World’s Greatest Public Transit Systems

From Shanghai to Stockholm, these are the world’s greatest public transportation systems – as voted by the people who use them every day 1. Berlin – Metro pop. – 6.1 mil. [Trams] (Metro) 2. Prague – Metro pop. – 2.7 mil. [Trams] (Metro) 3. Tokyo – Metro pop. – 40.7 mil. [Trams] (subway) 4. Copenhagen […]

Why TransLink Can’t Be Honest? A Repost From March 2017

Six years later, not much has changed. Thales has signed a $1.47 billion contract for re-signalling the Expo and Millennium Lines but with capacity only increasing by 2,500 pphpd to 17,500 pphph for the Expo Line and for an astonishing increased maximum capacity of only 7,500 pphpd for the Millennium Line. A maximum capacity of […]

Businesses Close Along the Broadway Subway Route – What the Public is Not Told

If anyone believes that the government did not know that subway construction was going to negatively impact businesses along its route, I have shares in the Lions Gate Bridge to sell you. Both the provincial government and the City of Vancouver have selective amnesia with subway construction as the ills associated with the Canada Line […]

After $30 Billion is Spent on SkyTrain – Metro Vancouver 2nd Spot For Worst Traffic

It is the old story, spend $billions$ dollars spent on SkyTrain light metro and traffic gets worse. Memo to Premier Eby and TransLink: ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.’” Metro Vancouver takes 2nd spot for worst metro traffic in North America: TomTom By Charlie Carey and Robyn […]

The Coward’s Way Out

Insanity Is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over Again and Expecting Different Results The preceding quote, often misattributed to Einstein, conveys the huge financial issues facing TransLink. The provincial government’s bailout of TransLink, to a tune of $479 million, is nothing more than per-election politics as a financially floundering TransLink, does make good politics […]

Canada Line Deja Vu

Subways tend to cause ground subsidence and when two two cylindrical tunnel boring machines (TBMs), six metres wide and weighing around a million kilograms, gnaws away underground, subsidence will occur. Memo to Rob Fleming, Minister of Transportation: It is not vibrations you should be worried about, it is subsidence as the tunnel boring machine chews […]

Metro Vancouver’s Metro Mania

The following article is eerily familiar with TransLink’s continued building of light metro, especially subway construction. In Australia the state of New south Wales is spending AUD $11 billion (CAD $10.1 billion to build 23 km of rail line that will not generate the ridership that would demand such an expenditure, while Metro Vancouver is […]

Regional Mayors Want A new Funding Model, Instead They Need A New Planning Model

It seems our regional mayors have been smoking some good weed because they want $20 billion for transit and playing the old gambit that transit is really a Social Service, a human right. That sort of thinking has gotten us where we are today: a massively expensive transit system that does not attract new ridership, […]

Switzerland’s Newest Tramway – From the Light Rail Transit Association

Interesting news from Switzerland. I have reprinted this story from the LRTA’s February’s issue Light Rail and Urban Transport to illustrate the cost of a modern European style tramway (LRT). The 13.4 km Limmattalbahn cost €607 million or CAD $884 million or about $65 million a kilometre to build! Compare this with $4.6 t0 $5 […]

Vested Interests

Vested interests: Reason for involvement in an undertaking or situation, especially an expectation of financial or other gain. Vested interests is the real reason for transit planning in metro Vancouver. It is also the reason why the SkyTrain Lobby is so powerful because they are the useful idiots of vested interests. Harsh words indeed. Despite […]