Winds of Change

LRT operating as a streetcar in downtown Portland The Vancouver Sun has always been a barometer on the governments standing on regional rail transit. The paper is famous for its pro SkyTrain stance, printing the usual SkyTrain myths as they were facts, but now, with the current TransLink financial morass, the Sun prints a letter that […]

More Misleading TransLink Numbers – So What Esle is New?

A letter from a Mr. Rob Kwon certainly shreds TransLink’s CEO, Ian Jervis’s claim that the cost per revenue passenger is a$3.98 is based on questionable book keeping. Well so what else is new! The Canada line was supposed to cost a mere $1.3 billion, yet it’s final cost exceeds $2.5 billion. Translink never includes […]

TransLink CEO, Ian Jarvis Strikes Back

Irked with the Vancouver provinces editorial about Translink and the proposed 2 cent a litre gas tax to fund the Evergreen Line, TransLink's CEO, Ian Jarvis sent an angry letter to the Province. TransLink's progress  By Ian Jarvis, The Province July 26, 2011 Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/TransLink+progress/5159297/story.html#ixzz1TE21EMZl TransLink takes exception to the way in which your editorial […]

Broadway rapid transit- Is the SkyTrain subway option a done deal?

 It seems Surrey mayor, Dianne Watts, have a look over her shoulder and see what her counterparts are up to in Vancouver, before she supports a gas tax increase. It seems a Broadway SkyTrain subway is a done deal and this gas tax money she wants to fund light rail in surrey, will probably not […]

A transit day in the mainstream media

The two Vancouver dailies have offered, surprisingly to, several letters and an editorial about local transit issues. From the Vancouver Sun, comes a letter from a Mr. Villegas, who seems to know a lot about modern LRT and he is quite correct that a tram would offer a comparable service as a much more expensive […]

TransLink stumbles on

Liz James, who writes for the North Shore news, is one of the very few columnists that who has both researched the regional transit issue and understands transit issues. As TransLink CEO Ian Jervis, is busy shilling for the very expensive Evergreen Line, he refuses to look a cheaper alternatives, such as light rail. SkyTrain […]

The Delta Optimist gets it!

Somebody gets it! By building light metro, in the guise of SkyTrain, the taxpayer has spent three to four times more money than a light rail alternative, to get three rather mediocre transit lines. Cut through the hype and hoopla, SkyTrain and the Canada Line's ridership is made up mostly of recycled bus passengers (TransLink […]

News Flash – TransLink trying to pull a fast one? Updated!

Well the masters of flim-flam are trying to pull a fast one over local mayors, why? The probable answer is that denying proper scrutiny of the 2012 TransLink base plan, indicatesAi??thereAi??must be itemsAi??that TransLink doesn’t want local mayors to see. I hope that the Mayor’s Council has the collective backbone to demand TransLink give proper […]

Another letter the media ignores

Another letter from a friend of Rail for the Valley,Ai??which the mainstream media wish to ignore. HereAi??is the problem with our current financial transit debacle, very few, if any in the region understandsAi??what SkyTrain is and why the Vancouver region has it. Most politicos just repeat TransLink’s bumf ad nauseoum! SkyTrain, both the Expo and […]

Death, taxes and TransLink

We all want better transit options, but are we willing to pay for them? Well our rather confused regional mayors think so. The root of TransLink's financial woes has been the SkyTrain proprietary mini-metro system and its clone, the Canada Line. Skytrain costs about four to five times more to build than LRT and about fifteen times more […]