A SkyTrain Carol – Apologies to Mr. Dickens!

Merry Christmas and it is time for Rail for the Valley’s “A SkyTrain Carol”, which, like a certain Mr. Scrooge, the lessons have not been learned.
We are doing transit all wrong, yet the government continues to blunder along, doing the same thing over and over again ever hoping for different results.
Metro Vancouver has become an island among itself, where real solutions are ignored and the taxpayer is treated as a rube with deep pockets.
The current $16 billion, and climbing, cost of the 21.7 km extension to both the Expo and Millennium Lines will not take a care off the road, yet TransLink plans for more “SkyTrain”.
Vancouver has now become the example of not how to plan and build transit. No one copies us or our exclusive use of light metro.
All, the NDP government has done is pave paradise, putting up parking lots.
Rail for the Valley
The SkyTrain Christmas Carol
STAVE1 (The Ghost of SkyTrain Past)
As TransLink still plans for SkyTrain even though it is almost universally known that it is a very expensive piece of kit and provides far less “transit” and “capacity“, than modern trams costing a fraction to build.
The old cliche, “follow the money” comes to mind.
The Province of Ontario’s former Crown Corporation, the Urban Transportation Development Corporation (UTDC) had a problem, its flagship proprietary mini-metro was a dud and no one wanted it.
For most, this is old news. The Intermediate Capacity Transit System/Advanced Light Rail Transit (ICTS/ALRT) version of this proprietary light metro was not only poorly built, but it was both expensive to operate and expensive to maintain. No one wanted it and of the three built, Vancouver’s and Toronto’s systems (Detroit was the third) were forced upon the operating authority by the provincial government. To fool the locals the name, ICTS, was changed to ALRT.
It Worked!
The name SkyTrain is a local name only and was chosen in a radio contest before the Expo line opened. The name SkyTrain is used by many transit systems, unrelated to our SkyTrain.
Almost forgotten, the Bill Bennett Social Credit Government did a horse trade with the Ontario government for Vancouver’s “rapid transit“, which was originally planned to use light rail a la Calgary and Edmonton. The Bill Bennett government bought the unsalable ICTS (renamed ALRT for the deal) and in return got the services of the then famed “Blue Machine”, to win the next provincial election as the Social Credit Party had a one seat majority in Parliament, in Victoria.

The CBC did a full documentary of this, but then prime Minister Mulrroney got wind of it and ordered the CBC not to air it and in fact had it shredded or “reduced to produce”. The reporter who interviewed me and the late Dez Turner (who was the most informed transit advocate in the 90’s), informed me. It was explosive as there were hints of plain brown manilla envelopes changing hands at the highest levels of provincial and federal governments.
The reporter was soon made redundant and the last time I heard from her, she was unemployed and seeking work down south.
Every extension of the Expo Line was designed to meet with a Social Credit election window, which was about every 3 years until the Van der Zalm saga.
STAVE 2
Lavalin purchased the UTDC, which was basically the ICTS/ALRT light metro system from the Ontario government and went bankrupt trying to build the system in Bangkok, Thailand. The UTDC was returned to the Ontario government, which promptly sold the remains to Bombardier at a fire sale price. SNC amalgamated with the bankrupt Lavalin to become SNC Lavalin and SNC Lavalin retained engineering patents for ICTS/ALRT from Lavalin.
STAVE 3
Bombardier Engineers soon found that ICTS/ALRT was unsalable; Bombardier rebuilt the cars using their universal Innovia light-metro body shell and redesigned the steerable axle trucks to support the longer and heavier Innovia body-shells.
The ICTS/ALRT system was rebranded as Advanced Rapid Transit or ART.
Only four were sold:
Korea, where Bombardier paid success fees to both bureaucrats and politicians to ensure a sale. The fallout from this was lawsuits and criminal investigations with the result of irreparable damage to Canadian Industries trying to do business in Korea with the scandal.

Malaysia, where Bombardier and SNC Lavalin paid success fees to bureaucrats and politicians including the prime minister to ensure the sale of ART for Kuala Lumpur for their second rapid transit system. This scandal started the whole SNC Lavalin and Bombardier bribery scandal, with hints that the Prime minister of Canada was involved.

The third system was built in New York, but in the USA all rapid transit systems being built, using federal funds must be peer reviewed and the JFK airTrain was duly peer reviewed and it failed badly, being far too expensive to build and not well designed. To keep Bombardier from “losing face” internationally with this fiasco, the Canadian Prime Minister authorized the Canadian Overseas Development Bank to fund the system.

China bought one strictly to obtain LIM technology and has never built another. Hint, ICTS/ALRT/ART use attractive LIMs, while Maglevs use repulsive LIMs and there is a technological void between the two.

STAVE 4
The ghost of SkyTrain past still haunts.
Both BC Transit and Metro Vancouver soon found out how expensive the ALRT system was to operate and was supported by a massive subsidy of $157.7 million annually or $302.7 million annually in 2024 coin of the realm. The next Rapid Transit project was the Broadway Lougheed Rapid Transit project and BC Transit and the GVRD did everything to plan for light rail.
The BC Government (NDP) did everything in its power to derail the project, first by hiring an international engineering firm with little interest in light rail (they were pushing for a proprietary personal transit pod sort of thing. I still have the video they sent me!) and finally forced Advanced Rapid Transit (ART) onto BC Transit and Metro Vancouver and in the process creating TransLink to exit BC Transit from the debate and making a one George Puil, Chair of Metro Vancouver, the Chair of TransLink to make sure.
But why the flip flop by the provincial government?
From many conversations with professionals and as well as former NDP types, unsavoury means were involved and money was also spent on UBC and SFU to pave the way for SkyTrain, such as the Bombardier Chair of Regional Transportation Planning.
Then there is the strange case of $1 million dollars found in a duffel bag in Clinton Park, in the late 90’s by an off duty police officer and according to a former VPD senior officer, now retired, the million dollars, was not a ransom for a kidnapping (the first investigation), nor wasn’t drug money, as there was no trace of drugs on the money, and it was assumed to be “spreading around money”, but for what or when they could not tell. Victoria did all it could to bury the story.
The postscript to this story is that the police constable who found the money, was able to keep it after much legal angst.
The now called ART Millennium Line was so expensive, it had to be built in two parts, the present Millennium line and the later Evergreen Line which became the Millennium Line. Thus the original Broadway Lougheed R/T cost about one half to one third the cost of the two completed SkyTrain lines.
STAVE 5
From 2005 to 2018 there was absolutely no interest in SkyTrain light metro and the ART system was folded into the Innovia family of transit with the LIM’s being a FREE add on and still no interest and finally, the Innovia line of light metros was folded into the Movia metro line.
Now we come to the strange case of Surrey’s flip flop from light rail to SkyTrain (now marketed as Movia Automatic Light Metro) and the former Surrey mayor’s exaggerations of the truth about building with SkyTrain, like it was going to cost only $1.63 billion and no one challenged him and the NDP government did everything they could to make this happen.
Today the cost for the 16 km Langley extension, including the Operations and Maintenance Centre #5 is now past $7 billion, with the cost further inching up with inflation.
Why did former premier, the late John Horgan agree to this? Could it be that both Bombardier and SNC Lavalin are still heavily invested with the current prime minister and that a promise of a nice job of being ambassador to Germany if Premier ordered TransLink to build what is now called MALM to Langley, to save jobs in Ontario and Quebec?
STAVE 6 (Ghost of SkyTrain Present)
Today, Alstom owns the MALM system when they acquired Bombardier’s Rail Division and all technical patents, but SNC lavalin still owns Engineering patents for the proprietary railway. Alstom is not actively marketing the system and by all appearances will phase out production altogether when the last paid for cars are completed for Vancouver.Vancouver is now the only customer.
The taxpayer has now estimated to have spent over $20 billion more for continued SkyTrain planning and construction, than if we built it with light rail as originally intended in the late 70’s.
Stave 7 (Ghost of SkyTrain Future and the end of it all)
The Broadway Subway will haunt taxpayers for years to come as the cost for this 5.7 km extension is now reaching past $4 billion and to complete it to UBC an additional $8 billion.
TransLink is now promising SkyTrain here, there and everywhere continuing the expansion of the light metro network, yet it has zero funding and much of the planning is mostly ghostly images on YouTube, promising nothing more than “sparkle ponies and fairy dust”.

If Alstom ceases production of LIM compatible vehicles means new cars must be designed and built by other manufacturers, further driving up the cost of the proprietary railway. Small orders will be cost prohibitive, yet the government still labours on pretending that SkyTrain is a world class transit system.
The only world class transit system no one wants to buy!
The poor Taxpayers because they have been totally Scrooged!
Rail for the Valley wishes all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year because 2025 will be ………… well let us not ruin the current festive spirit.
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