Oh Please. Once Again The Vancouver Sun Again Shills For SkyTrain

Really! The Vancouver sun continues to unashamedly shill for the SkyTrain mini-metro system. I know this is tiresome, in fact downright boring, but the folks at the Sun should know better than take TransLink Press Releases as fact. The old arguments, the apples to oranges comparisons, is none other than editorial BS, from a newspaper […]

The Small Minded Anti LRT Conspiracy

A certain Randall O’Toole, a conspicuous member of the Cato Institute hates LRT and streetcars. A favourite of the roads lobby he is also the darling of the United States rising Libertarian and Tea Party. Much of what O’Toole writes about come from the theory that public anything is bad and individualism reigns. The problem […]

SkyTrain Whitewash Continues

TransLink can’t help it. It is inbred in them. Honesty is just not in their lexicon. They hire a SkyTrain type, at $1,200 a day to do a review of the two recent embarrassing shutdowns. It is like the police investigating itself. What should be a truly independent review, will be another SkyTrain “whitewash”, with […]

TransLinkai??i??s seven ai???deadly sinsai??i??

The reverberations of TransLink’s double SkyTrain fiasco continues to echo in Metro Vancouver. I think transit customers can understand system wide shutdowns, but when the captain and crew leave the passengers to fend for themselves, then very pointed questions will be asked. Jordan Bateman has become a serious thorn in the side of regional bureaucrats, […]

SkyTrain Fizzles Again! Passengers Abandon SkyTrain Like Rats leaving a Sinking Ship!

Oops, SkyTrain fizzles again with scores of passengers abandoning the Skytrain and walking down the tracks to escape the damned thing. It certainly looks like transit customers are completely fed up with SkyTrain and TransLink wants to build more? ‘Computer glitch’ shuts down SkyTrain again; some passengers walking on tracks to stations July 21, 2014 […]

Remembering Edson L. Tennyson, icon of rail public transport advocacy and development

Zwei belongs to the LRPPro blog and soon began to know that a one Ed Tennyson was someone to listen to as he was a walking encyclopedia of transit knowledge. Probably no one in Metro Vancouver has ever heard of Mr. Tennyson, but his influence has certainly been felt in Canada. In the short time […]

Send in the clowns – Urban Land Instituteai??i??s Governorai??i??s Advisory Panel

Really, one tires of this nonsense that Broadway needs a subway. If the truth were to be told, the Vancouver city fathers want a subway under Broadway because they feel it would make Vancouver a “world class city” and the current political party in power want to reward its developer friends with windfall profits up-zoning […]

In Search of the Light Rail Renaissance

A little history. On April 22, 1978, the city of Edmonton heraldedAi?? a new era of what we now call light rail transit, with the opening of its first 6.9 km, LRT line. Using the now venerable Siemens U-2 vehicle, which was designed for the Frankfurt U-Bahn metro system. Edmonton’s new LRT line set the […]

Trams save operating costs!

Confirming what Zwei has been saying for the past few decades, on modern streetcar or tram is as efficient as four to six buses. The key statement from TTC Chair Councillor Maria Augimeri; “………for every streetcar removed from the downtown core, they would have to be replaced with 3-5 buses.”, confirms what Zwei has been […]

Taking public transit kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

Though Zwei is not a fan of Jarrett Walker, our Ottawa friend, Haveacow, recommended this post from his blog. http://www.humantransit.org/2014/07/california-topples-a-tyrant.html It seems that transit improvements, especially light rail, have been hamstrung by ensuring that traffic flows are not reduced, which is the cornerstone of the light rail Renaissance, emanating from Europe. http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/07/transit-projects-are-about-to-get-much-much-easier-in-california/374049/ So, our American […]