A Must Read For Regional Mayors Before They Talk Transit Funding!

SinceAi??Ai??the spring of 2008, the Light Rail Committee has circulated an E-Mail sent by American transit and transportation expert, Gerald Fox to a Victoria transit group that wants to promote LRT and TramTrain in the Capital Region. Mr. Fox easily shreds TransLink’s business case for the Evergreen Line which shouldAi??Ai??forewarn transit groups and regional politiciansAi??Ai??in […]

Mayors, Premier and Transportation Minister to meet next week – The Blind Leading the Blind

Talk about the blind leading the blind. BC Transportation Minister, Shirley Bond (who knows little or nothing about transit), the besieged premier (who knows that building glitzy metro lines buys votes), and regional mayors (who are equally unread on transit) are going to have a private meeting regarding TransLink’s ongoing financial crisis. The first hing […]

Toronto’s Transit Follies – It Must Be Election Time!

Vancouver is not the only Canadian City to suffer political silliness before election time, asAi??Ai??regional councilAi??Ai??candidates are all tabling their transportation plans, if elected. The subway lobby is preaching their gospel of underground railways to everywhere, but come up short on how to pay for such extravagance. It seems like TransLink’s grand SkyTrain plansAi??Ai??most of […]

The SkyTrain Lobby – Just The Usual Suspects!

Transit again is making front page news in the dailies and regional newspapers, with TransLink claiming that the next big rapid transit (read SkyTrain) line will be in Surrey, not Broadway. A few international transit blogs have picked up the storyAi??Ai??with the usual suspects singing hosannas about SkyTrain, while in the same breathe libeling anyone […]

Metro Vancouver pushes rapid transit for Surrey, not UBC – Why Not Build Both?

It seems that thatAi??Ai??METRO Vancouver’sAi??Ai??chief honcho wants to extend ‘rapid transit’ (read SkyTrain) in Surrey and not on Broadway. But don’t hold your breathe for any action anytime soon. The Tri-Cities have been waiting for their ‘rapid transit’ (read SkyTrain) for over two decades and were pipped at the post by Premier Campbell (and former […]

500 Posts – The story so far……………..

Todays post, marks the five hundredth post on the Rail for The Valley blog and today I want to reflect on the main themes that keep out transit debates going. The Canada line Again, anotherAi??Ai??major Canada Line storyAi??Ai??by the Vancouver Province news paper…. http://www.theprovince.com/business/Canada+Line+year+later+Next+stop+construction+controversy/3400752/story.html -and I wonder why the Vancouver Province keeps writing ‘puff’ stories […]

Come On Now Mainstream Media, Why All The Hype And Hoopla Over The Canada Line?

In the past week, the mainstream media have been singing loud hosannas about the success of the Canada Line, how it is surpassing ridership projections and all is happiness. What the MSM failed toAi??Ai??mention is thatAi??Ai??over 80% of the total trips on the RAV/Canada line have come from about 40,000 or so bus riders who […]

View obscured from ivory tower – From the Chilliwack times.

The Light Rail Committee has been advocating TramTrain for the Fraser Valley since the mid 90’s, hopefully some positive news will be forthcoming soon! Sadly, in an age of financial frugality, regional and provincial transit planners still plan for hugely expensive metro and SkyTrain systems, yet with little or no method to pay for them. […]

Late Friday Night’s Musings For Saturday Reading

Zwei, with a cup of tea in hand, has been reading the various transit blogs and answering emailsAi??Ai??from interested parties around the world, trying to get a read onAi??Ai??what direction public transit is going in the near and not so near future. Sadly, I see a trend in North America towards supporting building hugely expensive […]

If Cambie Street grows as hoped, City of Vancouver will lose big bucks – From The Vancouver Sun

As stated before many times, rapid transit development in Vancouver, especially the Millennium and RAV/Canada Lines, has been about development and not moving people. The hype and hoopla of TransLink and the mainstream media that the Canada Line is carrying 94,000 riders a day ignores the fact that all except about 10% of the Canada […]