Subway Costs – Is History Repeating Itself In Vancouver?

Again, words from a professional in the Canadian transit and transportation industry and it is a must read. Not all is what it seems, financially. Haveacow is a professional and uses the avatar because Canada is a small market and most transit schemes are political in nature and politicians can never be wrong and having […]

Life With SNC Lavalin

SNC Lavalin own engineering patents for the MALM (erroneously called SkyTrain) system used on the Expo and Millennium lines. SNC Lavalin leads the consortium operating the Canada line. The BC Liberal government inspired Canada Line (faux) P-3 saw SNC Lavalin, bidding against SNC Lavalin. On May 27th, 2009, after four years of litigation, BC Supreme […]

Bombardier In Trouble

Though TransLink will not admit it, and the Mayor’s Council Transit, claims its not true, the truth is, the Expo and Millennium Lines operate with the proprietary MALM light metro system. Bombardier Inc. is the sole source manufacturer of MALM and no other company offers an off the shelf product that can run on the […]

Future Funding Implications Threaten Regional Transit Projects.

With the clear evidence that transportation authorities around the world opting to build with LRT, one must pose, again, the question; Why does TransLink inflate the cost of light Rail? The simple answer is, “they don’t want to build with light rail, so they inflate the cost to match that of SkyTrain. From the Briefing […]

The $4.6 billion Question

  $4.6 billion is a lot of cash, but in metro Vancouver, $4.6 billion (well that is the amount funded) buys you a mere 12.8 km of the decidedly obsolete light metro system, now called Movia Automatic Light Metro, used on the Millennium and Expo Lines. So much money, for so little transit. It maybe […]

Streets Paved With Gold – Transit Planning is Driven By Politics

Footnotes: The author,  Adrienne Tanner,  was city editor at the Sun, a newspaper that prevented any real reporting of our regional transit issues and took orders from back east to report “SkyTrain” in a positive light. As well, there was little investigative reporting on SNC-Lavalin’s B.C. operations. Detroit’s ALRT system officially called a People Mover […]

Another Look At Gerald Fox’s Review Of The Evergreen Line Business Case

I cannot stress enough the importance of this short letter as it shreds TransLink’s Business Case for the Evergreen Line. I did not support the Evergreen Line because from what I gleaned from all the studies and documents, that there was not the ridership to sustain the uncompleted portion of the Millennium Line to the […]

Tax, tax, tax – SkyTrain Needs New And Higher Taxes

From the very beginning, building the SkyTrain network demanded new and higher taxes. As the SkyTrain light-metro network is automatic, it must be grade seperated and grade separation is costly. It is the Achilles heel of light-metro as construction is so costly, compared to other modes, that extending the initial line into areas of low […]

TransLink And The Mayor’s Council Beg for More Money

  An open  letter to the Prime Minister of Canada, the Premier of BC, Federal and Provincial Ministers of Transportation, Metro Vancouver members of Parliament and the British Columbia Legislature. In the past few weeks TransLink and the mayor’s Council on Transit has been mounting a advertising blitz on Facebook and other social media pleading […]

TransLink Reannounces A Renouncement, Of A Reannouncement!

Good news everyone, the federal liberals are giving TransLink money to buy new cars and upgrade the Expo Line, yippee. It’s not additional money of course, rather a renouncement of a renouncement. Really, how much mileage can they get for $1.47 billion? A lot if today’s reannouncent is anything to go by. Just to remind […]