Clarity With Transit and TransLink ….. Ha, Ha, Ha!

The TransLink referendum continues to provide angst with politicians and TransLink and so it should, because both parties really haven’t a clue about public transit. The new Chair of TransLink, Marcella Szel.Ai?? A former Canadian Railway executive and Port Authority director, has absolutely no background in urban transit and seems to have been chosen because, […]

Bus Stops

From the well duh department, that getting rid of some bus stops can improve service, has been well known for decades. In Europe bus stops tend to be 350m to 400m apart, but in Vancouver bus stops tend to be 250m to 300m apart, with some examples no more than 100m apart. It is easy […]

What $536 Million Will Buy You, Part 2 – A Rail for the Valley TramTrain

The Leewood Study Diesel Hybrid option Stage 1 Phase 1. It is as simple as that. http://www.railforthevalley.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/chilliwacktosurreyinterurbanfinalreportr.pdf – Chilliwack to Scott Road [Diesel/hybrid option] summary capital cost . CAD $491,819,424.00 (CAD $5.02m per km)

Why we build with light rail

The following was Zweisystem’s first offering on the Rail for the Valley blog, posted on December 12, 2008. Five years and some 1,359 posts later, the message has stayed essentially the same; why does the provincial government and TransLink still pursue light metro instead of LRT, especially when light metro has proven inferior in service […]

TransLink’s Fiscal House of Cards

Is TransLink’s financial ‘house of cards‘ ready to collapse? It seems the independent commissioner overseeing TransLink thinks so. Certainly the ‘self proclaimed‘ transit experts are circling TransLink like vultures seem to thinks so, by advocating more onerous taxes on the public with ‘road pricing‘ and even a ‘border toll’. Zwei has not heard of one […]

Wisdom From Ottawa

  Our friend Haveacow, is a transit professional and his comment, I believe’ gets to core of TransLink’s woes. When you add in the extra costs of operating the Canada Line and SkyTrain ALRT/ICTS Lines, one can easily see why TransLink’s costs are a third higher than Edmonton and Calgary. From Haveacow and please forward […]

Surrey asks feds for $1.8 billion for light rail- Maybe It’s Time To Say Adios to TransLink

Well, Toronto’s crack smoking Toronto’s mayor Rob Ford wants Ottawa to fund his multi billion dollar subway dream, I guess Surrey feels the feds should ante up for transit projects out west. What the likes of UBC professor Larry Franks doesn’t realize or refuses to realize is that Skytrain is obsolete, a yesterday’s transit system […]

Professor warns of suburban sprawl, ai???horrificai??i?? congestion.

Zwei has been warning about this for several years, and now, now someone has noticed? I’m sorry, but I just do not see any improvement in our regional transit chaos, until someone has the moral fortitude to put a wooden stake through the heart of SkyTrain. For too long, TransLink has been recycling bus riders […]

Are TransLink’s Broadway Ridership Claims Valid?

TransLink loves making high ridership claims for its pet bus and SkyTrain routes, but the trouble is, TransLink’s claims are just that, claims. We have seen this sort of nonsense on the Canada Line and now TransLink is claiming that the Evergreen Line or the unfinished portion of the Millennium Line, will carry “70,000 people […]

Yippee, Vancouver Is Number One!

So? What else is new? The provincial and regional governments have spent over $9 billion on three mini-metro lines that have done nothing to alleviate congestion; it will be dAi??jAi?? vu with the Evergreen Line and TransLinks still wants more taxpayer’s money to do the same thing again, hoping that it will work this time. […]