And You Thought Busways Were Cheap – Not in Brisbane Australia

Wow, who said that Bus Rapid Transit is cheap? The cost of Brisbane’s new one kilometreAi??busway is almost the cost of the 98 km. Rail for the Valley/Leewood diesel TramTrain line from Scott Road Station to Chilliwack! The moral of this story is, when TransLink and politicans promise BRT, do they really know what it […]

Towards financially sustainable mass transit systems

 The following was posted to the Light Rail Transit Association's blog and will be well worth a read!   Professor David Levinson http://tinyurl.com/3rl2o68 Human Transit: http://tinyurl.com/3ghdevt response http://tinyurl.com/3f2pfr4 The Transport Politic: http://tinyurl.com/3dj9kp2 response http://tinyurl.com/3zqqqz6 2nd Ave. Sagas: http://tinyurl.com/3stumfs response http://tinyurl.com/3c2gagx Streetsblog.net: http://tinyurl.com/3lfaaxw Enviro Boys: http://tinyurl.com/3b7ltb9 Pedestrian Observations http://tinyurl.com/3d949f6  

Autumn in Budapest

The Cardinal has recently returned from a short holiday in Budapest, Hungary. Budapest is a walking city and theSeptember weather makes it ideal to wander around on foot with many cozy cafAi??s and restaurants offering their retreat if needed when temperatures cool down. With over 100 museums and galleries the city also offers many indoor […]

A Light Rail renaissance

The government has set out its intention to trigger a light rail renaissance in the UK and while specialists welcome the move some are concerned about costs http://www.guardian.co.uk/public-leaders-network/2011/sep/23/light-rail-renaissance?newsfeed=true Nick Appleyard Guardian Professional, Friday 23 September 2011 00.50 BST Major cities such as Leeds and Bristol are missing out by not having either a tram or […]

Vancouver mayoralty candidate Susan Anton serious about streetcars!

Interesting and welcome news from Vancouver where right leaning mayoralty candidate, Susan Anton, is endorsing streetcars for Vancouver. Vancouver’sAi??current streetcar planning is extremely amateur, and what can one expect from a city, whose engineering departments have been so anti LRT! I do not think a private consortium will step forward to fund the current inept […]

Streetcars out for the North Shore, in for Vancouver!

Interesting local news about implementing a modern streetcar line in the greater Vancouver region. Modern trams are not as expensive as one would think as the following shows, but if TransLink is involved, the cost of a new tram/streetcar would be at almost ten times more! On October 11, 2006 he Spanish town of Véléz […]

The Depeartment of Transport in the UK releases a positive report about LRT.

Modern LRT in Strassburg France, operating on a lawned (grassed) reserved rights-of-ways Just released, a positive report from the Department for Transport for light rail in the UK. http://www.dft.gov.uk/publications/green-light-for-light-rail Report: Green light for light rail (PDF – 561 KB)

As reality hits, the taxpayer will get hit harder!

Well, lots of news about SkyTrain and how it's getting older and whole lot of money must be spent to refurbish the metro system. Well, hasn't TransLink planned for this or do they just think that the taxpayer will shell out more money to keep the aging behemoth running. All transit systems age and transit […]

News item in the Georgia Straight – Light rail, not more SkyTrain, is answer to TransLinkA?ai??i??ai???s cash crunch

Well the Georgia Straight is not afraid to print contrary opinions about our regional transit scene, unlike our mainstream media. It is worth to link to the original story and read the comments, all the usual suspects, spewing their nonsense in a vain attempt to "repeat a lie often enough, it becomes fact". Some are […]

A lightrail and streetcar primer.

The silly season has begun in the Vancouver region, with TransLink desperately trying to persuade regional mayors to levy more taxes to mainly pay for the Evergreen SkyTrain light-metro line. The following is a quick primer on streetcars, LRT and SkyTrain for use at upcoming transit dog and pony shows. Question: What is the difference […]