TransLink BS Baffles Brains

I guess Mass Transit was hard up for a story and I would have given this story a miss, being a technical paper. Except, the last paragraph is a first class example of bureaucratic baffle gab, so typical of TransLink and well worth someone’s six figured salary! “Building on our extensive 30-plus-year experience, starting from […]

Montreal’s REM Debacle

Today, building light metro is a grift simply because for about the same amount of money one could build a heavy rail metro with four times the capacity or build a lot more light rail, with, you guessed it, having more capacity! Toronto’s Transit commission’s Accelerated Rapid Transit Study (ARTS) found that the then new […]

Two-year Burrard SkyTrain UpGrade Cancelled

Who says TransLink is not hurting financially? And what about that pesky $3 billion Expo/Millennium Line midlife rehab? The canceled rehab and upgrade of the Burrard Station maybe the beginning of new fiscal realities post Covid. The former transit customers who used transit pre Covid are not coming back, meaning they are not buying tickets, […]

A New Low For Reporting In The BC Media

Zwei gets a lot of Emails and this caught my attention. Slow-pitched questions and the continued referring that the tunnel is a mistake, the entire show seemed like an infomercial for the BC Liberals. Why all the angst for the tunnel and why do the Liberals still want a bridge? The answer probably is that […]

Too Expensive – AirTrain (SkyTrain) Is Scrapped

What is now called Movia Automatic Light Metro is known as Airtrain in New York. AirTrain JFK, is a 13 km elevated, ART system built by Bombardier serving John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK Airport) in New York City. The system consists of three lines and ten stations within the New York City borough of […]

Where Metro Vancouver Went Wrong

Zwei has belonged to the Light Rail Transit Association since 1983 and I first learned about the LRTA while I lived in Nottingham England in 1974/75. I attended a free lecture in Nottingham about bringing trams back to the city, while I was waiting for my girlfriend who was attending night school at Nottingham University. […]

News Alert – Expo Line Kaput

Just on the radio, the Expo Line is kaput, but what is interesting is that TransLink has indicated the problem will not be fixed until this evening! SkyTrain: Expo Line In Effect03-Mar-2022 05:53 AM — Until further notice Expo Line delays due to a track issue at Columbia Station. No train service between Columbia and […]

And Over To You Mr. Cow – TransLink’s fiscal Realities

One of the RftV’s many friends, Haveacow is a Canadian transportation specialist. He uses the Avatar Haveacow because in the arcane world of Canadian and American public transportation, speaking the truth may find you out of a job. An American transportation Engineer who has helped Zwei in the past, found this out when the long […]

Rail For The Valley Knew

Well, Rail for the Valley has been sounding alarm bells on this issue for at least seven years, but we were mocked and then ignored by the powers that be.  From January 28,2022: The Mayor’s Council’s Delusions Of Grandeur in 2050 – Where Is The money? January 12, 2022: Troubles At TransLink? December 10, 2021: […]

A Comparrison Of Operating Costs – Revisited

If one took the ‘Way-back’ machine to the late 1980’s, the argument that SkyTrain was cheaper to operate than LRT would show the massive propaganda campaign to give the public a positive view of the proprietary ALRT light-metro. This is because it was forced upon the region by the Social Credit government of the day. […]