News From Ottawa

Our friend Haveacow is working on the Ottawa LRT and has reported that the Belfast Maintenance and Storage Facility Yard is now officially energized. Here are a few more pictures of the East Segments that will soon be powered up. The OCS (Overhead Contact System) or the Catenary Wires are now onAi?? in the Belfast […]

SkyTrain doesn’t Breakdown – Well Almost Never

The aging SkyTrain seems to be having a rough time lately, but it is to be expected as most proprietary transit systems age badly. TransLink has a new word for its lexicon, “temporary” and lest us hope that the delays are not permanent. The problem with SkyTrain breaking down is that there is no alternative […]

New Highways & Bridges Will Not Reduce Congestion – It will Increse It!

Bigger and wider bridges and adding new lanes to existing highways will not reduce congestion, but do the opposite, increase it! Yet this is the BC’s governments big transportation plan. TransLink continues to plan for a “Toonerville Trolley” for Surrey, instead of building useful LRT that will serve transit customers andAi?? a $3 billion subway […]

Metro Mayors Bite The Bullet

Metro Mayors, with visions of federal cash dancingAi?? in their heads approved a draft transit plan part of their so called ten year plan. Like all other transit ten year or twenty year plans that have come and gone, this one was drafted, probably on orders of the premier who is afraid of any negative […]

“The problem with TransLink is that you can never believe what it says…………”

The problem with TransLink is that you can never believe what it says; TransLink never produces a report based on the same set of assumptions.” Former West Vancouver Clr. Victor Durman, Chair of the GVRD (now METRO) Finance Committee. Old habits die hard and with TransLink, old habits never die, they just hire a new […]

SkyTrain Embaresses Itself Again

Oops! Rush hour, the time that transit must work, but with SkyTrain it doesn’t matter as it craps out now all to regularly. Again, aging complicated automatic transit systems grow more unreliable, making transit less dependable, which in turn makes the car more desirable. Memo to CKNW: Tracking issues? Are they trying to hunt down […]

Is TransLink’s Real Problem Just Bad Management

No surprises here, where over 130,000 deep discounted U-Pass ‘cheap fare cards’ (unlimited travel for a $1 a day) issued to post secondary students comes into play. As rental costs soar past the unaffordable, post secondary students must either commute from home or commute from areas of cheaper rent. This means more students, taking more […]

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 […]

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 […]