The Driverless Car – Much Ado About Nothing

For those who think the driverless car will usher in the demise if “rail” transit, think again. Quote: “A growing number of metro regions, including the Bay Area, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Atlanta, and Toronto, have now reached the physical point where the car is no longer an effective technology for moving […]

Fake News And The SkyTrain Lobby – Who Are They Really Working For?

Really, can’t the SkyTrain Lobby do any better? The following is so silly and juvenile because it is all hearsay and opinion, not fact. But facts have never bothered the SkyTrain Lobby as they try once again try to fool the public about SkyTrain. They treat everyone like rubes at a country fair. This is […]

Toronto’s King Street – A Template For Broadway?

The European light rail Renaissance in Toronto seems to be successful. Active traffic calming will both improve transit service, while at the same time pull more people to transit, a lesson that TansLink and Vancouver traffic engineers refuses to learn. Putting transit underground, may make local improvements, but the high costs hurts transit operations elsewhere. […]

A Novices Guide To Transit – Updated

ai??i??ai??i??ai??i?? or cutting through the BS about light rail, SkyTrain and BRT. The following is a guide plus definitions about ai???railai??? transit. ALM: Automatic Light metro, the fourthAi??marketing name given for the SkyTrain family of light-metros, when Lavalin briefly ownedAi??SkyTrain before going bankrupt. ALRT (1): Advanced Light Rail Transit, the secondAi??marketing name for SkyTrain. ALRT […]

Hawthorne Park – Premier Horgan, Are You Listening?

Surrey’s Hawthorne Park debacle clearly illustrates that something is wrong with our regional transit planning. Modern light rail transit, is a proven mode of public transportation that has an envious record in attracting the motorist from the car; a record that the proprietary light-metro, which we call SkyTrain, does not and why only seven SkyTrain […]

The BRT And LRT Saga Continues

What is missing from this LRT/BRT study is very important, the cost of operating the BRT or LRT line. In Mexico, South America and the Middle East, wages paid to drivers, mechanics, managers and maintenance workers are much, much less than North America and Europe. As well, in third world countries, the world bank balks […]

Metro Madness – FastFerry Fiasco 2

Vancouver wants subways and nothing else. Vancouver wants the region to pay for those subways. Vancouver’s pet SkyTrain subway, just to Arbutus Street, may cost upwards of $4 billion. Vancouver’s pet SkyTrain subway will use the now obsolete ALRT/ART proprietary railway, jointly owned by Bombardier Inc. and SNC Lavalin. Vancouver’s pet SkyTrain subway will have […]

Welcome To The World Of Congestion Folks!

This should not be news but it is, congestion has returned to the Port Mann Bridge With tolls, traffic and gridlock was just moved to the Patullo and Alex Fraser Bridges and the Massey Tunnel, but with the tolls eliminated, traffic pasterns are getting back to usual. Welcome to the commuting world brought to you […]

Expensive Projects = Expensive Costs

Most people championing expensive transit, fail to see three minutes into the future. The failure of a switch motor on the Expo Line last week caused transit chaos. Switch motors fail and on automatic railways, the regimen is to replace motors on a preventative basis before they fail in revenue service to maintain the integrity […]

No Transit Project Is A Project Unto itself, It Is Part Of The Whole

  As TransLink wheezes along, planning two very expensive rapid transit projects, the Broadway SkyTrain subway under Broadway and the Surrey LRT, both projects are being built to suit a political timetable and not to provide good public transit. Both projects are being planned to be built to both subsidize developers and land speculators in […]