As Preddicted, Major Switch Replacement Begins.

Mr. Cow has been bang on with his predictions of the growing cost of SkyTrain light metro expansion and the following news item certainly shows the ongoing expensive problems TransLink faces. Replacing two switches should take a weekend at most, but these are new high-speed switches, which needs a lot of engineering done to the […]

Flexibility To Fight Climate Change

Flexibility is the key in today’s transit planning. More and more, freight that used to be carried on railways, then switched to heavily subsidized trucks on heavily subsidized highways, is now goring back to the railways. Ignoring Global Warming and climate change is a fools game, played by civic, provincial and federal politicians to the […]

World’s Greatest Public Transit Systems

From Shanghai to Stockholm, these are the world’s greatest public transportation systems – as voted by the people who use them every day 1. Berlin – Metro pop. – 6.1 mil. [Trams] (Metro) 2. Prague – Metro pop. – 2.7 mil. [Trams] (Metro) 3. Tokyo – Metro pop. – 40.7 mil. [Trams] (subway) 4. Copenhagen […]

Toronoto’s King Street 504 Streetcar

As mentioned before, the King Street A&B Streetcar routes carries more customers than the Broadway B Line bus. 99 B 35,800 Boarding’s (Fall 2022) King 504 A&B Streetcar: 48,900 Boarding’s (Fall 2022) Well let’s have a look at the King Streetcar route.        

After $30 Billion is Spent on SkyTrain – Metro Vancouver 2nd Spot For Worst Traffic

It is the old story, spend $billions$ dollars spent on SkyTrain light metro and traffic gets worse. Memo to Premier Eby and TransLink: ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.’” Metro Vancouver takes 2nd spot for worst metro traffic in North America: TomTom By Charlie Carey and Robyn […]

Regional Mayors Want A new Funding Model, Instead They Need A New Planning Model

It seems our regional mayors have been smoking some good weed because they want $20 billion for transit and playing the old gambit that transit is really a Social Service, a human right. That sort of thinking has gotten us where we are today: a massively expensive transit system that does not attract new ridership, […]

Switzerland’s Newest Tramway – From the Light Rail Transit Association

Interesting news from Switzerland. I have reprinted this story from the LRTA’s February’s issue Light Rail and Urban Transport to illustrate the cost of a modern European style tramway (LRT). The 13.4 km Limmattalbahn cost €607 million or CAD $884 million or about $65 million a kilometre to build! Compare this with $4.6 t0 $5 […]

Vested Interests

Vested interests: Reason for involvement in an undertaking or situation, especially an expectation of financial or other gain. Vested interests is the real reason for transit planning in metro Vancouver. It is also the reason why the SkyTrain Lobby is so powerful because they are the useful idiots of vested interests. Harsh words indeed. Despite […]

TramTrain – Success Ignored

Rail for the Valley’s goal is the reintroduction of a modern Vancouver to Chilliwack interurban service, using the former and still in use, BC Electric route. This route would provide good rail communication for Vancouver, Cloverdale, Langley, Abbotsford, the burgeoning communities of Vedder/Sardis and finally Chilliwack, with regularly scheduled regional rail service. 15 years ago […]

Doing The Same Thing Over Again Just Will Not Work

After receiving a number of abusive amount of Emails about the post (all deleted), has indicated to me that most people do not have a firm grounding in modern public transport philosophy, nor a good knowledge of provincial finances. Most forget, that in the end, both LRT and light metro are trains and there is […]