Trouble at Translink – For whom the tax tolls!

Ai??Ai??Unhappy days indeedAi??Ai??with TransLink as the organization has not learned a golden rule; that if you build metro on routes that do not have the ridership to sustain them, costly subsidies must be paid. When costly subsidies are paid, there is less money available to be invested in the transit system. Ai??Ai??Rail for the Valley […]

A Great Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth from the SkyTrain lobby – The ignored SkyTrain Subsidy

In 1993, the GVRD (now Metro) and Transport 2021, publishedAi??Ai??the study, “The Cost of Transporting People in the BC Lower Mainland” and for the first time the annual SkyTrain subsidy was mentioned. In 1991, SkyTrain was subsidized to the tune of$157.6 million, more than half of the total subsidyAi??Ai??paid forAi??Ai??public transit in the Lower Mainland. […]

VA?Ai??hicule Automatique LA?Ai??ger or VAL – SkyTrain’s real competition!

SkyTrainAi??Ai??is not in a class of its own, despite first being marketed as ICTS or Intermediate Capacity Transit System, which was more a marketing nameAi??Ai??not a transitAi??Ai??mode. SkyTrainAi??Ai??is a light-metro andAi??Ai??though SkyTrainAi??Ai??initially competed against light rail,Ai??Ai??it was soon found that SkyTrain could only compete againstAi??Ai??other light-metros that were being marketed for the modal niche. Only […]

A press Release from the Light Rail Transit Association – Rail for the Valley asks: What is more ‘Green’, a multi lane highway or the interurban?

Ai??Ai??Zweisystem includes this news release from Tram Forward & the LRTA because our provincial and federal politicians are taking the same path,Ai??Ai??pretending they are ‘Green‘ by building expensive ‘show-case’ metro systems, but fail to show any real interest in funding affordable and sustainable light rail in the province and country. In BC it is far […]

A letter to the Editor the Vancouver Sun will not print

The following letter to the Editor of the Vancouver SunAi??Ai??was sent to Zweisystem because the author knows full well that the Can West media Empire will not print it. What this letter shows that the region is bereft of any credible transit and transportation reporters and many important and embarrassing stories are missed by the […]

L.A. Times Columnist: American trains and transit will always suck. – Well if US trains & transit suck, god help Canada’s trains & transit!

The following is from The Infrastructurist http://www.infrastructurist.com/about/ Ai?? YesterdayA?ai??i??ai???s dispatch from LA Times business writer David Lazarus has a great lede: A?ai??i??Ai??ItA?ai??i??ai???s hard to appreciate how truly pitiful our public transportation system is until you spend some time with a system that works.A?ai??i??A? Many of us know that feeling. Then he gushes about the consistently […]

TramTrain study for York, in the U.K. – How long until we have a TramTrain study for the Fraser Valley?

Though the following is from 2008, it again shows the feasibility of the TramTrain concept is gaining wide acceptance with transit planners. And why should it not, when compared to more expensive, yet less flexibleAi??Ai??rail options. If the ongoing ‘transit study’ currently being done for transit optionsAi??Ai??in the Fraser Valley, doesn’t include TramTrain, it will […]

How other countries see light rail and appraise light rail investments? From the Light Rail Transit Association

Article from the March 1999 edition of Tramways & Urban Transit As anyone involved in a British light rail scheme knows, the appraisal system is rigorous and, many feel, fatally flawed, oriented as it is to short term and financial criteria rather than a properly broad social cost-benefit analysis. It is now also heavily influenced […]

NEWS FLASH – Province launches review of BC Ferries and TransLink – From News 1130

Of course the province and Transportation Minister, Shirley Bond will not look at the real reasons of Translink’s financial problems: building light-metro (RAV & SkyTrain) on routes that do not have the ridership to sustain them. It seems the newly announced combined GST/PST (now known as HST) and potential massive new TransLink taxes and auto […]

B.C. Rail, C.N. Rail & Gordon Campbell – Why it is important for ‘Rail for the Valley’ to understand the current situation.

The following item on David Berner’s blog…… http://thebernermonologues.blogspot.com/2009/07/really-big-smell.html ……is well worth a read, to understand the politics of TRIANGULATION, including Mr. Campbell, his family and the hierarchy of CN Rail. It seems that the Premier regards ‘rail’ transit issues as a political plum, for his own amusement, phony environmental claims and multi billion dollar reelection […]