Expensive Projects = Expensive Costs

Most people championing expensive transit, fail to see three minutes into the future. The failure of a switch motor on the Expo Line last week caused transit chaos. Switch motors fail and on automatic railways, the regimen is to replace motors on a preventative basis before they fail in revenue service to maintain the integrity […]

No Transit Project Is A Project Unto itself, It Is Part Of The Whole

  As TransLink wheezes along, planning two very expensive rapid transit projects, the Broadway SkyTrain subway under Broadway and the Surrey LRT, both projects are being built to suit a political timetable and not to provide good public transit. Both projects are being planned to be built to both subsidize developers and land speculators in […]

La renaissance du tramway en France

Tours The French (Tram) Renaissance is amazing! 17 brand-new systems opened since 2000. A single line in Montpellier, line T1, carriess over 130,000 weekday riders! And thatai??i??s with no tunnels, mostly street running. Systems in Nantes, Bordeaux and Montpellier have ridership at or near 260,000 riders a day! That exceeds Boston. The French do it […]

Alstom, Siemens Rail-Merger – Is SkyTrain going The Way Of The Edsel?

This could be game changer for Bombardier’s rail division and a big game changer for transit planning in Metro Vancouver. If the Siemens and Alstom merger goes through, it could mean those expensive ART, monorail, and other proprietary transit modes currently marketed by Bombardier Inc. may be chopped from production as a newAi?? “rail” reality […]

From Pole to Pan in Toronto

NO, we are not talking ‘pole dancing’ but another kind of ‘pole’ dance happening in Toronto. The use of panto-graphs or “pans” for the collection of electrical power has been around a long time and now it is Toronto’s turn to switch from the old trolley pole to a modern pan. Sadly, some of our […]

Requiem For The Massey Tunnel Replacement Bridge

The Massey Tunnel Bridge replacement project is again in the news, as the massively expensive replacement bridge for the Massey tunnel has been mothballed. Now, the CBC has found hugely expensive financial irregularities with the new Port Mann Bridge, and the air of political corruption hangs heavily in the air. Was the proposed mega bridge […]

Premier Horgan’s TransLink Dilemma

  The new NDP government must reassess TransLink’s grand transit schemes and the lack of any real regional transit planning, except for their two grossly expensive vanity projects. The Broadway subway, a classic Vancouver “vanity project“, now rumored to cost around $4 billion, will offer no real advantage to transit customers, yet greatly increase the […]

Seeing Is Believing – Why Doesn’t Translink Understand The Simple Facts Of LRT?

Courtesy of Mr. Haveacow from Ottawa. Zwei, I am sending you a very telling photograph. Its near Blair Station and the Ottawa LRV is undergoing testing. Notice the complete lack of paint effects and graphics as well as the fact that, many of its portals and access panels are in the down position, so equipment […]

Achy Breaky SkyTrain Cars!

Seems some serious corrosion problems are plaguing the TTC’s ICTS cars, which are the same as our SkyTrain Mk.1’s and I hope TransLink will take some time and investigate! The Mk.1’s do have a history of corrosion, so I would think it would be expedient to check and see.   Ai??Scarborough RT vehicles need repairs […]

“Puff Story” – Headline Grabber!

So, are you reading this post because of the photo? (no one was killed in the accident shown) If you are, you were drawn in by a “headline grabber”, or a story or picture to ‘grab’ the reader to read further. Sorry to disappoint , but we continue with so called transit report cards. Zwei […]