View obscured from ivory tower – From the Chilliwack times.

The Light Rail Committee has been advocating TramTrain for the Fraser Valley since the mid 90’s, hopefully some positive news will be forthcoming soon! Sadly, in an age of financial frugality, regional and provincial transit planners still plan for hugely expensive metro and SkyTrain systems, yet with little or no method to pay for them. […]

More TramTrain news

More TramTrain news (though a wee bit old) from the UK. Tram plan on track? Surrey Comet Friday 16th July 2004 By Simeon Brody The prospect of electric trams gliding through the streets of Kingston may now be one step closer with the launch of a new lobby group. South London Trams will campaign for […]

Budapest trams – an interesting web site!

A link to Varga Akos aka HamsterA?ai??i??ai???s web site update of trams in Budapest Ai??Ai??http://hampage.hu/trams/eletkep41/e_index.html

Two Valley Rail Studies

The following are two studies that have been done concerning ‘rail’ transit in the Fraser Valley. http://www.scribd.com/doc/2527465/City-of-Surrey-Community-Rail-Proposal http://www.scribd.com/doc/515139/DRL-Solutions-Interurban-Report

Rail For The Valley puts squeeze on city

I find it very strange that The municipality of Chilliwack is not involved with the South of Fraser Community Rail Task Force andAi??Ai??many local residentsAi??Ai??would like to know the reason why? Certainly having a direct rail connection to Vancouver would be a bonus for both local businesses,Ai??Ai??especially tourist oriented businessesAi??Ai??and for local residents, with reliable […]

More Light Rail Links

More links for research and general information. http://www.metromodemedia.com/features/Transitdensity0020.aspx http://netdensity.net/tag/lrt/ http://kiat.net/malaysia/KL/transit.html http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?p=4358531 http://www.examiner.com/x-11410-Fresno-Transportation-Examiner~y2010m5d2-In-the-know-series–Part-3-BRT–LRT-or-BRT-vs-LRT?cid=exrss-Fresno-Transportation-Examiner http://southwestlrt.wordpress.com/ http://lightrailjacksonville.webs.com/whylrti.htm http://www.raisethehammer.org/article/851/main-king_lrt_split_may_be_a_good_idea http://www.thespec.com/article/716331 http://www.lightrailnow.org/news/n_kc_2007-05a.htm Research. http://tris.trb.org/view.aspx?id=909553 Ai??Ai??http://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwrsa/ersa01p118.html Ai??Ai??www.britchammacao.org/download/201003MacauLRTintro.pdf Ai??Ai??http://www.jstor.org/pss/3551027 Ai??Ai??http://canadianaffairs.suite101.com/article.cfm/edmontons_light_rail_transit_issues Ai??Ai??www.edmonton.ca/…/LRTRouteEvaluationcriteriaMarch2009.pdf http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2008/09/why-phoenix-lig.html Ai??Ai??http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_light_rail_in_North_America

Krugman: Lost Decade, Here We Come – Sent by the Light Rail Now Folks

Paul Krugman’s article from several days ago (see below) drives home the point that “deficit hawkism” is NOT just an American lunacy – it’s somehow ascended to the prevailing “conventional wisdom” globally. As I pointed out in a previous recent post, “This has some very bad implications for public transportation funding, the transit budget crisis, […]

Light Rail Fits In! Useful Links for LRT

A reader of this blog from the UK has sent Rail For The Valley some very useful links for those advocating for light rail. Zweisystem send a a hearty thank you! http://www.eukn.org/eukn/themes/Urban_Policy/Economy_knowledge_and_employment/Urban_economy/Specific_sectors/Distribution/citycargo-freight-tram_1007.html http://citytransport.info/Street.htm http://citytransport.info/Zones.htm http://www.citymayors.com/transport/trams-europe.html http://www.etcproceedings.org/paper/trams-and-bikes-towards-good-practice-in-light-rail-planning http://www.isocarp.net/Data/case_studies/1592.pdf http://www.metrocouncil.org/media/CCLRTstreetscapeFeb09.pdf http://www.vmwp.com/projects/leland-avenue-streetscape.php http://www.pdc.us/ura/interstate/kenton.asp http://lightrailjacksonville.webs.com/whylrti.htm http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/internet/Attachments/Internet/Transport/Walking_and_cycling/Cycling_around_Edinburgh/Cycling_and_trams_leaflet.pdf http://www.totallyriviera.com/nice/content/113 http://www.globalmasstransit.net/archive.php?id=1293 http://www.bringingbackbroadway.com/stellent/groups/electedofficials/@cd14_contributor/documents/classmaterials/lacity_007110.pdf http://www.cityofsacramento.org/dsd/planning/environmental-review/eirs/documents/Appendix_B.pdf http://www.metro.net/news/simple_pr/metro-hold-streetscape-design-workshop-crenshawlax/

More Links for Transit oriented Development

Today, more links for TOD in low density areas. My thanks to David Cockle for sending them to Rail for the Valley! Ai??Ai?? http://www.drcog.org/index.cfm?page=TODDensity http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm45.htm http://tinyurl.com/btacou http://www.sacrt.com/realestate/TODpage.stm

Smart Growth. A look into Cities, Urban planning, and the Sustainable Movement.

A reader of this blog has kindly given ‘Zwei’ some links about Smart Growth around the world and they are very much well worth having a look. http://smarturbandesign.blogspot.com/2009/04/mall-of-america-and-minneapolis-light.html http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BQQ/is_8_41/ai_81104210/ http://www.friends4expo.org/ltrail.htm http://www.drcog.org/documents/LRT%20and%20TOD.pdf http://www.thespec.com/article/717530 http://www.mindspring.com/~tbgray/lrtmaps.htm