88% Favour Passenger Rail for the Fraser Valley!

 No surprise here! If anyone who has traveled into the upper Fraser Valley, especially the Chilliwack/Sardis/Vedder areas and seen the huge growth and the associated congestion must realize that a rail connection from Vancouver to Chilliwack, via North Delta, Cloverdale, Langley, Abbotsford, Vedder, Sardis and Chilliwack is most needed. * Rail for the Valley , […]

The Cost of Transporting People in the British Columbia Lower Mainland – Revisited

A repost from 2013. In 1992, the region woke up to a GVRD study that exposed the deceit of many politicians of the day who claimed that SkyTrain operated without subsidy. The truth was just the Expo line to New Westminster was heavily subsidized, more than the combined diesel and trolley buses! I add this […]

Why We Build With Light Rail

From December 2008, Zwei’s first post!   What is Light Rail Transit or more commonly known as LRT? According to the Light Rail Transit Association (www.lrta.org) Light rail is a mode that can deal economically with traffic flows of between 2,000 and 20,000 passengers per hour per direction, thus effectively bridging the gap between the […]

How To Build Light Rail In Our Cities Without Emptying The Public Purse

As urban sprawl and strip development is now engulfing the lower mainland, with associated traffic congestion and pollution, Rail for the Valley’s concept of TramTrain makes sense. We cannot afford to extend SkyTrain at over $200 million/km and certainly there is absolutely no real economic or business case for a subway under Broadway for a […]

The Reserved Or Dedicated Rights-Of-Way Makes A Tram Light Rail

After a flurry of TransLink sponsored advertisements on Facebook, has made it very clear, forty years of anti LRT rhetoric by BC Transit, TransLink, the mainstream media, the Ministry of Transportation and the associate claques and shills that parrot the above, the public hasn’t a clue about modern light rail transit. What Zwei calls the […]

The NDP Are paving Paradise And Turning It Into A Parking Lot – Part 2

Reinstating passenger services on regional railways, it is what government should be doing, to deal with traffic congestion and pollution, but they are not, as government would rather spend money on prestigious “rapid transit” monuments to cut for photo-ops at election time. The E&N, the RftV TramTain from Vancouver to Chilliwack; and the Okanagan corridor […]

The NDP – Blacktopping Its Way Out Of Congestion

The NDP government is going to try to blacktop its way out of congestion despite the fact that added road space only attracts more vehicles, thus adding to congestion and gridlock at choke points. You cannot blacktop your way out of congestion! The updated cost for the the full build Leewood Study is now $1,5 […]

Funding – How to restore Passenger Rail

The UK, as well as many European countries, are reopening long abandoned rail routes for passenger service. The lesson is simple, if you want to attract the motorist from the car, you must develop a user friendly alternative. The railway is a proven user friendly alternative to the car. In BC, politicians have not learned […]

Have We Crossed The Rubicon, With Regional Transit Planning?

According to Suetonius, Caesar uttered the famous phrase ālea iacta est (“the die has been cast”). The phrase “crossing the Rubicon” has survived to refer to any individual or group committing itself irrevocably to a risky or revolutionary course of action, similar to the modern phrase “passing the point of no return” In the late […]

If the UK is Reinstating former Passenger Routes, Why Can’t We?

Really, $4.6 billion to build 12.8 km of light-metro is an awful lot of money for so small increase in a rail route; 5.8 km to extend the Millennium Line in Vancouver and 7 km in Surrey. By comparison, $1.5 billion would provide a 130 km Vancouver to Chilliwack service, with three trains per hour […]