A Tale of Two Cities – The Utsunomiya LRT Versus The Shambles in Surrey

This article should give a good indication of the cost of modern light rail being built today. The proposed Utsunomiya LRT, is of course narrow gaugeAi?? and will have somewhat narrower trams, with a reduced capacity than LRT built inAi?? Canada, but it is the cost of construction which is important. The 14.6 km., 19 […]

New Jersey’s River Line

New Jersey’s River Line, using diesel light rail TramTrains, enables to provide a quality transit service on a predominantly single track rail line. The River Line could be a template for several rail services, both in metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island, track-sharing with lightly used freight lines.

Calgary’s C-Train Development & Operating Costs

First published in 2009 A note from Zwei: These costs were taken directly from Calgary Transit, which once had a fine web page giving accurate statistics about the C-Train, unlike TransLink and BC Transit, which hid the real costs in a baffle-gab of nonsense and phony news releases. One did not need a F.O.I. to […]

Over to You Mr. Cow – The Vancouver Sun’s Recent “Puff” SkyTrain Story

This comment from Mr. Cow deserves a post of its own as there is so much information here, it deserves a wider audience. As Mr. Cow is a Canadian Transit Engineer, his comments are well worth reading. When SkyTrain ‘crapped-out’ in the Summer of 2014 there were no drivers or attendants to oversee the evacuation […]

Trudeau’s Big Announcement: Big Winners – Bombardier and Bureaucrats

Ah, such a photo-op for our new PM; oh, such an announcement, but really, this just a rehash of old news releases tarted up for a photo-op so PM Trudeau can claim that BC has not been left out of the Liberals game plan of shoveling money off a back of a truck. The stumbling […]

China’s ai???Silkwormai??i?? Tram Unveiled

Our not so friendly SkyTrain Lobby would have us believe that light-metro is being built in quantity in China. Not so fast, as China’s huge city populations would demand large metro operations, not capacity constipated light-metro like our SkyTrain. At the other end of the public transit scale, China is also building tramways or light […]

A Subway To Nowhere

For a $5 billion, 12 km subway to UBC, under Broadway…. …..one could build a tram network in Vancouver and North Vancouver! Zwei been advocating for trams on Broadway since the 80’s, well more and more people are now seeing that instead of a $5 billion plus subway to UBC, one gets way more bang […]

Sorry David Suzuki, You Are Wrong

Sorry David, you are wrong. TransLink does not have a income problem, it has a spendingAi?? problem as it spends about three times more to build with the now obsolete light-metro instead of light rail. Our proprietary light-metro system also costs about 60% more to operate than comparable light rail lines. David, you and your […]

TransLink’s PR Stunt & Factbender Follies

TransLink is going to review fares. Great, I thought, they are listening to the public, who hold the ossified bureaucracy in high odor, but it was too good to be true as the minister in charge of Transit, Mr. Factbender is rehashing an old idea, create a density tax for new high rise development. But […]

Honolulu is Learning the Vancouver Lesson – Build Light-Metro At Your Financial Peril

Updated May 22, 2016 – Added CAD currency conversions. Bombardier and SNC Lavalin spent years grooming Honolulu City politicians to build with light-metro. For their efforts, Bombardier and SNC got pipped at the post by Ansaldo with their proprietary light-metro and and the now chagrined burghers of Honolulu are now finding out that proprietary light-metro […]