SkyTrain – What TransLink Is Not Telling Us

This reply from Haveacow who is an Engineer, to an earlier post and I think worthy of a post on its own. He is familiar with SkyTrain and worked on the Ottawa LRT and inn other words he knows his stuff. Despite the ‘huff and puff’ from high paid TransLink spokes people about how the […]

Fare Gates – Not As Advertised

TransLink’s fare-gates and Compass Card system was forced upon TransLink, not to reduce fare evasion, which was well within industry norms, but to ensure then Premier Campbell’s good friend, Ken Dobell, work as aAi?? lobbyist for Cubit Industries who make the fare gates. Lobbyists must be successful with their lobby of government or no one […]

Game Changer for Regional Rail!

What the FRA does, Transport Canada will soon follow. This news is of great importance to Metro and Victoria’s metro regions, bringing in a transit option that Rail for the Valley has been championing for many years. Proven European technology combined with proven European transit philosophy (which will come with the technology), just may make […]

UBC expert fears Vancouver subway is still far off

Transit improvements coming soon? Don’t hold your breathe because TransLink’s planning is extremely suspect. Certainly new buses will arrive for new routes and new drivers, mechanics and the rest of the employees needed to operate the new buses will be hired, but will this actually improve transit? I doubt it because TransLink is fixated on […]

The 1986 LRTA Study: Bus – LRT – Metro Comparison

Every year I reprint this post to remind everyone of the ability to move large amount of people at an affordable cost. There is an ongoing debate today that LRT can only carry a limited number of riders and that the magic number for a subway is about 100,000 riders a day on a transit […]

Sounds of Silence

No surprise here, as Zwei has been sounding alarm bells over this upcoming fiasco for years Now TransLink has an American out of Seattle as the new CEO and this means the sky is the limit for spending on rail transit. Seattle’s LRT is LRT in name only as it is actually a light metro […]

Unlike Toronto, TransLink Can’t Cancel A SkyTrain Contract

Toronto is cancelling its contract with Bombardier, which would have provided light rail vehicles for Toronto’s planned LRT network and the TTC is also looking at dumping Bombardier as the supplier for their tram replacement program due to non delivery of new trams as per the contract schedule This is why Bombardier Inc. love proprietary […]

Broadway Subway Is Luxury Wrapped In Opulence – Designed To Sell A Mock P-3?

It did not take long for the Liberal fixers in Ottawa to hatch a scheme to keep their political friends awash in taxpayer`s dollars. Public transit schemes are generally not money makers, in fact the vast majority of public transit operations around the globe are subsidized, many heavily subsidized. A few light rail transit lines […]

SkyTrain Ka-Put Again. Is TransLink Out Of It’s Depth?

It is becoming all to regular, the Expo and Millennium Lines go down; TransLink can’t cope with the problem and transit customers are badly dealt with. I think new TransLink CEO, Kevin Desmond is out of his league and if these frequent stoppages do not cease, he must resign. What is even more disturbing is […]

Do The SkyTrain MK.3 Cars Have A Fatal Flaw?

Really. No, really, can’t TransLink come up with a better excuse than a “high tech glitch” for the recent embarrassing problems with the brand new MK.3 cars? Evidently not. Mk.3 cars high tech? No. What the Mk.3 car is a new universal body shell to fit all of Bombardier’s ‘rail’ light-metros or other like light-metros […]