RAIL FOR THE VALLEY – A Step Closer

Is common sense finally making its way with politicians in Victoria? Is the $4 billion price tag for the 16 km Expo Line extension to Langley (the Reelection Line) scaring the provincial treasury? Has BC’s explosive fire season, capped with record breaking temperatures, finally conveying the message that politcal prestige must take a back seat [...]

The Expo Line Extension to Langley: The Reelection Line!

Prime Minister Trudeau wants cool photo-ops for the federal election, coming sometime this summer and fall. The mayor of Surrey wants cool photo-ops for next years civic election in 2022. Premier John Horgan wants cool photo-ops for anything not involving  Covid and wildfires and for the provincial election in 2024. Politicians need a good back [...]

An Apples To Apples Comparison – A Tale of Two Cities

We all know about the $3.95 billion 18 km extension of the Expo line to Surrey with all the hype and hoopla of the SkyTrain Lobby is in full swing. Back in the Waterloo region of Ontario, $2.2 billion buys you 37 km of light rail! The comparison between Surrey and Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge, (the urban areas [...]

It Did Not Take Long Turning Paradise Into A Parking Lot

First question: Where is the almost $1 billion in funding needed to make the Expo Line extension to Langley a go? Second Question: Mr. Horgan and the Mayor’s Council on Transit, what taxes have to be increased to pay the estimated $1 billion in outstanding funding?   Now, the story in question. Not even a [...]

The Canadain Disease

Despite the churlish comments who oppose Zwei’s views on transit, claiming that I somehow invent issues and more, the following comment came via a chap I was corresponding with in Ontario and I just cannot help but agree. Canadian transportation is now so hideously politicized that I just don’t see how we can bring any [...]

Land Speculation and Land Development – The Real Reason For The Expo Line Expansion

It is a no-brainer why SkyTrain light-metro is being extended to Langley and it is the same for the Broadway subway, with a combined cost of $7 billion. Three guesses and the first two don’t count. It all about land speculation and land development. SkyTrain acts as a driver for municipal councils to relax zoning [...]

Langley Expo Line Extension Almost $1 Billion Over Budget!

You just got to love the NDP, as this hapless crew love budget breaking FastFerry style mega projects. Remember the FastFerries? The financial stench from that fiasco hung around the neck of the NDP as a fiscal Albatross for over twenty years and you would have thought that they would have learned…………..but no, they are [...]

Trudeau And Horgan Codemn Metro Vancouver And the Fraser Valley to Gridlock Hell

An election is coming and time to bribe the voters with their own money. So the the PM, needing cheap politcal points, helps our the premier with $1.3 billion announcement to fulfill his politcal promise made in the last election to Langley voters to extend the Expo line to their city. Whether this is new [...]

Bombardier’s Skeletons Draining Cash From Alstom

Zwei knew all would not be happiness with Alstom’s acquisition of Bombardier Inc. Lingering court cases, lawsuits and other criminal intrigue with the Yongin and Kuala Lumpor ART systems (that is SkyTrain in TransLink Speak) and other issues pertaining to the now called Movia Automatic Light Metro System (erroneously called SkyTrain), must be causing acute [...]

The Collapse of U.S. Public Transit?

Interesting article and well worth reading; not all is happiness in transit land. From Zwei’s almost 40 years advocating for better transit and more affordable transit planning in the region, it seems those in charge are afraid of change. The same thing is done over and over again, ever hoping for different results, because that [...]