Helsinki’s New Jokeri LRT Opens Early And $19 Million Under Budget

Europe’s newest light rail line just opened and our local tax hungry politicians and bureaucrats should take note! Broadway subway – $2.7 billion for 5.7 km. (not including vehicles, electrical/signalling upgrades) Proposed Expo line Extension to Langley – Almost $5 billion for 16 km. (not including vehicles,  electrical/signalling upgrades) Helsinki’s Jokeri Line, including vehicles – […]

10 Questions

I do not have the answers to these questions or rather I may know the answers but with libel and slander laws the way they are, I will not offer an opinion. Why do TransLink and the Mayor’s council on Transit still continue planning for the obsolete Movia Automatic Light Metro system (A.K.A. SkyTrain), when […]

Why Not TramTrain?

Why not TramTrain? The genesis of this blog was to advocate and support reintroducing a passenger rail service from Vancouver to Chilliwack and after 13 years since the release of the Leewood Study, which created a template for such a service, the need today is greater than it has ever been. As the upper Fraser […]

Why Light Rail?

Why Light rail? This question has been asked over and over again by those who only know our MALM (SkyTrain) light-metro system. After 40 years of non stop rah-rah, propaganda by the federal and provincial governments, civic governments and bureaucracies; and the various groups made up of, what I call, the “SkyTrain Lobby”, Light-Rail, locally […]

Zwei Sends A Letter

I will send the following letter to all municipal and provincial politicians in November  and it will be ignored, as usual. This does not surprise me because our current lot don’t want to acknowledge the truth, lest they be embarrassed by past politically inspired decisions. Six figured salaried planners and engineers are merely telling politicians […]

Single Track Operation & Level Crossings – Dutch Style

  Some of the detractors of Rail for the Valley’s TramTrain or light DMU line from Marpole to Chilliwack cite that only one train can operate on the line at one time. With properly placed passing loops, preferably at stations, trains can be safely operated going in both directions on a single line. this due […]

Back To Basics

What is light rail? LRT is a transportation system based on electrically powered light rail vehicles (LRV) that operates on a track in a dedicated right-of-way (meaning separated lanes). It is the operating on dedicated or “reserved rights-of-ways that makes a simple streetcar or tram light rail! many simple streetcar or tram systems have sections […]

Adding More Highway Capacity Only Increases Congestion And Gridlock

Where will the new traffic go? You cannot build yourself out of congestion, as it never works. A good example is Boise Idaho, where between 1993 and 2017, roads expanded 141 percent while population grew 117 percent. But congestion increased 446 percent. The previous example is what is happening across the united States and Canada. […]

How The NDP Paved Paradise and Turned It Into a Parking Lot. A Repost From 2020

This is a repost of a November 2020 blog post. The estimated cost for a 21.7 km extension of the Millennium Line (Broadway subway) and the Expo Line (Surrey – Langley extension) is now past $11 billion. The NDP are setting in motion a highway’s only planning for the future, doubling down on BC’s famous […]

Vancouver Will Need To Adopt Lower-Cost LRT In Its Lesser Corridors – Updated

The consensus is the same, Metro Vancouver will need to adopt lower-cost LRT for its future transit needs. This was first posted in 2019 and the costs and the financial numbers have changed somewhat. Currently, the province and metro Vancouver is spending over $11 billion for 21.7 km of new light-metro line, including the Broadway […]