More Port Mann Woes

When replacing a perfectly good bridge, with a mega billion dollar “vanity” bridge, common sense seems to have been thrown out with the bath water. We could have twinned the Port Mann Bridge and have enough money to build the proposed Leewood/RftV Richmond/Vancouver to Chilliwack TramTrain. We could have good transit and transportation in Metro […]

An Open Letter To The Minister of Transportation

To whom it may concern: Cutting ribbons is not the main function of the Minister of Transportation, but in BC it seems it is. Trying to justify the Premier’s (or should I say Fraser Surrey docks/SNC’s) $3.5 billion Massey Tunnel vanity bridge replacements is seemingly taking a lot of your time. I understand your many […]

What about the Patullo Bridge?

Both the Patullo and the Fraser River rail bridges have well past their “best by” dates and desperately are in need of replacement. In 1978, the GVRD were poised to install a three leg light rail system on the region and to cross the Fraser river a new bridge would have to be built. Demonstrating […]

Common Sense From Aus

Metro Vancouver is not alone with transit ills and this item from the Australian – Sydney Ferry Blog certainly fits with our transit woes. When it comes to transit and commonsense, TransLink’s planners and senior bureaucrats, as well as metro politicians, academics, the Ministry of Transportation and the Premier, seam to lack any at all, […]

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 […]