Regional Politicos Play Russian Roulette With the Province

The regional cities and municipalities are digging the financial spurs into the province to come up with a new TransLink deal, the problem is, the province may go along with this and let the regional mayors hoist themselves on their own petard and let the regional mayors decide how to pay for major regional transit […]

Letters to the Editor: Daryl versus Malcolm

Tit for tat department. Last Thursday SkyTrain lobbyist Daryl Dela Cruz had the following letter printed in the Surrey Leader. An elevated metro station, as envisioned by Mr. Dela Cruz. Expensive to build and to maintain which translates into higher operating costs. Light railai??i??s downsides Published: May 15, 2013Re: ai???Letai??i??s not get soaked by poorly […]

A Comparrison Of Operating Costs – SkyTrain & Light Rail

The late Des Turner was meticulous with his research with the SkyTrain light metro system and in 1988, embarrassed the then Social Credit Government to release the real costs of the mini-metro. What is more interesting is comparing the operating costs of the Calgary C-Train light rail and SkyTrain. Thought the operating costs are a […]

New Surrey coalition to push for light-rail transit south of the Fraser

Ai??Dianne Watts gets it, but Daryl Dela Cruz doesn’t. Rail for the Valley gets it, but TransLink doesn’t. The rest of the world gets it, but the SkyTrain lobby doesn’t. Financial managers in most major cities around the world gets it, but BC’s Auditor General doesn’t. Isn’t interesting that while the rest of the world […]

Regional Transportation and the Provincial Election – The NDP’s & BC Liberal’s Dirty Little Secret

What has been ignored by both major political parties, vying for the electorate’s vote, is the thorny question of regional transportation and TransLink. In fact the silence has been deafening. It seems both the NDP and the BC Liberals have bought into the TransLink and SkyTrain Lobby’s ‘kool-ade‘ that the region needs to come up […]

A switch problem causes rush hour chaos on the Canada Line

A switch problem caused rush hour chaos on the Canada Line Thursday night, but not reported that if a switch fails on a LRT/tram line, the problem is local and can be dealt by locally by a (in the English vernacular) a temporary ‘pointsman’. The failed switch can be operated manually, until it can be […]

Power rail problem halts SkyTrain service in New Westminster

As metro lines age, maintenance problems come into the fore. With automatic or driverless transit systems, this means complete shutdowns of sections of track or an entire route. Last night, a reported failure of the power rail caused chaos all Thursday night for transit customers. Failures do happen, but a failure of a power rail […]

A Tale of Two Letters

Two letters to the Vancouver Province newspaper have found their way into Zwei’s inbox. TransLink is broken, probably broken beyond repair and no political candidate has the moral jam to state the obvious. “Throw more money at TransLink, that’s the ticket for improving our regional transit system” is the clarion call of prospective MLA wannabees, […]

A Question of Capacity – A Transit Primer For BC’s Auditor General

A Question of Capacity ai??i?? A LRTA Topic Sheet Contrary to the COV and TransLink, modern LRT can obtain high capacities, on transit routes, by being able to operate at close headways.Ai??Today, the main tram route through the city is being relocated in a subway because the line was seeing 45 second headways during peak […]

Referendum New Transit funding For TransLink – BC Liberal Election Platform

Interesting, election gimmick from the BC Liberals which just may resonate with the regional taxpayer. For 33 years, the regional taxpayer has been shut out of the regional transit debate, but expected to shell out serious coin for mega transit projects without question. Already the SkyTrain lobby are squealing like stuck pigs with any hint […]