Light Rail Stops Attracts new Business

This interesting study from down South. The myth makers who favour SkyTrain make much how SkyTrain attracts new development, yet that development has been allowed by city councils, who have allowed for higher densities, read higher buildings) at SkyTrain stations. At the same time the inference is that LRT does not attract development. The study […]

Gridlock Is Endemic In Vancouver and Will Be For Years To Come

Nothing new here. As the provincial government keeps building new highways and bridges, car use will increase, simple. As the provincial government, the City of Vancouver, TransLink, and Metro Vancouver, keep planning for and building hugely expensive mini-metro’s like SkyTrain and the Canada Line, for strictly political prestige and not as a convenient transit mode, […]

What Could Have Been – Should Have Been – Updated

One of the hardest transit plans to find in the Vancouver Metro Region is the 1978 Rapid Transit Preliminary Design, by the then GVRD. The reason why it is hard to find is that most of the copies were shredded and/or similarly destroyed on orders by the provincial government when they forced the SkyTrain mini-metro […]

For Donna – Part 2 – Debunking the SkyTrain myth. Rail for the Valley answers the UBC SkyTrain Lobby!

A repost from 2009! What has changed from 2009 is that the cost of a Broadway to UBC subway (full build) would be over $4 billion. Cut and cover subway construction will be used because the Susan Heyes court case has now set the precedent that TransLink can build a cut-and cover subway without paying […]

For Donna……….

Zwei must apologize, but with the end of school and many other commitments, but I will repost some interesting items about LRT and Broadway in the near future. For now I will add some European flavour, spiced with modern light rail. In Grenoble, lawned rights-of-ways are the norm, even on former arterial roads. Stations are […]

Broadway on the Radio

On News 1130 today. Light rail advocate argues against Broadway subway option. A Broadway subway is all about subsidizing Vision(less) backers and supporters, who have invested heavily assembling lands at potential subway stations, not about moving people efficiently or affordably. Light rail advocate argues against Broadway subway option The mayor of Vancouver thinks an underground […]

Trams attract more passengers than buses

The following from Ed Tennyson, who is the foremost transit expert and historian in the USA, is a reply to a news story that Seattle suburban residents like the LRT but do not particularly like buses very much. Buses, for what ever reason, just do not attract much new ridership and BRT, which in most […]

From the Georgia Straight ~ Light rail and B-Line combo better than Broadway SkyTrain?

Zwei doesn’t quite agree, but then in BC everyone seems to to be at least 40 years behind when talking about public transit. Transit should operate on the surface, to give the transit customer the best options. It is not speed of the transit service,Ai?? rather it is the ambiance and ease of use that […]

Urban rail news in brief – April 2014

From the “Railway Gazette”, urban news for April 2014 Tokyo Metro has signed a technical assistance memorandum of understanding with Hanoi Metropolitan Railway Management Board. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has announced R$3Ai??8bn of public transport investment. The projects include tramways in the city of Natal and state of ParaAi??ba. China Railway Group has been awarded […]

LRTA – How other countries see light rail and appraise light rail investments?

From from 2009 Article from the March 1999 edition of Tramways & Urban Transit As anyone involved in a British light rail scheme knows, the appraisal system is rigorous and, many feel, fatally flawed, oriented as it is to short term and financial criteria rather than a properly broad social cost-benefit analysis. It is now […]