The Vultures are Circling: The Sad Story of the E&N.

The old E&N Railway is on lie-support, with only a glimmer of hope that the right thing will be done and establish a regional railway, serving Victoria, Courtney and Port Alberni and the many communities that the rail line runs through. Remember global warming and climate change? Remember the town of  Lytton being cremated? Remember […]

Broadway Subway Steamrolls Through Small Business – Politicians Do Not Care!

Zwei told ya so. The precedent set by the Canada Line Cambie St. cut and cover is coming to Broadway and that means “to hell with the small business”. The mayor and council knew this would happen; TransLink knew this would happen (and why TransLink hired a professional spin doctor as CEO) as they know […]

The E&N Business Case: Getting Cars Off The Road

Well, it is a start. The Business Case for the E&N has been released and the cost provided ($431 million) seems quite cheap, compared to the Expo and Millennium Line extensions, where the cost per km is over $400 million/km (over $500 million/km for the Broadway subway). What has proven to work elsewhere, will work […]

Expo Line Extension To Langley Bafflegab. Has The Cost Risen To $5 Billion?

The Daily Hive has become TransLink’s official mouthpiece and sadly the Daily Hive, knows very little about transit and even less about SkyTrain light metro. * It is my belief that this article, in part, is in response to this letter to the editor which appeared in the Langley Advance Times. The article below is […]

The Broadway suybway Will Sterilize Buisness – Redux

On the local TV last night, small businesses along the Broadway construction zone are seeing huge drop in sales and a big increase in debt, due to closure of sidewalks. Shades of the Canada Line debacle on Cambie 15 years ago! BC’s Transportation Minister Ian Flemming, trundled out the old tried and true comment from […]

The Caisse Du Depot Bails From REM East

Montreal’s politicians listen to the public far more about transit than Metro Vancouver’s politico’s. The public were growing very disenchanted having an elevated railway go through Montreal’s downtown and maybe would take such disenchantment to the next civic election. Well, the civic government has pulled the carpet from under the Caisse and in response, they […]

The $400 million Per Killometre SkyTrain To Newton – Really?

Zwei has a simple question: Where is the funding? With the cost of the Expo Line extension to Langley, exceeding the last estimate of $3.95 billion; the Broadway subway completion to UBC now exceeding $5 billion; and of course that pesky $3 billion rehab to the Expo and millennium Lines that TransLink refuses to acknowledge […]

It’s a GO, In Toronto – A Report From Toronto

  It’s officially a GO (sorry for the pun), all the EA’s are done, we have the company’s (2 Consortium’s) ready and the work thankfully, has already started. We are about to create what will be, electric regional railway service on the core part of the GO network (about 263 km worth of it. It […]

Reality Check: Has TransLink Again Mislead The Public?

It is hard to surprise ole Zwei these days, but the following has somewhat astounded me. Expo and Millennium Upgrade Program The Expo and Millennium Line are the region’s Rail Rapid Transit Lines that connect key locations across Metro Vancouver. The Expo Line opened in 1985 and was the region’s first rail rapid transit line. […]

A Tale of Three Letters

Malcolm Johnston, local transit advocate and long time thorn in the side of TransLink, is offering his views of the pre civic election hype regarding the oten announced Massey Tunnel replacement. The one issue that puzzles Zwei is the idea that a bridge will carry more traffic than a tunnel, if both have equal traffic […]