A Press Release From The Light Rail Transit Association

Ai?? The following press release from the LRTA is their response to the UK Ai??Ai??All Party Parliamentary Light Rail Group, regarding LRT which ‘Zwei’ commented on earlier in the week. http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/all-party-parliamentary-light-rail-group-applrg-report-should-we-do-the-same-in-bc/   PRES S RELEASE FROM Ai??Ai?? TramForward 25 February 2010 Ai??Ai??   TramForwardAi??Ai??Ai??Ai??welcomes publication of Light Rail and the City regions Report TramForward welcomes […]

Note to TransLink: Toronto’s Streetcars operate 24/7

A post from confirms what Zweisystem already knew, many streetcar/LRT systems operate twenty-four hours a day! Here we have an excellent example of the flexibility of modern LRT. 501 Queen and 506 Carlton. The routes are numbered 301 and 306 at night. From Wikipedia: The Blue Night Network is the overnight public transit service operated […]

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, […]

Olympic Line Update: Olympic Line street car resumes service after collision

The Olympic Line is back to full operation after Friday night’s fender bender. IndicationsAi??Ai??are, that the motorist ignored light signals and drove in front of the tram. The Olympic Line is not a new line, rather it is Vancouver’s Historic Streetcar line, which has seen operation along the same route for years. There should be […]

Car Crashes close the Olympic Line and Highway 17.

Ai??Ai?? The inevitable has happened,Ai??Ai??a car crash at a light controlled intersectionAi??Ai??at 11: 30 on Friday night, closed the Olympic Line. From the Vancouver sun: VANCOUVER – An Olympic Line streetcar collided with a vehicle at Moberly Road and Sixth Avenue in False Creek just before 11:30 p.m. Friday night. Police officers and fire trucks […]

Hamilton Looks to Europe for Light Rail Plans – How About Vancouver?

The good Burghers in Hamilton have realized that it isn’t the amount of money you spend on transit, rather how you plan andAi??Ai??build rail transit, that makes it successful. This is a lesson that BC politicians and TransLink fail to acknowledge and continue to plan for expensive light metro. The Canada line is a good […]

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 […]

A Tram in the Black Forest

This U-Tube of a Karlsruhe TramTrain, goingAi??Ai??about its businessAi??Ai??in Germany’s Black Forest certainly makes a mockery of the ‘needAi??Ai??for density’ claim by those opposing the Fraser Valley interurban. By utilizing existing railway infrastructure, LRT can penetrate into unpopulated areas very cheaply, thus creating a larger tram network, as well servicing far flung transit destinations. Karlsruhe’s […]

The (AVG) Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft GmbH- Karlsruhe’s longest tramtrain route – S4

The AVG’s longest run is now a 210km (130 mile) S4 service from A?ai??i??hringen through central Karlsruhe to Achern, south-west of Baden-Baden. The TramTrain route uses DB mainlines, regional railway lines and on-street running in various cities. The above map gives the various routes of Karlsruhe’s famous TramTrain network;Ai??Ai??largely in an area of comparable density […]

Of Transit, Funding, TramTrain, and a Sustainable Future.

Zwei first met Brendan Read in 1986, while traveling to Abbotsford on the BR Pacer unit that ran three return service to New Westminster each day during the Expo 86 Worlds Fair. It was during this trip that the idea of the “return of the interurban” was conceived. It was all there, track, vehicle(s), and […]