Will legal woes derail TransLink?

The merchants along Cambie Street were treated extremely badly by everyone involved with the RAV/Canada metro line subway construction project. Now, with Ms. Heyes winning a $600,000.00 lawsuit against TransLink, the legalAi??Ai??floodgates have been opened for other merchants negatively affected by the RAV/Canada Line cut and cover subway construction to sue TransLink. The sad part […]

Trouble in Paradise – Honolulu’s Troubled Mini-Metro Project

There has been much comment on Honolulu’s elevated rapid transit project and now, asAi??Ai??expected (as with Seattle’s stillborn monorail project)Ai??Ai??financial problems are rearingAi??Ai??their ugly heads. What I find astounding that the estimated cost of the elevated metro is now pegged atAi??Ai??USD $5.3 billion andAi??Ai??is to carry a paltry 100,000 daily passengers by 2030. Shades ofAi??Ai?? […]

France programs CAD $31.5 billion for urban electric rail transit development

Interesting news from France, where the government is investing at least CAD $31.15 billion in urban transit projects. What should be of interest to Rail for The Valley is that France is also investing TramTrain, which “operation is currently adamantly prohibited in the USA by the Federal Railroad Administration, but it has become widespread in […]

And Just What is Rapid Transit – Has TransLink Already Decided To Build A SkyTrain Subway To UBC?

Ai??Ai?? Bay Area Rapid Transit Over and over againAi??Ai??from media reporters and commentators, politicians and/or academics, we hear the term ‘rapid transit’, but are offered no definition to what rapid transit is. Is rapid transit a metro, rapid bus, light rail,Ai??Ai??or commuter rail?Ai??Ai??ThisAi??Ai??begs the question: “Just what is rapid transit?” Ai??Ai??Wikipedia defines rapid transit as: […]

Well worth a read! From the Georgia Straight – Metro Vancouver’s new draft regional growth strategy raises concerns

The following article from the Georgia Straight by Elizabeth Murphy is well worth a read. http://www.straight.com/article-280277/vancouver/elizabeth-murphy-metro-vancouvers-new-draft-regional-growth-strategy-raises-concerns

Drive Out the Tax campaign – Sponsored by Vancouver’s Most Hypocritical & Inept Business Organizations!

In the Vancouver Sun today is an article about an anti-TransLink parking tax revolt, the Drive out the tax coalition, sponsored by the Downtown BIA,Ai??Ai??TheAi??Ai??Board of Trade and others. What a bunch of hypocrites; what a bunch of inept businessmen, for it was a loose coalition of the very same groups that glad-handed the almost […]

Why Rail for the Valley must set the agenda in 2010 for light rail in METRO Vancouver.

The region is at a juncture: either proceed with light-metro planning and build the Evergreen Line and extend SkyTrain to Langley by 2030 or abandon current regional transportation planning and start anew, but using LRT instead to service many more destinations in the region. Though TransLink is boasting about its three light-metro lines and continues […]

The Strange Case of the Karlsruhe TramTrain – Streetcar, LRV, or Commuter Train?

Recent posts on the LRTA blog, debated the the present definitions of streetcar/tram and light rail. North Americans tend to define LRT as a light-metro, where as EuropeansAi??Ai??associated LRT as a tram. Now added to the debateAi??Ai??is the tramtrain and the strange case of the Karlsruhe’s new Zweisystem (two system) LRT:Ai??Ai??is itAi??Ai??a tram or a […]

From CKWX NEWS 1130 – SkyTrain issues for morning commute

What the SkyTrain lobby wishes us to forget is that the automatic metro is somewhat erratic in its operation. SkyTrain is a complicated proprietary light-metro and even small issues defeats the computer and the system shuts down. TransLink plays down these problems but regular riders of the metro has told Zwei that problems on SkyTrain […]

A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL – FROM RAIL FOR THE VALLEY

From the Zweisystem and the rest of the Rail For The Valley Gang A very merry Christmas and a very happy and safe New Year! A Darmstadt tram plowing through a snow storm.