TransLink’s PR Stunt & Factbender Follies

TransLink is going to review fares. Great, I thought, they are listening to the public, who hold the ossified bureaucracy in high odor, but it was too good to be true as the minister in charge of Transit, Mr. Factbender is rehashing an old idea, create a density tax for new high rise development. But […]

Roses in full bloom along Tokyo’s only tram line

How about roses blooming along the Arbutus corridor complete with trams? Roses are in full bloom along the only streetcar line in TOKYO, Japan’s capital city, according to “the-japan-news dot com” site:Ai?? <http://tinyurl.com/jp72uc4> Roses in full bloom along streetcar line May 22, 2016 The Yomiuri Shimbun Ai??Roses in full bloom at Machiya Station on the […]

Honolulu is Learning the Vancouver Lesson – Build Light-Metro At Your Financial Peril

Updated May 22, 2016 – Added CAD currency conversions. Bombardier and SNC Lavalin spent years grooming Honolulu City politicians to build with light-metro. For their efforts, Bombardier and SNC got pipped at the post by Ansaldo with their proprietary light-metro and and the now chagrined burghers of Honolulu are now finding out that proprietary light-metro […]

Why the car is winning the commuter war – Simple, it is called SkyTrain

The modern tram brings fast, reliable and user-friendly public transport to densely populated European Cities, like Amsterdam. The ability of the transit customer of having his/hers transit on the pavement and easily accessible, makes modern light-rail the first choice of transit planners around the world. Sadly, not so in Metro Vancouver. A bit of a […]

Is gridlock the real Expo 86 legacy for Metro Vancouver?

Charlie Smith of the Georgia Straight is the one reporter who has studied the transit issue and knows the issues. Despite the hype and hoopla, especially from provincial politicians (both Liberal, Socred & NDP) the SkyTrain Lobby, the many issues surrounding SkyTrain have been glossed over by the mainstream media. This is still evident today […]

Trolleybuses Tank in Leeds UK

New Transit projects in the UK go through a rather onerous process before approval and the Leeds trolleybus projects did not stand up to scrutiny. It would be fair to say that not one of the SkyTrain or mini-metro projects could have stood up against a truly independent review, which is too bad because by […]

Subways Age Badly

Old Zwei has touched this subject many times; Subways age badly and they cost a lot to keep in good condition. Renewal costs are not generally factored in with budget calculations and tend to be a nasty surprise for politicians who were not around when the subway first opened. Yet, despite this, subways are the […]

Another Vancouver Sun “PUFF” Story

In one of the greatest non stories from the pages of the Vancouver Sun, the announcement that the Evergreen ART cars will be operated on the ALRT/ART system as they arrive. Why wouldn’t they? Let us not forget the Evergreen Line is the unfinished portion of the NDP’s boondoggle, the Millennium Line. The entire story […]

One Last Gasp For SkyTrain In Quebec – Will The Liberals See Through The Ruse?

Though the Bombardier and SNC owned ART (SkyTrain, they hold the patents) proprietary railway is not mentioned, I would bet the farm that Bombardier and SNC are behind this to build an ART automatic railway. Bombardier’s home province is Quebec, yet Quebec has never built with the proprietary ICTS/ALRT/ALM/ART (SkyTrain in Vancouver, well not quite) […]

Evergreen Line Cost Overruns & Broadway Subway Censorship – Business As Usual At TransLink

Hats off to Bob Mackin, for his continued journalistic investigation of TransLink and SkyTrain. The cost overruns on the Evergreen Line were expected as TransLink’s Business Case for ART for the Evergreen Line was as phony asAi?? the proverbial $3.00 bill. Also, it is no surprise that TransLink is censoring its Broadway subway and Surrey […]