A Letter To South Fraser Mayors And Councils

A letter sent this week to South Fraser mayors and councils and to the media. One wonders how TransLink and its surrogates will respond? Zwei The following email was sent out to South Fraser mayors and councils, warning of Translink hyperbole in overstating the success of SkyTrain and the Canada Line. This letter contains a […]

Eric Chris’s Study – Not having transit is more environmentally sustainable than having transit in Vancouver

Eric Chris, sent the following to all local newspapers and municipal governments. It seems, TransLink and our regional transit planners may have it all wrong. To view the study in its entirety, please click on the link below. Transit in Metro Vancouver, Canada recently won the gold award from APTA (American Public Transportation Association) for […]

Debunking the SkyTrain Myth – A Repost From 2009

Debunking the SkyTrain myth. Rail for the Valley answers the UBC SkyTrain Lobby! With updates. First posted by zweisystem on Thursday, April 23, 2009 It was brought to Zweisystemai??i??s attention yesterday that a blog site was established by the UBC SkyTrain Lobby, critiquing modern LRT.Ai?? Zweisystem responded,Ai?? posting corrections for the many myths, half truths […]

A John Buker Re-Post From 2009 – Prendergastai??i??s parting words on Rail for the Valley

A re-post from 2009. Tom Prendergast, who was briefly CEO at TransLink, left (or was forced out) after just over a year at the post because of the Skytrain lobby. The SkyTrain Lobby still holds great sway with transit planning in Metro Vancouver, which is very bad news for the taxpayer. Too bad that the […]

Bring It On!

It seems the message is getting through and the recent pouts and threats from TransLink officials about drastic cuts to local transit services, if road pricing is not implemented, is falling on rather deaf ears, especially south of the Fraser River. TransLink’s ponderous bureaucracy just cannot provide a decent transit service now, how can the […]

Eric Chris Writes a Letter to the Times.

Eric Chris is a chemical engineer and with his analytical background he can see through TransLink’s transit verbal diarrhea and understand the real problems facing TransLink. The same was true with the late Des Turner, who was also a chemical engineer (who worked for Shell Oil) and upon retirement, went back to university and studied […]

The return of the Interurban

  Ai?? Pete McMartin: The return of the Interurban rail system (with video) Historic railcars moving again along Surrey tracks By Pete McMartin, Vancouver Sun columnist July 18, 2013   On Feb. 28, 1958, rail car #1225 of the B.C. Electric Rail left Steveston and pulled into the Marpole station at 1:30 a.m. An era, […]

Liz James Sings The TransLink Blues

Liz James is one of the few columnists in the region that has taken the times to research our local transit fiasco and she has well demonstrated that she understands the issue. Unlike the mainstream media, which collectively have not done much research on the issue (some even believe that no builds with LRT anymore!) […]

Another Comment, Worthy of a Post.

Justin Bernard, who reads the RftV blog offered a link yesterday about the Scarborough ICTS/SRT which deserves a post of its own. What was considered cutting edge transit technology in the 70’s, is now considered somewhat obsolete today; somewhat like the Wuppertal Schwebebahn. http://www.thegridto.com/city/local-news/scarborough-transit-debate-goes-back-to-the-future/   Mon Jul 15, 2013 Local News Scarborough transit debate goes […]

A Comparrison Of Operating Costs – SkyTrain & Light Rail

The late Des Turner was meticulous with his research with the SkyTrain light metro system and in 1988, embarrassed the then Social Credit Government to release the real costs of the mini-metro. What is more interesting is comparing the operating costs of the Calgary C-Train light rail and SkyTrain. Thought the operating costs are a […]