User-Friendliness – The Key For Ridership

Interesting, that an Alberta University is doing a study about how Covid affects transit use. All we hear from TransLink is yesterday’s ridership records, which were mainly for “subway propaganda” than anything else. TransLink’s ridership claims are based on boarding’s and as boarding’s inflate actual ridership numbers, means ridership assumptions and predictions are inflated and […]

And Then There Were Six

Despite the hype and hoopla of regional mayors, five very important facts about our SkyTrain light metro system are glossed over in Metro Vancouver, by metro mayors, bureaucrats and transportation planners: The Expo and Millennium Lines operate a dated proprietary railway, now called Movia Automatic Light Metro. Only seven of these proprietary railways were sold […]

Alstom-Bombardier Deal to Complete in January

This is big news as Bombardier is the sole supplier of the proprietary, linear induction motor powered Movia Automatic Light Metro system used on the Expo and Millennium Lines. Alstom may or may not continue the production of the now stale dated Movia Light Metro and give notice to its customers that they will wind […]

Floundering Public Transit and the Resurrection of the Car.

An interesting read. TransLink, the Mayor’s Council on Transit and the provincial government should take serious note of the following, but they won’t. Riding in their cars, subsidized by generous car allowances and more, politicians remain oblivious to current issues and pretend nothing has happened. For politicians it is “Do as I say, not as […]

Light Metro Fiasco In Honolulu

Light-metro, a 1970’s solution for a 1950’s transit problems and made obsolete by light rail by the early 90’s. Why oh why do politicians love gadgetbahnen. The total cost of Honolulu’s 20-mile (32 km) rail line and 21 stations is $9.862 billion. If the add-ons approved by the board Friday are included in the final […]

Mobility Pricing – The Rapture of Megaprojects

The first rule of mobility pricing is: One must have an affordable and user friendly public transit alternative. Metro Vancouver doesn’t, nor is planning for one. Instead metro Vancouver is planning for politically prestigious mega transit projects and like all megaprojects, they cost a lot of money and government, whether it be civic, provincial or […]

TransLink Underestimated Capacity Of LRT By 150% And The Time Penalty By Infinity

It verifies what we all knew: that TransLink underestimated the capacity of surface rail by 150% and the time penalty by infinity. Professor Patrick M. Condon, James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Livable Environments, UBC Yes we all knew; American Transportation Expert, Gerald Fox told us in 2008: The Evergreen Line Report made me curious […]

Quebec Follows The Vancouver Model Of Transit Planning

The Vancouver Model Of Transit Planning: If you build with light-metro, make damn sure you don’t build LRT anywhere near it In Quebec, Montreal’s REM Lobby, including the Caisse and city, provincial and federal politicians could not afford to have LRT interfere with their light metro propaganda campaign and made sure Quebec City’s $3.3 billion […]

How The NDP Paved Paradise and Turned It Into a Parking Lot.

The NDP’s refusal to give Metro Vancouver’s transit planning an independent review has condemned the region to congestion and gridlock for generations. The billions of dollars spent on rapid transit and the future billions of dollars to be spent expanding rapid transit has and will utterly fail to attract the driver from his/her cars. The […]

And Now, Back To The Real Storey

  The election is over and promises have been made and the winners and the winners the SkyTrain Lobby. Premier Horgan has promised billions of dollars to extend then Expo Line to Langley and with a hint, beyond. The Broadway Subway, now refereed by many as the BS Line is first in line for a […]