Must see videos

This is one of Zwei’s favourite tram photos. Lawned rights-of-way; simple stations; and pedestrian friendly light rail in Grenoble. Reprinted and re edited from 2009. The two videos from Karlsruhe are a must see, to fully understand TramTrain! All the links work, unfortunately the few that no longer exist, have been deleted. Trams climbing grades […]

City of Vancouver Buys the Arbutus Corridor

Well kiss any thought of affordable transit goodbye, as the City of Vancouver will never agree to have trams operating on the former interurban line, the Arbutus Corridor. They may talk the talk, but will never walk the walk. The Canada Line is extremely capacity constipated and light rail on the Arbutus would be a […]

Is It Time To Get Back To Basics?

Perusing many transit oriented blogs, there seems to be a common thread appearing, we are changing our travel and commuting habits. This poses a very important question; “Is it time to get back to basics with transit planning?” This is a valid question because as driving and commuting habits change, expensive transit infrastructure just may […]

Toronto council lacking critical transit information ahead of key decisions

Sound familiar? Vancouver Councillors utterly clueless about subways and transit in general. Surrey Councillors completely naive about light rail. TransLink blunders along, without a clue what they are doing. Bureaucrats kowtowing to political whims, with no thought about the negative effects on the taxpayer. “We’re OK Jack, coz we all have six figure salaries.” Yet […]

TramTrain Gains Favour In The UK

TramTrain development in the UK is gaining momentum as the Yorkshire Post reports that a study indicates a tram-train link between MANCHESTER and its airport in north-central England would be a better choice than passenger rail because of grades along the route. Victoria and Metro Vancouver are candidates for TramTrain, yet the powers that be […]

Subways Are Very Expensive

Despite the cries of shock and disbelief from the peanut gallery, subways are very expensive to build and equally expensive to maintain. * Dusseldorf’s 2.11 mile (3.4 km) cost USD $960.6 million (CAD $1,317.45) billion works out to CAD $387.5 million/km to build, which is the upper end of the cost estimate given by our […]

A good read

  There is an interesting article making its rounds, “5 lessons from Los Angles on transforming transportation (and coming after Portland)”,Ai?? in the various transit blogs and I believe it is well worth a read. Zwei is going to comment briefly on each of the five lessons and how they would apply to Metro Vancouver. […]

Flexibility

This will get the SkyTrain boys knickers in a knot! The Arbutus Corridor, the classic dedicated or reserved rights-of-way. LETTER: Flexibility makes light rail the clear choice for Surrey One reader says light rail’s flexibility makes it the clear choice for Surrey. ai??i??Ai??image credit: The Now posted Feb 18, 2016 The Editor, There is myth […]

An Open Letter To The Minister of Transportation

To whom it may concern: Cutting ribbons is not the main function of the Minister of Transportation, but in BC it seems it is. Trying to justify the Premier’s (or should I say Fraser Surrey docks/SNC’s) $3.5 billion Massey Tunnel vanity bridge replacements is seemingly taking a lot of your time. I understand your many […]

What about the Patullo Bridge?

Both the Patullo and the Fraser River rail bridges have well past their “best by” dates and desperately are in need of replacement. In 1978, the GVRD were poised to install a three leg light rail system on the region and to cross the Fraser river a new bridge would have to be built. Demonstrating […]