Olympic Hubris – Will The Wrong Conclusions Be Made By Our Planning & Political Elites?

In the last days of the 2010 Olympics, much has been made about how well our transportation worked during the event. What has been overlooked is that for the two week extravaganza, Vancouver had much warmer seasonal weather, meaning noAi??Ai??snow to stall the SkyTrain metro and make a shambles out of the bus schedules. Added […]

All Party Parliamentary Light Rail Group (APPLRG) report – Should we do the same in BC?

Some interesting news from across the pond. Urban transit development in the UK has been hamstrung by a very powerful and vocal ‘Roads Lobby’, within the central government (not unlike the SkyTrain Lobby in Victoria), which has all but stopped light rail development in the UK. In an era of peak oil and global warming, […]

Light-rail ‘vision’ elevated track would run along I-405 – From the Seattle Times

It seems the hoary old elevated, tunnel, or at-grade debate continues in Bellevue Washington, which is across the lake from Seattle. The success of LRT is to be able to penetrate into city centres cheaply, on-street, where the transit customer wants to go, which is something that a certain rookie Bellevue councilor doesn’t want to […]

Commuters haven’t left their cars at home…yet (Surprise, Surprise!)

When one constructs a transit system so user-unfriendly that the vast majority of the public avoid it at all costs, can there be any surprise that the public will continue to avoid public transit, even during the Olympics with its many road closures? Early advertisements that there will be two hour waits at SkyTrain stations […]

Density shouldnA?ai??i??ai???t be Cambie corridor focus, prof says – From the Georgia Straight.

Ai??Ai?? Since the province and BC Transit and TransLink embarked on light-metro only construction in the region 30 years ago, the public have been told over and over again that higher densities were a must. Made redundant industrial lands (made redundant by municipal politicians rezoning land) were rezonedAi??Ai??to higher density residentialAi??Ai??housing along the Expo Line […]

Money too tight for barriers to be installed at SkyTrain Stations – From Radio News 1130

There seems to be plenty of money for fare-gates to be retrofitted to all SkyTrain Stations, which will do little if anything to make the metro safer or deter fare evasion, yet there is no money station gates (like we have with SeaBus) which are proven to prevent egress onto metro track. It seems what […]

Bored Subway Tunnels – Are They Problem Free? Will a Broadway SkyTrain subway be Another Cambie St. Fiasco?

The SkyTrain Lobby andAi??Ai??many Vancouver politicians are claiming that a Broadway subway tunnel will be bored in stead of cut-and-cover, eliminating the many problems caused to those living or have businesses adjacent to the subway route, thus eliminatingAi??Ai??protracted litigation forAi??Ai??compensation. The problem of course is aAi??Ai??bored tunneling causes it own set of problems and may […]

Battle looming between Vancouver and other regions over priority of rapid transit – From News 1130 Radio

Ai?? As expected, the Broadway UBC rapid transit project has gained prominence in the past few weeks and the SkyTrain lobby has taken to the blogosphere to spread “SkyTrain Speak.” SkyTrain Speak, is the myth and propaganda created by the SkyTrain lobby to further the causeAi??Ai?? promoting further construction of the obsolete proprietary light metro. […]

Will legal woes derail TransLink?

The merchants along Cambie Street were treated extremely badly by everyone involved with the RAV/Canada metro line subway construction project. Now, with Ms. Heyes winning a $600,000.00 lawsuit against TransLink, the legalAi??Ai??floodgates have been opened for other merchants negatively affected by the RAV/Canada Line cut and cover subway construction to sue TransLink. The sad part […]

Another Gadgetbahnen Bites the Dust – Las Vegas Monorail Files for Bankruptcy

This news is not surprising and well illustrates the nonsense pandered by the light-metro lobby that grade separated, automatic transit systems themselves attract ridership. Monorails are in fact proprietary light-metros and once one invest with monorail, it is stuck with both monorail and the supplier, which is very bad for future transit planning, with Vancouver […]