Metro Vancouver Sleepwalks Into a Financial and Transportation Disaster.

There is so much wrong with this announcement that it boggles the mind, but it is suffice to say, this plan will not go anywhere. Let’s look at the basics of this announcement. A SkyTrain subway to Arbutus has nothing to do about transit ridership, it has everything to do about property development and ensuring […]

A Railway Crossing That Means Business

In Russia, to cope with the problems of motorists jumping railway signals on express train routes, the following device is used. The rest is self explanatory. Rail for the Valley take note!

Light Rail Stops Attracts new Business

This interesting study from down South. The myth makers who favour SkyTrain make much how SkyTrain attracts new development, yet that development has been allowed by city councils, who have allowed for higher densities, read higher buildings) at SkyTrain stations. At the same time the inference is that LRT does not attract development. The study […]

Gridlock Is Endemic In Vancouver and Will Be For Years To Come

Nothing new here. As the provincial government keeps building new highways and bridges, car use will increase, simple. As the provincial government, the City of Vancouver, TransLink, and Metro Vancouver, keep planning for and building hugely expensive mini-metro’s like SkyTrain and the Canada Line, for strictly political prestige and not as a convenient transit mode, […]

What Could Have Been – Should Have Been – Updated

One of the hardest transit plans to find in the Vancouver Metro Region is the 1978 Rapid Transit Preliminary Design, by the then GVRD. The reason why it is hard to find is that most of the copies were shredded and/or similarly destroyed on orders by the provincial government when they forced the SkyTrain mini-metro […]

For Donna – Part 2 – Debunking the SkyTrain myth. Rail for the Valley answers the UBC SkyTrain Lobby!

A repost from 2009! What has changed from 2009 is that the cost of a Broadway to UBC subway (full build) would be over $4 billion. Cut and cover subway construction will be used because the Susan Heyes court case has now set the precedent that TransLink can build a cut-and cover subway without paying […]

Russian Tram Test Track In Paranimo

A tram climbing a 16% grade on the Paranino test track. Paranino ai??i?? a small village not far from Chelyabinsk (which got famous for its recent picturesque meteorite sky show). Itai??i??s a regular village with farmers, cows or goats crossing the streets, nice nature etc. But what makes it so special? Since early 1900s it […]

TramTrain in action

Probably the best visual that explains TramTrain around! Steam, passenger, freight, and trams all using the same line.     Ersingen heavy / light rail contrasts    

Broadway on the Radio

On News 1130 today. Light rail advocate argues against Broadway subway option. A Broadway subway is all about subsidizing Vision(less) backers and supporters, who have invested heavily assembling lands at potential subway stations, not about moving people efficiently or affordably. Light rail advocate argues against Broadway subway option The mayor of Vancouver thinks an underground […]

Arbutus Corridor Resurrected?

  It seems the CPR is going to resurrect the Arbutus Line for freight and the wails of “shock and disbelief”, from Vancouver’s creme de la creme are echoing through the halls at city hall. Get real folks, the CPR did not abandon the railway and the city failed to negotiate a transit solution for […]