How a New Transit System Could Hobble Montreal, As It Hobbled Vancouver

Light-metro, the great philosopher’s stone for urban transportation in the 1970’s has turned out to be nothing more than a wet squib. BC’s provincial politicians have continually forced light-metro onto metro Vancouver, forcing bus riders by the tens of thousands to make transfers to pretend there is high ridership. Light-metro was so expensive that a […]

People Before Cars – A Lesson Unlearned In Metro Vancouver

This is what should be happening in Metro Vancouver, but it’s not. SkyTrain is elevated or put underground, to keep streets free for cars. The cycle lobby is giving precedence over transit customers. Cars remain the most viable transit mode in the region. Our regional, provincial, and federal politicians only invest in transit to reward […]

The Vancouver Sun Out Does Itself

Not high speed rail, but TramTrain is an affordable rail option in lightly populated regions. Vancouver’s mainstream newspapers have been famously ill informed on the subject of “rail”, whether be it, SkyTrain, light rail, or regular railways. I don’t even think there ever has been a honest story about light rail appearing in the Vancouver […]

The Hyperloop Scam

  As Barnum observed, there is a sucker born every minute. The Hyperloop is just another “better mousetrap scam” from the “anything is better than rail” crowd. Hyperloop is just a 21t century version of the atmospheric railway con-game and a game well played to relieve ‘true believers’ of cash, like any other scam. Very […]

Will This Be The End Of The Innovia Light-Metro?

Bombardier Inc. is in big trouble. The company lost Montreal’s tailor made tender for its REM light-metro project and continues to be late in delivering trams to Toronto and combined with a sundry of other problems has, made the Bombardier product a piranha. If Bombardier lays off a good number of its employees at its […]

A Year Later And TransLink Has Not Learned – Desmond Must Be Fired

A year ago, the Canada line went ka-put in a snow storm and thousands of customers were stranded North of the Fraser River and all TransLink can do is advise people to walk a snow bound rail bridge, in a snow storm to get to Richmond. This is unacceptable; in Europe this would have been […]

“It’s Kind Of Like Building A Subway Station On King For A Fraction Of The Cost.”

As Toronto’s Kings street streetcar reinvents itself as LRT, good things happen. But, as always with something new, people will complain, especially some restaurant owners who no longer can park their cars in front of their places of business. If public transit is to work, it must be given priority over other transportation modes and […]

Horgan’s Great Blunder, The Pattullo Bridge Affair – A Complete Lack of Foresight

Foresight:Ai??The ability to predict what will happen or be needed in the future. The announcement for the Pattullo Bridge replacement, by Premier Horgan, displayed a complete lack of foresight for transportation needs in Metro Vancouver. The key to improving regional mobility in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley is a new railway bridge crossing the […]

A Massive Conflict of Interest

Oh, what tangled webs we weave…….. The big news today is not the forthcoming announcement by the Premier and Minister of Transportation replacing the aged and decrepit Pattullo Bridge, with a new $1.6 billion bridge, rather it is revelation that so-called due diligence panels of handpicked experts who were hired to review TransLinkai??i??s business cases. […]

Metro Madness – Does TransLink Understand The Issue Of Subway Maintenance?

Subway maintenance costs are an issue that TransLink and the regional mayors have not even considered. As subways age, they cost a lot to maintain. The TTC has put the cost just to operate and maintain 5 km of subway, at $40 million annually and just gives a hint of maintenance costs to come for […]