Gadgetbahnen Bites The Dust.

Nothing new here. Monorails are proprietary railways and suffer the same ills that come with proprietary transit systems. They are expensive to operate and maintain. Spare parts tend to be expensive and hard to get, especially when the manufacturer ceases production. With the proprietary Movia Automatic Light Metro, TransLink and Metro Vancouver will soon have […]

From 2015 – The Broadway Subway, No Value For Money

The NDP have now blundered in approving the Broadway subway and photo-ops by Premier Horgan attributed what LRT is very good at and light-metro which is not very good at. Wrong script, wrong mode. LRT has a proven record of modal shift, attracting motorists from the car. SkyTrain has no such record. LRT has a […]

Of Pressers, Photo-ops and Gadgetbahnen

Premier Horgan doesn’t get it. The NDP don’t get it. The Liberals don’t get it. The metro mayors don’t get it. We are governed by a ship of fools. What we are getting is a $3 billion subway, which will operate a capacity limited proprietary railway, which will drive up TransLink’s operating costs and will […]

An Ongoing Charade

Gordon Campbell is gone, due to his less than honest performance with the combined GST/PST, which cost him the Premiership. The public had enough and wanted him gone. But, Gordon Campbell echoed then and what still echoes today with the Mayor’s Council on Transit, TransLink and in Victoria, that somehow SkyTrain is superior to light […]

From September 15, 2010 – A Decade later, Nothing Has Changed

What I find amusing is that  policy on regional transit has not changed as politicians do the same thing over and over again, ever expecting different results. It’s easy and they just don’t have to waste time dithering over details and anyways; “the taxpayer has deep pockets and will ante up to pay for our […]

STOP PRESS – Another Transit Study For The Fraser Valley. In Time For The Next Election?

Zwei is going to reserve comment, except for the fact that Rail for the Valley’s  Leewood Study, lays the groundwork for a viable regional rail service for the Fraser Valley. The Leewood Study, please click here. Transportation planning study launches in Fraser Valley   As part of BC’s Restart Plan, the Province is examining a […]

Flexibility

Flexibility: Susceptible of modification or adaptation; adaptable. Dresden’s successful freight tram, carried car parts from one factory to another in the city. Modern light rail is very flexible; it can operate as a tram, operating on-street; it can operate as a light-railway, operating on a dedicated rights-of-way; it can operate as a light-metro, on viaduct […]