Another suicide on SkyTrain

A touchy subject but it must be addressed. A medical emergency is TransLink speak for someone killed by a Skytrain, either by accident or suicide. In most cases some poor soul has decided to end their days by throwing themselves in front of a driverless SkyTrain. For those contemplating suicide, their twisted thinking is that […]

The Great Capacity Debate – The USA Versus the World

For the past few weeks, there has been a bare knuckle debate on the LRPPro blog about light rail capacity and it seems in the USA, there is an independent view of capacity. The industry standard for light rail vehicle capacity is all seats occupied and standees @ 4 persons per metre/2. Crush load capacity […]

Why do some governments see Metros as more prestigious than Light Rail?

A pertinent question posed on one of the Light Rail discussion groups, particularly relevant in relation to Skytrain & the City’s of Surrey and Vancouver. A selection of answers: 1) Very simple. Because it is more expensive. There is nothing as prestigious as money. And then there is the tendency of: “The neighbouring community have […]

Coffee and Trams in Bad Wildbad.

Here we have a Karlsruhe TramTrain at a station or stop in BadAi?? Wildbad in Germany. It seems the closeness of the tram line, winding through the town doesn’t seem to excite the locals, including the folks have a coffee at the track side cafe! One wonders, could such an idyllic scene be possible in […]

French Trams Of The Future Could be Surrey’s Too!

I found this Alstom tram of the future quite striking! Designed by Alex Nadal, the tram is a tramtrain, able to operate both on tram (LRT) lines and on the mainline railways.

A New Patullo Bridge Must include A Fraser River Rail Bridge Replacement.

Though, not combined with an auto bridge, the modern railway lift bridge at Dordrecht, Netherlands is a good example of a modern railway lift span. The GVRD in the late 1970’s got it right; the replacement for the Patullo Bridge, must also include a new, multi track rail Fraser River Rail Bridge, replacing the current […]

The Whalley, King George, White Rock Light Rail line Revisited

  It has has been two years year since this post was printed and what TransLink has planned for Surrey are three “poorman’s” SkyTrain type designed light rail lines feeding SkyTrain. TransLink designs new transit lines to increase density; to increase property values for land developers who are generally friends of the government and not […]

Cost Canadian for new light rail construction.

Zwei has always challenged the Skytrain lobby that modern LRT was much cheaper to build than Skytrain, yet the SkyTrain Lobby still tries to make the cost new LRT construction in the Vancouver Metro area much more expensive than is should be. This intentional ‘gold-plating‘ of modern light rail by the City of Vancouver and […]

Canada Line Fizzles

The Canada Line is seeing major problems with a “stalled” train on the tracks. Now new EMU’s are not supposed to stall, but in Vancouver problems with the three mini-metro lines are glossed over by the mainstream media and of course LRT causes traffic chaos every day it is operation, if one wishes to believe […]

“Even your Auditor General seems to have done his sums on the back of envelopes.”

The above quote came from a European transit expert, when I asked him to comment on BC’s Auditor General’s claim that “SkyTrain and not light rail was the best option because of its greater capacity at similar costai??i??.ai???. I apologize for again questioning the AG’s findings, but the AG’s Department is so far off the […]