Timing is right for Interurban line – A letter in the Surrey Leader

More letters supporting valley rail. Sadly, if one links to the original story, one can see the same old anti-LRT rhetoric and unrealistic calls for spending $2 billion to connect Langley with SkyTrain, through “sparsely populated areas“. Re: A?ai??i??Ai??Transit at a crossroads,A?ai??i??A? The Leader, March 24. I have been following with interest those who for […]

Transit at a crossroads – From The Surrey Leader

Well here we go again, TransLink is planning for ‘rapid’ transit for Surrey and the Fraser Valley.Ai??Ai??Zwei has seen this all before and I’m afraidAi??Ai??I amAi??Ai??not at all enthused with the process, nor have much faithAi??Ai??in TransLink to do an honest study. Zwei hates the term ‘rapid transit’ as it refers to metro and only […]

A?ai??i??E?Blank slateA?ai??i??ai??? transit plan bodes well – Um no, Not Until TransLink Stops Playing Dirty Tricks!

Though the transit debate is supposed to be a ‘Blank slate’, it seems TransLink is up to its own dirty little tricks as usual. It has been a long and well established fact that light rail (LRT) can and does carry over 20,000 persons per hour per direction. The claim that it can carryAi??Ai??Ai??Ai??only 6,000 […]

Costly SkyTrain technology choices baffle – From the North Shore News

It seems that the efforts of Zwei and others have paid off’ asAi??Ai??others in the region are taking note of LRT and TramTrain and the hugeAi??Ai??costs that go along with the SkyTrain light-metro system and subway construction. TramTrain andAi??Ai??especially “Rail for the Valley” itselfAi??Ai??may find some welcome allies to their cause from the North Shore, […]

Mayor not ready to jump aboard transit . . . just yet – From the Chilliwack Times

More Valley transit news. Tyler Olsen, The Times Published:Ai??Ai??Friday, March 12, 2010 Promoters of a rail line connecting the Fraser Valley with Metro Vancouver are urging Chilliwack politicians to jump aboard plans for a demonstration project along the old interurban rail line. Chilliwack is the only municipality between here and Delta not represented on the […]

Hawaii SkyTrain Project Heats Up

A Hawaiian blog by Ian Lind posted Zwei’s ‘Debunking SkyTrain Series’ and continues the hot debate on the elevated SkyTrain project in Hawaii. http://ilind.net/2010/03/03/responses-show-rail-a-very-hot-topic/ It is good that the locals are beginning to ask questions about SkyTrain and may be beginning to see that the proprietary light-metro isn’t as great as ‘sliced bread’ which the […]

Olympic Hubris – Will The Wrong Conclusions Be Made By Our Planning & Political Elites?

In the last days of the 2010 Olympics, much has been made about how well our transportation worked during the event. What has been overlooked is that for the two week extravaganza, Vancouver had much warmer seasonal weather, meaning noAi??Ai??snow to stall the SkyTrain metro and make a shambles out of the bus schedules. Added […]

All Party Parliamentary Light Rail Group (APPLRG) report – Should we do the same in BC?

Some interesting news from across the pond. Urban transit development in the UK has been hamstrung by a very powerful and vocal ‘Roads Lobby’, within the central government (not unlike the SkyTrain Lobby in Victoria), which has all but stopped light rail development in the UK. In an era of peak oil and global warming, […]

"Their" Evergreen Project Gets Funding – Green light for Evergreen 3 – From Modern Railways

What should be of great interest to those supporting the reinstatement of a Vancouver to Chilliwack interurban, is the cost of refurbishing 80 km. of double track (160km. in total), plus 1 km. of new track is Ai??A?250 million or CAD $423.1 million. As the Fraser Valley interurban or TramTrain’s maximum speed would be 100 […]

Battle looming between Vancouver and other regions over priority of rapid transit – From News 1130 Radio

Ai?? As expected, the Broadway UBC rapid transit project has gained prominence in the past few weeks and the SkyTrain lobby has taken to the blogosphere to spread “SkyTrain Speak.” SkyTrain Speak, is the myth and propaganda created by the SkyTrain lobby to further the causeAi??Ai?? promoting further construction of the obsolete proprietary light metro. […]