TransLink names Kevin Desmond new CEO

Is this just changing the chairs on the Titanic, or will Mr. Desmond actually achieve? I am not holding my breathe, as a far better former CEO, Tom Prendergast soon understood the root cause of TransLink’s ills and was promptly sent to Coventry by senior bureaucrats. The result, he left TransLink. Building subways and ill […]

Subway Blunders in Europe ai??i?? Can “Old Dog” TransLink Learn From Otherai??i??s Mistakes?

Subway Blunders in Europe ai??i?? Can TransLink Learn From Other’s Mistakes? From a September 2012 post. Unfortunately, many of the links no longer work and have been omitted for brevity. Herr Keller is a German transit specialist from Germany and gives wonderful insight to the pitfalls of building new subways for the sake of building […]

Perils of a Proprietary Transit System

Bombardier Inc. loves proprietary transit systems, because of the “gotcha” factor. Once a transportation authority purchases a proprietary transit system, they are stuck with one manufacturer and if problems arise, too bad. This is what happened in Caen, where in 2002, the city’s transportation authority purchased the proprietary Guide Light Transit guided bus system or […]

Professor Condon on CBC Radio

  A BCIT to UBC surface light rail line would reduce traffic congestion, while at the same time allow cars to access merchants along Broadway UBC Planning Professor Patrick Condon was on CBC Radio on Jan. 29, echoing the growing concern about the proposed Broadway SkyTrain subway sucking away federal monies from other local transit […]

The White Elephant Line

A white elephant is a possession which its owner cannot dispose of and whose cost, particularly that of maintenance, is out of proportion to its usefulness. To recap, the Canada Line is not a true P-3, rather a mock P-3, where SNC Lavalin/Bombardier, bid against, SNC Lavalin/ROTEM. Judge Pittfield who resided over the failed Susan […]

Professor Patrick Condon: Dear PM: Don’t Waste Billions on Bad Transit Projects

I see the good professor is taking the same track a Zwei, with my earlier letter to the PM. Expensive vanity projects like the Broadway subway drive up transit costs, yet provide negligible transit improvements. The only benefit a Broadway subway will bring is excessive profits to land speculators and developers, who are now assembling […]

Good News Everyone – Valley Rail One Legal Step Closer

The following is from our friend Mr. Haveacow, from Ottawa, who is a transportation engineer. Zwei has always stressed that for modern LRTAi?? and TramTrain to operate in BC, the legalities of both must be dealt with. For trams and LRT, the rules of the the road must be addressed, such as who has the […]

Parting Shots From Former TransLink CEO Doug Allen

Really? Sorry Doug, your diatribe has fallen on deaf ears. If TransLink really cared about the customer, like other transit agencies do, TransLink would not be held in such high odor by the taxpayer. TransLink has had over a decade to improve service, but no, all you guys did was to blindly bleat on and […]

Broadways Subway – A Boondoggle In The Making

Subways are very expensive items and only built when there is no other alternative available. SkyTrain ICTS/ALRT/ART, was supposed to mitigate the high cost of subway construction, but it didn’t as it proved to almost as expensive as a heavy-rail metro to build, with the capacity of modern light-rail. The result: No one builds with […]

Broadway Subway Reality Check – Toronto’s 8.6 km Spadina Line Subway Now $3.2 Billion!

For those of you who have been pooh-poohing, Zwei’s cost estimate for the Broadway subway, the following news item from Toronto should send a not too subtle message that subways are very expensive to build and are only built when there is the massive traffic flows that demand long trains and large stations to accommodate […]