Are traffic flows along Broadway enough to justify a subway?

Are traffic flows along Broadway enough to justify a subway? Simple answer is no, not anywhere close! Traffic flows along Broadway are around 4,000 persons per hour per direction in the peak, but because it riders are mostly cheap fare U-Pass holders and operates buses at a far grater frequency than needed off the peak […]

Memo to TransLink: When Aging Gadgetbahnen……………………..

One of the perils of expensive proprietary transit systems, is that they do not age well. The SkyTrain ALRT/ART mini metro Expo Line is now 30 years old and it is beginning to show its age, it stops; it goes kaput from time to time. With no drivers or attendants on board, the public start […]

Subway Realities

Old Zwei has been warning about the costs associated with subways and now New York’s MTA says it needs $32 billion over the next five years to repair decaying subway infrastructure! We also have a familiar name, Tom Prendergast, warning that the subway system needs expensive upgrading done. Prendergast also warned TransLink about the high […]

Metro Madness

In one of the silliest items written in Canada about public transit, The Globe and Mail’s (Mop & Pail) Jeffery Simpson has inked a article about how the taxpayer in the lower mainland should vote YES to build subways because Asia builds them. * Why then are subways built? * The answer is simple, subways […]

The Perils of Proprietary Railways

The Sydney Australia monorail was another expensive and short lived line. Now torn down, Sydney is now investing in light rail. The pitfalls of buying into a proprietary railway are many; for what was once “high tech” and “state of the art”, soon becomes yesterday’s tech and obsolete. Owners of proprietary railways, like to sell […]

Adios SkyTrain? Bombardier is selling off its rail division.

What would happen if the region continues to plan for SkyTrain, yet there is no SkyTrain? If a potential buyer for Bombardier’s rail division already has on the market it’s own proprietary railway or railways, they would probably discontinue SkyTrain which has not had a sale in over a decade and with one SkyTrain line […]

A New Look For Toronto’s SRT Cars.

Toronto’s lonely ICTS (SkyTrain) Line is due to be dismantled within ten years because it is life expired, but with the ongoing seesaw debate to replace the ICTS Line with LRT or a subway rages on. To keep the line operable the existing cars need to be refurbished to keep the line operating for the […]

You have sat too long ……………..

TransLink CEO Ian Jervis has been made to “walk the plank” in an attempt to appease the No side of the upcoming plebiscite. A quote from Oliver Cromwell comes to mind, when he dismissed the rump parliament. You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us […]

Bombardier Transportation accused of corruption in South Korea

A single car train on the Yongin Everline Line The following is from CBC Radio Canada. Even though the date of this news item is Jan. 28, no news outlet in Vancouver has mentioned it. It also answers the question why TransLink has ignored the Yongin Line, it only has one car! So let us […]

I Told You so Department.

Old Zwei told you so that the Compass Card was old kit as are the fare gates! The Compass Card and the fare gates deserve a criminal investigation but that will never happen, not in BC, where the police and courts shy away from political interference. Fare evasion was not a problem, yet the mainstream […]