Did TransLink Design Surrey’s Light Rail To Fail?

  Surrey’s rejection of light rail in favour of SkyTrain with hardly a whimper from TransLink and without any rebuttal to the mayor of Surrey spurious claims about LRT, makes me think TransLink purposely designed light rail to fail in Surrey. There is an established SkyTrain Lobby within TransLink that plays very dirty when it […]

McCallum’s $2.9 Billion Question

From the 2017 Steer Davis Gleave – HATCH report, the total cost for SkyTrain, including fifty-Five new cars is $2,914,798,721.00. As 2019 nears, the cost is rising. Memo to Doug McCallum: we are not building SkyTrain to 1980’s cost of construction. Memo to Gord Lovegrove: I think you need to join the Light Rail Transit […]

An Idiot’s Delight In Langley

Idiots, what can I say, complete idiots, the pair of them. SkyTrain is an obsolete proprietary light metro system, made obsolete by light rail! This has been known by all competent transit planners since the late 1980’s! The proprietary SkyTrain system patents are owned by both Bombardier Inc. and SNC Lavalin. Again, well known by […]

Like it or Not, LRT is Coming To Surrey!

Not really news if one knows light rail. Like it or not, modern public transit is coming to Surrey and the SkyTrain Lobby are kicking and screaming all the way, why? The fear, I believe, is that there is great fear that when modern LRT operates in Metro Vancouver, “apples to apples” comparisons will be […]

Signal Failure – The Achilles Heel of a Driverless Light Metro

Portend of what is going to be more and more common on SkyTrain, signal failure. As our SkyTrain ages, more and more service is disrupted by signal or a switch failure and with almost no redundancy in our transit system, the results for the transit customer is a fiasco! The lesson is simple, the more […]

The Whiterock King George Whalley LRT – Revisited & Updated

First published in 2011, the concept of the Whalley King George Whiterock Line, operating in conjunction with the Rail for the Valley’s Leewood Study TramTrain would bring an affordable and successful 21st century public transportation solutions to Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley. It has has been seven years year since I entertained the idea […]

Never Attribute to Malice What Can be Explained by Incompetence – Factbender on Transit

You don’t have to be smart to be the Minister responsible for TransLink, rather you just to have to be a very good BS artist, that’ all. As the LRT or SkyTrain tap dance continues south of the Fraser, many politicians reveal that their knowledge about SkyTrain comes mainly from picture books and not engineering […]

TramTrain – It’s Time To Have A Serious Look At The Leewood Project For a Valley Passenger Rail Servcie

As the Surrey LRT slowly gather’s steam, it seems the regional taxpayer is paying a lot of money for very little. Despite the hype and hoopla about the Surrey LRT, does not do anything really, just provide a somewhat faster trip to the nearest SkyTrain station if you want to cross the Fraser. It has […]

How America Killed Transit – How the Americans (and we) Are Getting it Wrong

I think the author, a PHD candidate, seems unread on what modern light rail is. He still defines light rail vehicles, different than a streetcar Memo to PHD candidate: it is not the vehicle, but the quality of rights-of-way, that defines LRT. His comment; “And though cheaper to build, light rail lines are often too […]

The $11 billion Solution!

It seems our politicians and political wannabees are living in a financial ennui. The massive costs of our current transit planning are being ignored, with the rah, rah rant of the various rapid transit promoters glossing over the real costs of their various pet projects. Our so called experts ignore the costs and it is […]