From 2010 – Late Friday Night’s Musings For Saturday Reading

From July 2010 Late Friday Night’s Musings For Saturday Reading Posted by zweisystem on Saturday, July 3, 2010 Zwei, with a cup of tea in hand, has been reading the various transit blogs and answering emails from interested parties around the world, trying to get a read on what direction public transit is going in […]

STOP PRESS – Another Transit Study For The Fraser Valley. In Time For The Next Election?

Zwei is going to reserve comment, except for the fact that Rail for the Valley’s  Leewood Study, lays the groundwork for a viable regional rail service for the Fraser Valley. The Leewood Study, please click here. Transportation planning study launches in Fraser Valley   As part of BC’s Restart Plan, the Province is examining a […]

Reality Is A ……………………….

There is another reason why transit may not return to pre Covid-19 levels any time soon; a reason that TransLink would never admit to: the service provided by TransLink is deemed third rate by customers. User friendliness is the number one reason people use transit and includes ease ticketing, lack of transfers, and the general […]

Comparisons

Let us make a comparison. In B.C., we are spending $4.6 billion to extend the Expo and Millennium Line’s a mere 12.8 km, while in the UK, £1.2 billion (CAD $2.04 billion) is being spent t0 reopen four rail lines (this means completely rehabbing and re signalling the lines); upgrading three rail lines for improved […]

When Driving: Be kind, Be forgiving, Be Sane – A Note From Zwei.

  After driving in and around Metro Vancouver in the past few weeks, the standard of driving is just terrible. It seems that the Covid-19 debacle has made driving idiots out of us all. I have witnessed not fewer than 10 incidents in the past week that would have lead to tragedy, by drivers who, […]

Germany To Reopen 4,000 km of Closed Railway Lines

What is happening elsewhere is not happening here. Instead, in BC government is squandering  billions of dollars on uneconomic ‘rapid transit‘ lines to suit their electoral and bureaucratic needs. “Rapid Transit is needed infrastructure” is the claim by government, except the politicians making the decisions do not have a clue what rapid transit is or […]

Motherhood And Apple Pie

Rail for the Valley has been long warning the public about the costs of  subway and light-metro construction costs, which fell on mainly deaf ears. Rapid transit is a “ motherhood and apple pie” subject and the mainstream media will not report negative news about SkyTrain, light-metro and the real costs involved. The “other guys” […]

TransLink’s Fear Of The Future And “The Interurban”

  From Wiki: Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT), also known as heavy rail, metro, subway, tube, U-Bahn, metropolitana or underground, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas.Unlike buses or trams, rapid transit systems are electric railways that operate on an exclusive right-of-way, which cannot be accessed by pedestrians […]

TransLink Doubles Down on Rapid Transit

TransLink, is the study of dichotomy. While the rest of the world has deemed light metro (including our SkyTrain light-metro system) obsolete because of cost and functionality, TransLink happily spends massive amounts of money planning and building more. Hint: Only seven of the now called proprietary Movia Automatic Light Metro system (as used on the […]

A Sudsy Trip to Chilliwack?

Doing research for a group on the amenities a tram or TramTrain may bring to a region, I discovered an new sort of tram, the “Beer Tram”, a pub on wheels! Helsinki, has one, Brno has one, as does Fukui,  Nagasaki and several other cities in Japan have them. In fact several cities in Europe […]