TransLink stumbles on

Liz James, who writes for the North Shore news, is one of the very few columnists that who has both researched the regional transit issue and understands transit issues. As TransLink CEO Ian Jervis, is busy shilling for the very expensive Evergreen Line, he refuses to look a cheaper alternatives, such as light rail. SkyTrain […]

Are modern streetcars the future?

Due to the small backlash to TransLink’s tax increases that were announced on Wednesday, the pro-LRT and pro-streetcar groups were out today promoting surface rail on CTV News as being cheaper and a fitting tribute to a past.Ai??Ai??   http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110708/bc_interurban_tram_110708/20110708/ Are modern streetcars the future? Vancouver’s interurban train system — the first in Canada — […]

The Delta Optimist gets it!

Somebody gets it! By building light metro, in the guise of SkyTrain, the taxpayer has spent three to four times more money than a light rail alternative, to get three rather mediocre transit lines. Cut through the hype and hoopla, SkyTrain and the Canada Line's ridership is made up mostly of recycled bus passengers (TransLink […]

Lies, damn lies, statistics and ART

From the “You’d better believe it” Department Although sometimes attributed to Mark Twain ai??i?? because it appears in his posthumously-published Autobiography (1924) ai??i?? this should more properly be ascribed to Disraeli, as indeed Twain took trouble to do: his exact words being, ai???The remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: ai???There […]

Death, taxes and TransLink

We all want better transit options, but are we willing to pay for them? Well our rather confused regional mayors think so. The root of TransLink's financial woes has been the SkyTrain proprietary mini-metro system and its clone, the Canada Line. Skytrain costs about four to five times more to build than LRT and about fifteen times more […]

Will They Or Won’t They – The (N)Evergreen Line Debate and The 40,000 Person Question

 Like a good soap opera, the Evergreen Line debate goes on.   Again, a BC premier has appointed a Minister of Transportation who hasn't an inkling about modern public transportation, metro, and light rail, with the obvious reason of being held to the mercy of his bureaucrats.   There is more BS about SkyTrain and […]

News Flash – SkyTrain down again

Here we go again. SkyTrain, as with all other automatic metros, has an Achilles heel – they stop working and more frequently as the metro ages. This is not a problem for light rail, as it is designed to operate when there are minor glitches. But there is another problem with TransLink and its SkyTrain "transit backbone" […]

Copenhagen to get light-rail network by 2020: transport ministry

LRT in Copenhagen One welcomes the announcement that Copenhagen will have its first tram/LRT line built by 2020.  In several transit oriented blogs, much has been made that the Danish capital, Copenhagen, opted to have a driverless metro, instead of light rail. Automatic metro is the way of the future, was the clarion call by many […]

The Nevergreen Line saga continues

Mayor Trasolini adds his two cents worth in the Evergreen line debate. Nowhere in the letter does he admit that SkyTrain is just too expensive to build and/or that the SkyTrain light-metro system is a dated transit mode, made obsolete by much cheaper and just as effective light rail. Until regional and provincial politicians actually […]

Cutting edge to the cutter’s torch.

What happens to old transportation technology? It becomes less valuable than scrap! The Birmingham airport MAGLEV was cutting edge transportation technology in 1984 (two years before the SkyTrain Expo Line opened) but by 1995 was scrapped as obsolete. This is reminiscent of another cutting edge transportation technology more than a century ago, the atmospheric railway. […]