Nobody’s nostalgic for the freeway to nowhere

Nostalgia over easy was the order of the day at Sinbad’s, a waterfront restaurant in the shadow of the Ferry Building. The talk turned to fern bars, and fast cars, and long lunches in places like Paoli’s. Remember the ’80s? The men had narrower ties and the women had shorter skirts. “Hey,” somebody said. “Remember […]

Current issue of Trains should be required reading

Matthew at Transport Action BC http://transportactionbc.wordpress.com/ writes on March 8th The April issue of Trains magazine has a special 48 page report on fast trains. It describes new high-speed trains in China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Europe, relative speed, why some Americans canai??i??t seem to embrace high-speed rail, a map showing the highest speed portions […]

TramTrain to Gloucester Estates & the Zoo

The following news item has peaked Zweisystem's interest, for the old interurban route passes just to the North of the Gloucester Industrial Estate and adding a tram stop would be quite easy and quite cheap to do. By doing so, a minibus service could be instituted to service not only the industrial estate, but the Greater Vancouver […]

More transit, more traffic problems, says think tank. But is that really the problem?

Interesting study out of the USA, but unfortunately wrong conclusions will be made, especially by the roads lobby. As for buses not attracting new customers, well duh, that little gem has been known for at least 30 years and if this were not so, we would not have been building new light rail lines in the […]

Toronto again! Ford & Gilbert sound-off & more irrelevant comparisons

Toronto owes mayor a thank you on transit Toronto Star.com February 24th http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/943888–toronto-owes-mayor-a-thank-you-on-transit#article Toronto owes Mayor Rob Ford a big thank you for three things. [Most definitely not] The first is for raising timely doubts about the wisdom of proceeding with Transit City. This was the previous council’s expensive one-size-fits-all plan to replace buses on […]

More Porkies – The Port Mann Bridge

It has been said that a picture is worth a thousands words……………………….. ……………..but this picture of a cross section of the new ten lane Port Mann Bridge says it all – there is no rail transit being planned for the bridge! Even Zweisystem, with his rudimentary knowledge of engineering knows if that a bridge is […]

Light Rail Transit, LRT or Tram-Train

Tram and train used to be two entirely different public transport systems. Tram served shorter (read: urban) distances. Train served longer (read: regional) distances. But the difference between city and region has disappeared in much of Europe. The difference between tram and regional rail is blurring as well. A new generation of light rail transit […]

BC Liberal Responses to Fraser Valley Transit Survey

    In contrast to the Liberals, all NDP candidates responded positively to the survey, with top contenderAi??John HorganAi??going as far as explicitly stating his support for Light Rail as far east as Abbotsford and Chilliwack: ai???I support an at-grade light rail system through Surrey and Langley, eventually reachingAi??Abbotsford and even Chilliwack.”Ai??-John Horgan For many […]

Absurdity, Hiatus, Ignominy, Irony, Paradox and Prognosis

The Cardinal cordially welcomes Zweisystem back & offers him wishes for a speedy recovery from his recent illness; – Hurry up and get the heck out of there! Zwei, remember Mark Twainai??i??s advice `be careful when reading health books; you may die of a misprintai??i?? Ai?? With Zweisystem back in the section, continuing his mission, […]

Porkies from TransLink!

In the UK, London's Cockney's (the East End crowd) have long had an interesting rhyming slang tradition – examples: jam jar is a car; dicky dirt a shirt and so on. Well, a pork pie or porkie is – well you guessed it. The following letter from Ken Hardie, to the Delta Optimist, is full of "Porkies" […]