Should We Convert The Canada Line to Light Rail?

Updated for 2024  With Covid-19, this becomes more important than ever. Right now we have a Hobson’s choice for regional rail transit, extend the Millennium and Expo Lines and continue using the proprietary Movia Automatic Light Metro or nothing. This must change and change soon, or the hugely expensive SkyTrain light metro system will become […]

The SkyTrain Lobby – Get Over it!

After a post in Facebook, where I stated some facts about the SkyTrain light-metro system in Vancouver, I was reported to Facebook for spreading fake news. Really! So, just set the record straight about Vancouver’s proprietary and non proprietary SkyTrain light metro system, here are some random facts. SkyTrain is not the name of the […]

The “MAGA Effect”

SkyTrain’s many  ills are all but ignored by our local media, yet almost every or breakdown that happened on Ottawa’s Confederation Line was reported nationally. I call it the “MAGA Effect”, where the media ignores problems with our SkyTrain and grossly overstates issues with other transit systems, such as Ottawa’s hybrid light metro/rail system. Our […]

Canada line Kaput!

An issue, really? What issue? Again TransLink tries to hide the truth from the public, just by saying “an issue”. Well that’s bloody obvious sunshine, what issue? Stay tuned for another episode of “Automatic (driverless) light-metro systems age very poorly, especially the P-3 variety! Canada Line issue leads to delays Friday FILE – A SkyTrain […]

10 Questions

I do not have the answers to these questions or rather I may know the answers but with libel and slander laws the way they are, I will not offer an opinion. Why do TransLink and the Mayor’s council on Transit still continue planning for the obsolete Movia Automatic Light Metro system (A.K.A. SkyTrain), when […]

Canada Line Deja Vu

Subways tend to cause ground subsidence and when two two cylindrical tunnel boring machines (TBMs), six metres wide and weighing around a million kilograms, gnaws away underground, subsidence will occur. Memo to Rob Fleming, Minister of Transportation: It is not vibrations you should be worried about, it is subsidence as the tunnel boring machine chews […]

Doing The Same Thing Over Again Just Will Not Work

After receiving a number of abusive amount of Emails about the post (all deleted), has indicated to me that most people do not have a firm grounding in modern public transport philosophy, nor a good knowledge of provincial finances. Most forget, that in the end, both LRT and light metro are trains and there is […]

Why Canada Gets Less For More When It Comes To Building Transit

This news item explains the huge cost of metro Vancouver’s transit construction. Though the article thinks that $500 million per kilometer, for the Broadway subway is reasonable, it must remembered that the subway it is being built on a transit route that has only a fraction of the ridership deemed necessary for a subway. Much […]

The Cost Of Rehab

This article shows the full breadth of work that needs to be done when expanding a major rapid transit line, above, at or below grade. This will happen to all stations on the Expo and Millennium lines, when the much needed system $3 billion rehab takes place and must take place if the Expo Line […]

A Renewed Call For Judicial Inquiry on TransLink and the Mayor’s Council on Transit

November 22, 2022The Hon. David Eby, Q.C. Attorney General, The Province of BC.Dear Sir, A renewed call for a Judicial Inquiry on TransLink and the Mayor’s Council on Transit with the proposed SkyTrain Broadway subway and the SkyTrain extension in Surrey to Langley. I am writing to you on the above matter. The Broadway subway. […]