And Now: The Green With Envy Award – Washington to get $590 million for high-speed rail improvements

In BC and Canada, there is little money for railways to improve passenger service, yet there are billions of dollars for new highways and bridges. The sad fact is, in BC and Canada new highways and bridges win votes, while the railways are considered a ‘yesterdays’ transit mode. Just $500 million would buy us a […]

And Then There Were Six – Metrolinx Says AdiA?A?s to SkyTrain

Toronto’sAi??Ai??Metrolinx is saying adiA?A?s to the SkyTrain (ICTS) Scarborough Line and will convert the route to LRT by 2015. In November 2009 Metrolinx, Toronto’s regional transit planning authority has decided to convert the 10 km. Scarborough ICTS (SkyTrain) light metro to LRT by 2015. The Scarborough ICTS/SkyTrain line is suffering the same fate as so […]

Battle looming between Vancouver and other regions over priority of rapid transit – From News 1130 Radio

Ai?? As expected, the Broadway UBC rapid transit project has gained prominence in the past few weeks and the SkyTrain lobby has taken to the blogosphere to spread “SkyTrain Speak.” SkyTrain Speak, is the myth and propaganda created by the SkyTrain lobby to further the causeAi??Ai?? promoting further construction of the obsolete proprietary light metro. […]

Phoenix: Light rail boosts uptown’s economic revival

From the Light Rail Now folks. There has been a lot of nay-saying about the new Phoenix LRT andAi??Ai??unlike our transit planning here, there was a long and full public debate about the project culminating in a winning public vote to proceed. Unlike SkyTrain, the Phoenix LRT, like so many other American LRT lines are […]

And Just What is Rapid Transit – Has TransLink Already Decided To Build A SkyTrain Subway To UBC?

Ai??Ai?? Bay Area Rapid Transit Over and over againAi??Ai??from media reporters and commentators, politicians and/or academics, we hear the term ‘rapid transit’, but are offered no definition to what rapid transit is. Is rapid transit a metro, rapid bus, light rail,Ai??Ai??or commuter rail?Ai??Ai??ThisAi??Ai??begs the question: “Just what is rapid transit?” Ai??Ai??Wikipedia defines rapid transit as: […]

Well worth a read! From the Georgia Straight – Metro Vancouver’s new draft regional growth strategy raises concerns

The following article from the Georgia Straight by Elizabeth Murphy is well worth a read. http://www.straight.com/article-280277/vancouver/elizabeth-murphy-metro-vancouvers-new-draft-regional-growth-strategy-raises-concerns

Drive Out the Tax campaign – Sponsored by Vancouver’s Most Hypocritical & Inept Business Organizations!

In the Vancouver Sun today is an article about an anti-TransLink parking tax revolt, the Drive out the tax coalition, sponsored by the Downtown BIA,Ai??Ai??TheAi??Ai??Board of Trade and others. What a bunch of hypocrites; what a bunch of inept businessmen, for it was a loose coalition of the very same groups that glad-handed the almost […]

The hysteria of the anti-LRT lobby – Time to get real!

On other local and US blogs, there is a growing hysteria that once light rail (streetcar or tram) operates on-street, there will be general panic among pedestrians, ultimately throwing themselves under the tram! Shades of the 1820’s railway hysteria, where trains were claimed to cause insanity and sour cows milk! I’m sorry to say, that […]

The Strange Case of the Karlsruhe TramTrain – Streetcar, LRV, or Commuter Train?

Recent posts on the LRTA blog, debated the the present definitions of streetcar/tram and light rail. North Americans tend to define LRT as a light-metro, where as EuropeansAi??Ai??associated LRT as a tram. Now added to the debateAi??Ai??is the tramtrain and the strange case of the Karlsruhe’s new Zweisystem (two system) LRT:Ai??Ai??is itAi??Ai??a tram or a […]

From CKWX NEWS 1130 – SkyTrain issues for morning commute

What the SkyTrain lobby wishes us to forget is that the automatic metro is somewhat erratic in its operation. SkyTrain is a complicated proprietary light-metro and even small issues defeats the computer and the system shuts down. TransLink plays down these problems but regular riders of the metro has told Zwei that problems on SkyTrain […]