Transportation Planning – A North American view

An interesting extract from a commentary comparing currentAi??North AmericanAi??practice with European `In Vancouver, over a decade ago at the grand opening of the heritage streetcar project, a chap from Bombardier singled me out. What he said after a few niceties, astounded me. To paraphrase, he claimed that: Vancouver’s SkyTrain greatly retarded sales of Bombardier built […]

The fictitious war on cars

Why the automobile is not ai??i?? and has never been ai??i?? endangered Jennifer Good ai??i?? The Brock Press (Brock University) Canadian University Press http://cupwire.ca/articles/50669   Bike lanes don’t slit cars’ tires. There’s no war zone here. (Photo courtesy of Paul Krueger/Flickr Creative Commons.) ST. CATHARINES (CUP) ai??i?? “The War OnAi??Cars.”Ai??It’s a slogan that I first […]

Toronto’s Mayor “Edsel’s” War On Transit – When idiots makes decisions, don’t be surprised at the results!

Toronto’s Mayor Ford’s (Mayor Edsel is a better name) amateur attempts to improve transit in the Toronto region is fast becoming a fiasco! But what else would one expect from aAi??puffed up American tea-bag style politician who has a hate on for streetcars and LRT because; “they take road space away from cars“. His solutionAi??building […]

Trams, Pedestrians & Bicycles + buses & cars in Amsterdam

Trams, bicycles, pedestrians also buses, motorcycles & cars happily co-existing in Amsterdam. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JeWED7Zilo Just to reassure Ai??theAi??Ai??retardedAi??Ai??dingbats amongst Skyscraper, Ai??Skytrain for Surrey, Translink & Ai??VancouverAi??activistsAi??that it can be done Ai??and that no one was killed or injured during the making of this video a Happy New Year to one & all…. the toast is `Shiney […]

Seattle’s Light-Metro Plans……Er, LRT Plans

Seattle’s Sound Transit penchant for planning for light-metro and calling it light rail is leading regional taxpayers into a fincial fiasco. Sound familiar, well it should, it is the same type of regioanl transit policy that TransLink has. Sound Transit’s first hybrid 22.4Ai??km light-metro/light rail line, costing $3.6 billion (this is the complete cost including […]

E & N Blues

Want to kill a Railway? Starve it of funds and let it rust away and this seems the fate of the E & N railway. For a want of a mere $15 million to upgrade the tracks, the provincial government has loudly signaled that it wants to wash its hands of the E&N, especially when […]

Toronto Meet Your New Ride

New Toronto Streetcars http://lrv.ttc.ca/Ai?? is the website from the TTC on the new streetcars. The Toronto Transportation Societyai??i??s December newsletter has some interesting thoughts on the vehicle as well as photos of the half mock-up. The first 80 cars will have both pole and pantograph with the remainingAi?? (109 or 116 depending on the order) […]

Liar, liar, liar……….

It seems the SkyTrain Lobby has started a wee blog to compete with Rail for the Valley, called Surrey needs SkyTrainAi??and true to form, if one supports light rail, one is a liar. It is so sad to see so much time and effort is wasted on what is now an obsolete proprietary transit mode, […]

A Tram Runs Through It!

IAi??couldn’t resist. In Freiburg Germany, trams co-exist with bicycles and buildings, without the doom and gloom and general transportation chaos predicted by the SkyTrain (a.k.a. metro) lobby. So sad when on this side of the pond, many regional politicians equate modern LRT as an anachronism from years gone by and not as a viable and […]

Light Rail and Streetcar Construction

The following is a series of photos showing tram construction in the French city of Tours. http://www.lineoz.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=17564&p=345099#p345099 The French city of Tours (population 137,000) tram project is a transit is closely related to modern light rail with most of its route located in aAi??reserved rights-of-way. Work on the new tramway started in 2010, with completion […]