From 2010 – Late Friday Night’s Musings For Saturday Reading

From July 2010 Late Friday Night’s Musings For Saturday Reading Posted by zweisystem on Saturday, July 3, 2010 Zwei, with a cup of tea in hand, has been reading the various transit blogs and answering emails from interested parties around the world, trying to get a read on what direction public transit is going in […]

STOP PRESS – Another Transit Study For The Fraser Valley. In Time For The Next Election?

Zwei is going to reserve comment, except for the fact that Rail for the Valley’s  Leewood Study, lays the groundwork for a viable regional rail service for the Fraser Valley. The Leewood Study, please click here. Transportation planning study launches in Fraser Valley   As part of BC’s Restart Plan, the Province is examining a […]

Flexibility

Flexibility: Susceptible of modification or adaptation; adaptable. Dresden’s successful freight tram, carried car parts from one factory to another in the city. Modern light rail is very flexible; it can operate as a tram, operating on-street; it can operate as a light-railway, operating on a dedicated rights-of-way; it can operate as a light-metro, on viaduct […]

Comparisons

Let us make a comparison. In B.C., we are spending $4.6 billion to extend the Expo and Millennium Line’s a mere 12.8 km, while in the UK, £1.2 billion (CAD $2.04 billion) is being spent t0 reopen four rail lines (this means completely rehabbing and re signalling the lines); upgrading three rail lines for improved […]

Germany To Reopen 4,000 km of Closed Railway Lines

What is happening elsewhere is not happening here. Instead, in BC government is squandering  billions of dollars on uneconomic ‘rapid transit‘ lines to suit their electoral and bureaucratic needs. “Rapid Transit is needed infrastructure” is the claim by government, except the politicians making the decisions do not have a clue what rapid transit is or […]

TransLink’s Fear Of The Future And “The Interurban”

  From Wiki: Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT), also known as heavy rail, metro, subway, tube, U-Bahn, metropolitana or underground, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas.Unlike buses or trams, rapid transit systems are electric railways that operate on an exclusive right-of-way, which cannot be accessed by pedestrians […]

TransLink Doubles Down on Rapid Transit

TransLink, is the study of dichotomy. While the rest of the world has deemed light metro (including our SkyTrain light-metro system) obsolete because of cost and functionality, TransLink happily spends massive amounts of money planning and building more. Hint: Only seven of the now called proprietary Movia Automatic Light Metro system (as used on the […]

A Sudsy Trip to Chilliwack?

Doing research for a group on the amenities a tram or TramTrain may bring to a region, I discovered an new sort of tram, the “Beer Tram”, a pub on wheels! Helsinki, has one, Brno has one, as does Fukui,  Nagasaki and several other cities in Japan have them. In fact several cities in Europe […]

Tit For Tat

It has always been a wonder to me that politicians, especially mayors do not work for the public’s interest, but for their cronies. Political friend’s interests come first. The valley rail project is one project that makes sense, with a lot of people, yet regional mayor’s will not even try to help make such a […]

From The South Fraser Community Rail Society

It is beginning to sink in, that post Covid-19, many things will change. The other valley passenger rail, group, the South Fraser Community Rail Society, also sees that the post Covid-19 and post Bombardier world will change the transit landscape dramatically. Light metro is just too expensive for what good it will do; why no […]