Power rail problem halts SkyTrain service in New Westminster

As metro lines age, maintenance problems come into the fore. With automatic or driverless transit systems, this means complete shutdowns of sections of track or an entire route. Last night, a reported failure of the power rail caused chaos all Thursday night for transit customers. Failures do happen, but a failure of a power rail […]

A Tale of Two Letters

Two letters to the Vancouver Province newspaper have found their way into Zwei’s inbox. TransLink is broken, probably broken beyond repair and no political candidate has the moral jam to state the obvious. “Throw more money at TransLink, that’s the ticket for improving our regional transit system” is the clarion call of prospective MLA wannabees, […]

A Question of Capacity – A Transit Primer For BC’s Auditor General

A Question of Capacity ai??i?? A LRTA Topic Sheet Contrary to the COV and TransLink, modern LRT can obtain high capacities, on transit routes, by being able to operate at close headways.Ai??Today, the main tram route through the city is being relocated in a subway because the line was seeing 45 second headways during peak […]

Referendum New Transit funding For TransLink – BC Liberal Election Platform

Interesting, election gimmick from the BC Liberals which just may resonate with the regional taxpayer. For 33 years, the regional taxpayer has been shut out of the regional transit debate, but expected to shell out serious coin for mega transit projects without question. Already the SkyTrain lobby are squealing like stuck pigs with any hint […]

Karlsruhe

TramTrain in a cityscape. This is a picture that the city of Vancouver and the city of Vancouver Engineering Department do not want the public to see; user friendly trams. A Karlsruhe TramTrain S-41 service (Eutingen im GAi??uai??i??TullastraAYe / VBK Eutingen im GAi??u ai??i?? Freudenstadt ai??i?? Baiersbronn ai??i?? Forbach ai??i?? Rastatt ai??i?? Durmersheim ai??i?? Hauptbahnhof […]

TransLink, The City of Vancouver, and the SkyTrain Lobby Practice Lysenkoism

The SkyTrain Lobby Is Watching You! Lysenkoism: describes the manipulation or distortion of the scientific process as a way to reach a predetermined conclusion as dictated by an ideological bias, often related to social or political objectives. IgnoringAi?? the fact that the proprietary SkyTrain mini-metro system has been rejected by transit planners around the world […]

Sorry Mr. Doyle, You Are Wrong!

Sorry to say, BC’s soon to be departing Auditor General, John Doyle has got it wrong about SkyTrain and LRT capacity, but then in BC, what is true elsewhere tends not to true here. “John Doyle’s latest audit concludes SkyTrain and not light rail was the best option because of its greater capacity at similar […]

Light Rail Vehicle & Tramcar orders – 2013

The following table gives the totals for Trams/LRV’s on order + options, as at February 2013 Source Tramways & Urban Transit No 904 April 2013 Manufacturer City’s Orders Options Sub-Total Orders Pending Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? Ai?? OrdersAi?? Options Alstom Bordeaux, Dubai, Nottingham, Ottawa, Paris, Toulouse 188 91 2701 792 587 AnsaldoBreda Genoa, Firenza 68 7 […]

The Broadway Follies Part 1 – From April 2010

Going even further back in the ‘way-back machine’, here is a re-post from April 2010, concerning the Broadway Corridor. In three years nothing has changed, except for the volumes of anti-LRT rhetoric from TransLink and the City of Vancouver and the City of Vancouver’s love for subways is now revealed for all to see …. […]

The Broadway Gong Show Revisited

Back by popular demand, the Broadway gong show. Broadway Transit Follies ai??i?? TransLink Does The Gong Show ai??i?? Part 2 Posted by zweisystem on Thursday, March 31, 2011 Want to know how TransLink spends taxpayer’s hard earned money? It is easy, TransLink studies transit options for Broadway. TransLink’s Broadway “Rapid Transit” (which means metro) study […]