Liberal government caves in on road pricing

Ha, ha, ha, it seems the Liberal government hasAi??caved-in at introducing road pricing or road tolls on the region, when they realized that the introduction of road tolls/pricing, would ensure a one way trip to political oblivion. To make road pricing or road tolls work, would mean the region would have to have a viable […]

Why Is Victoria’s Proposed LRT So Expensive?

Why is Victoria’s proposed light rail so expensive? Our friendsAi??at Bring Back Our Trams in Victoria, like the Rail for the Valley folks on this side of the pond, are beginning to wonder aloud, why the proposed Victoria LRT isAi??very close to beingAi??the most expensive LRT in the world, on a per kilometre basis. What […]

Bring Back Our Trams – A New Website for Victoria Light Rail – A question About SNC

Our friends across the pond, in Victoria have a new website, Bring Back Our Trams http://www.b-bot.ca/index.htmlAi??which contains some surprising information. Zwei has wondered why the cost of a simple streetcar/LRT line would cost over $62 million/km and BBOTAi??may haveAi??supplied the answer: Canada’s favourite engineering group, SNC Lavalin did the initial cost study. Why then, would […]

Onetime Toronto subway lover transfers support to LRT

Interesting article from Toronto. When there is honest and truthful debate about modern light rail, the public willAi??generally support the mode, leaving the die hard metro/subway lobby with a very hard debate to counter, but not in Metro Vancouver. BC Transit and TransLink have always and continue to do so, deliberately misinform the public about […]

What Fools We Mortal Be – Regional Mayors Support Road Tolling

I see many civic politicians are gambling with theirAi??political futuresAi??with taxpayer’s hubrisAi??by supportingAi??road tolling. Are they mad? Evidently so, as they all seem to have collective amnesia over the HST fiasco, which saw the humiliation of just reelected Premier Gordon Campbell beingAi??chased from office. It seems tax and spend transit policies are the order of […]

Road tolls coming – welcome to tax and spend TransLink

Road tolls, the clarion call of tax and spend bureaucrats and politicians. What the boys and girls wanting road tolls or road pricing is more taxpayers money to waste on nextAi??to useless SkyTrain expansion, new posh offices, and ever higher salaries; better public transit is just an excuse, but not in the cards. For road […]

The Novice’s Guide to “Rail” Transit Or…………

…………..cutting through the BS about light rail, SkyTrain and BRT. The following is a guide plus definitions about “rail” transit for the November civic elections. ALM: Automatic Light metro, the fourthAi??marketing name given for the SkyTrain family of light-metros, when Lavalin briefly ownedAi??SkyTrain before gong bankrupt. ALRT (1): Advanced Light Rail Transit, the secondAi??marketing name […]

TransLink’s Finacial Woes

The Vancouver Province's editorial has got it partially wrong. a good part of TransLink's financial woes is that they have tied themselves to the extremely dated light-metro/SkyTrain rapid transit model which can cost over fifteen times more to build than light rail, without any operational or financial benefit! Light-metro, especially the automated (driverless) product not […]

Another letter the media ignores

Another letter from a friend of Rail for the Valley,Ai??which the mainstream media wish to ignore. HereAi??is the problem with our current financial transit debacle, very few, if any in the region understandsAi??what SkyTrain is and why the Vancouver region has it. Most politicos just repeat TransLink’s bumf ad nauseoum! SkyTrain, both the Expo and […]

BC’s TransLink taking taxpayers for a ride – North Shore News

It seems Ms. James now joins  the Georgia Straight's Charlie Smith, with her knowledge on regional transit issues and one hopes other commentators get up to speed on the subject of transit as well. Yes, TransLink and the provincial government are taking taxpayers for a ride and have done so since 1980 when the then Bill Bennett […]