The Ignorance Of Light Rail Knows No Bounds – Distinctly In Vancouver

It is sad that anti-tram journalist, Francis Bula, writes such tawdry articles about transit and by doing so, demonstrates that she does little or no research and repeats the anti-tram myth. Citing Jarret Walker as a renowned transit expert is stretching it a bit, as he is a bloggist, catering to the anti-tram crowd. He […]

King Street Welcomes Toronto to the 21st Century

Toronto’s King Street experiment, bringing 21st century tram philosophy to Toronto and has opened a great many eyes. What has happened is simple, on portions of King Street, the streetcar has been turned into light rail at very little cost. There is no war on the car, rather priority has been given to transit customers […]

The Driverless Car – Much Ado About Nothing

For those who think the driverless car will usher in the demise if “rail” transit, think again. Quote: “A growing number of metro regions, including the Bay Area, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Atlanta, and Toronto, have now reached the physical point where the car is no longer an effective technology for moving […]

Toronto’s King Street – A Template For Broadway?

The European light rail Renaissance in Toronto seems to be successful. Active traffic calming will both improve transit service, while at the same time pull more people to transit, a lesson that TansLink and Vancouver traffic engineers refuses to learn. Putting transit underground, may make local improvements, but the high costs hurts transit operations elsewhere. […]

A Broadway Tram – Under $5 Million Per Kilometre To Build!

What is the cost for light rail? In Budapest, Hungary, aAi?? 1Ai??7Ai??km extension of Budapest tram Route 1, will cost HF8Ai??6bn. Wow! 8.6 billion Hungarian Florints to build? But wait, HUF 8.6 billion, converts to CAD $7,690,959! What is more, the 1.7 km extension is costing CAD $4,524,093 per kilometre to build. I know, that […]

Hawthorne Park – Premier Horgan, Are You Listening?

Surrey’s Hawthorne Park debacle clearly illustrates that something is wrong with our regional transit planning. Modern light rail transit, is a proven mode of public transportation that has an envious record in attracting the motorist from the car; a record that the proprietary light-metro, which we call SkyTrain, does not and why only seven SkyTrain […]

Metro Madness – FastFerry Fiasco 2

Vancouver wants subways and nothing else. Vancouver wants the region to pay for those subways. Vancouver’s pet SkyTrain subway, just to Arbutus Street, may cost upwards of $4 billion. Vancouver’s pet SkyTrain subway will use the now obsolete ALRT/ART proprietary railway, jointly owned by Bombardier Inc. and SNC Lavalin. Vancouver’s pet SkyTrain subway will have […]

Welcome To The World Of Congestion Folks!

This should not be news but it is, congestion has returned to the Port Mann Bridge With tolls, traffic and gridlock was just moved to the Patullo and Alex Fraser Bridges and the Massey Tunnel, but with the tolls eliminated, traffic pasterns are getting back to usual. Welcome to the commuting world brought to you […]

La renaissance du tramway en France

Tours The French (Tram) Renaissance is amazing! 17 brand-new systems opened since 2000. A single line in Montpellier, line T1, carriess over 130,000 weekday riders! And thatai??i??s with no tunnels, mostly street running. Systems in Nantes, Bordeaux and Montpellier have ridership at or near 260,000 riders a day! That exceeds Boston. The French do it […]

Alstom, Siemens Rail-Merger – Is SkyTrain going The Way Of The Edsel?

This could be game changer for Bombardier’s rail division and a big game changer for transit planning in Metro Vancouver. If the Siemens and Alstom merger goes through, it could mean those expensive ART, monorail, and other proprietary transit modes currently marketed by Bombardier Inc. may be chopped from production as a newAi?? “rail” reality […]