Don’t Talk To Me About Fast Ferry’s! The SkyTrain Fiasco Is Far Worse!

Erfurt – Germany In Germany, the average cost to construct a new at-grade, 2-track (double) street tramway typically ranges from €10 million to €20 million per kilometer (CAD $16 million to $32 million) This includes the physical track installation, embedding in the road, overhead electrification, and basic stop infrastructure.  However, total project costs fluctuate heavily […]

How This Small City Built Light Rail For Cheap

The ION’s capital cost was about $818 million in 2017 (1.06 billion in 2026 dollars) for 19 km of greenfields construction or $43 million/km to build ($56 million/km in 2026 dollars), complete. Compare this with the Expo Line extension now costing over $400 million/km to build not including signalling, cars and much more.

Transit lessons unlearned

For four decades, the lessons building ‘rai’ transit has not been learned. Politicians in BC refuse the learn the lessons of others and continue to blunder on making the same higely expensive mistakes, over and over again. It is sheer negligence on the part of TransLink, the Mayor’s Council on Transit, the Premier’s Office, and […]

List of Cities, With Populations Under 100,000 Operating Trams Or Light Rail

Zwei often hears the tired old saw that “we don’t have the population for light rail or the alternative, light rail does not have the capacity to deal with traffic flows that SkyTrain can. The “Good Burghers” in Bath England are countering this debate by actually listing 40 cities that have populations of 100,000 (with […]

SkyTrain Really Isn’t A Regional Distance Based, Rapid Transit System

First published in 2022, this post remains extremity relevant today. Four years have gone by and the cost today of the Expo Line extension to Surrey is now estimated at $7 billion and that is just for the guideway, which the federal government is paying 40%of the cost. Zwei has been told privately that the […]

From September 2010 – The Groundbreaking Leewood Study – Updated

The Leewood Study – Costs Updated To 2026 RftV cost for a Vancouver to Rosedale regional railway $5.4 billion cheaper than the 16 km Expo Line extension to Langley. Re-posted and updated on Saturday, September 19, 2020 Re-released and update July 2, 2026 On September 20, 2010, Rail for the Valley unreleased the groundbreaking Leewood […]

TransLink’s Sinking Ship

Zwei has been wondering why all the rah-rah SkyTrain posts on You Tube and it seems the answer is, ridership is collapsing on this gold plated transit system. This is very bad news because falling ridership equates to reduced service and reduced service translates to fewer buses and higher fares. Then there is the now […]

Here We Go Again – the Massey Tunnel Replacement Saga – Please make It Stop!

The Massey tunnel is back in the news and the non stop fake news and alternate facts brigade are hard at it trying to rewrite history. MLA Ian Paton desperately continues trying to sell alternative facts and myth to the taxpayer and Delta Councillor a and mayoralty hopeful, Dylan Kruger, who has never met a […]

European Rail Boom Continues – Canada/BC Flounders

As Canada flounders, with BC in particular, with any sort of passenger rail revival, Europe is leading the way with the current passenger rail renaissance. HST, on the Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal route is being built more for politcal prestige, than anything else. If any government is truly interested in mitigating the effects of Global Warming […]

Lies, Damned Lies And The Broadway Subway

Translink, Metro Vancouver, and the provincial NDP, especially Minister of Transportation, Mike Farnsworth, are “flooding the zone”, with the Broadway subway, “nearing completion“, “on time and on budget“, “with change how people commute“, and the goody, “the line will be soon extended“. Why all the hype and hoopla? Like all big ticket items, politcans want […]