Letters To The Editor

On-street running on Portland’s MAX LRT.Ai?? Malcolm Johnston, erstwhile supporter for modern light rail since the mid 1980’s, again has another letter published in the Surrey Leader newspaper. The letter, which is just a rehash of the operating characteristics of modern LRT, something that most European transit planners take for granted. No wild claims, no […]

Bombardier’s Gambit, a Streetcar is not light rail: and only in Vancouver.

Interesting, that Bombardier Inc. is stumping in Surrey and Vancouver to drum up interest in their Toronto streetcar, which in reality is a reworked Flexity tram, so it can operate on Toronto’s heritage streetcar lines. After listening to a Bombardier Rep. claim that SkyTrain was cheap to operate because it has no drivers (he didn’t […]

After Over $8 billion Invested in SkyTrain, Vancouver Is The Most Congested City In Canada

No surprises here, Metro Vancouver has suffered from over 30 years of dreadful transportation planning, highlighted by meddling by the former Social Credit and NDP provincial governments and the meddling continues todayAi??with the provincial Liberal government. From Zwei’s perspective, the regional taxpayer has invested well over $8 billion on an extremely dated transit system and […]

Baffle-gab from the SkyTrain Lobby.

One just has to shake one’s head at this. The SkyTrain LobbyAi??is workingAi??hard toAi??haveAi??more of the proprietary mini-metroAi??built in Surrey, now with a glitzy news release claiming that the proposed SkyTrain will only cost a little more to build to Langley than LRT, so let’s build with SkyTrain. We have heard this before. The following […]

Urgent need for light rail transit in Surrey

The following editorial by Frank Buchholz continues the myth that at-grade light rail is slow and causes accidents at intersections. I am not surprised as the SkyTrain Lobby’s mouthpiece, the SkyTrain for Surrey blog is given prominence in the piece. From what I have read, SkyTrain for Surrey rehashes the same old myths about LRT, […]

British Politicans Get It, While Canadian & BC Politicans Don’t

Britian’s politicans get it about TramTrain, while in BC, our politicians haven’t a clue. Money for transportation projects or even maintaining an affordable public transit system is finite. All to often, people support horrendously expensive transportation projects without an inkling as how toAi??pay for it. The clarion call for new or higher taxes to fund […]

Surrey to display light rail model during Canada Day celebrations

The City of Surrey wants modern light rail and planning is now ongoing for several LRT lines in Surrey. The mistake I feel that is being made is that TransLink, who are unfortunately involved with the planning process, are planning Surrey’s proposed LRT as a poorman’s SkyTrain, forcing it to act solely as a feeder […]

The SkyTrain Lobby – And The fine Art of Deception

The deliriously pro SkyTrain blog, SkyTrain for Surrey (SfS), continues its campaign of deception and misinformation in an attack against American transit expert Gerald Fox. I don’t normally follow the nonsenseAi??spouted byAi??the SkyTrain lobby because they live in a world of their own, where the rules are simple; SkyTrain good, light rail bad. The recent […]

Transit Planning in the Vancouver Region – The Years The Locusts Have Eaten

In the beginning, Vancouver was serviced by a sizable streetcar network and several interurban lines, but by 1960 the streetcars were long gone and the last interurban route saw its final service. There was a last ditch attempt to operate a New Westminster to Vancouver interurban service on the Central Park Line using coupled pairs […]

It is interesting how TransLink has used this cunning method of manipulating analysis to justify SkyTrain in corridor after corridor, and has thus succeeded in keeping its proprietary rail system expanding.

The Great transit philosopher’s stone, the Evergreen Line saga continues and it is once again time for Rail for the Valley how suspect TransLink’s business case for the (N)Evergreen Line was. In, 2008 Gerald Fox, a well known American transit and transportation expert shredded TransLink’s Evergreen Line business case and found it grossly biased in […]