Troubles At TransLink?

  Is a financial embarrassment of TransLink at hand? Monday morning I dropped my wife off at a suburban bus stop to catch the express bus going to the Canada Line. The bus had no more than seven people on board. The reason she took the bus, is that we are a one car family […]

A Memo For John Horgan

The Honourable John Horgan, Premier of BC * Dear Premier Horgan, * The Covid-19 pandemic has made absolutely clear, we cannot go back to normal, as it has forever changed how people behave. Covid-19 is a prelude for great change in BC.  * Last summer’s heat dome and subsequent wild fires shows we cannot go […]

Why Canada Gets Less For More When It Comes To Building Transit

This news item explains the huge cost of metro Vancouver’s transit construction. Though the article thinks that $500 million per kilometer, for the Broadway subway is reasonable, it must remembered that the subway it is being built on a transit route that has only a fraction of the ridership deemed necessary for a subway. Much […]

A Repost From November 2018 – Mayor McCallum Has Screwed The City of Surrey

After three years, the news about rapid transit goes from bad to worse. The Expo Line extension to Langley is now costing more than the revised cost of $3.95 billion and despite much false information that the line is fully funded, it is not. The claim that Prime minister Trudeau’s Liberal government will fully fund […]

A Repost From 2019 – Here We go Again……

 A repost from Wednesday, June 19, 2019. Some things have changes since this item was posted in 2019. Alstom now owns the proprietary Movia Automatic Light Metro system, when they finalized purchasing Bombardier’s rail division earlier in the year. The estimated cost for the Langley extension is now over $3.95 billion mark and heading north […]

TramTrain For 2022

A re-post from earlier this year. With the devastation caused by this years heat dome, wild fires, tornado, atmospheric rivers, flood and of course our modern day plague, Covid, the provincial government must rethink its plans to spend over $10 billion to build less than 22 km of the SkyTrain light metro network. $10 billion […]

First Hungarian TramTrain Service Begins

Good news, the opening of the first TramTrain service in Hungary. What is largely of interest is that the TramTrain route is mainly single track with passing loops, using hybrid vehicles, built by Stadler and can operate either by electricity and diesel.There is a lot of scope for TramTrain to operate in the Fraser Valley, […]

A Repost – McCallum’s $2.9 Billion Question – From 2018 – Updated To 2021

From October 20, 2018; well its November 2022 and the cost for The Expo Line extension to Langley has now surpassed $4 billion and Zwei’s prediction has come true. SkyTrain construction is not to be started until 2028, if ever and transit for the Fraser Valley has been set back not 20 years, but 40 […]

FROM THE LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT ASSOCIATION – TRAMS ARE SYMBOLS OF CITIES

From the LRTA, the modern tram, workhorse of today’s public transit systems in over 600 cities around the world, yet noticeably missing in Metro Vancouver. Indeed, the modern tram is absent in soulless Vancouver and it is time to change this. Let’s put some soul into Vancouver; let’s plan for trams! For the Fraser Valley […]

The North Shore’s “Hobson’s Choice”.

The following was sent to all North Shore mayor and councils. PLEASE DELIVER TO MAYOR AND COUNCIL AND FIRST NATION COUNCILS   From: Rail for the Valley For the past 14 years, Rail for the Valley has advocated for the “return of the interurban” for the former Vancouver to Chilliwack BC Electric interurban line that […]