Are traffic flows along Broadway enough to justify a subway?

Are traffic flows along Broadway enough to justify a subway? Simple answer is no, not anywhere close! Traffic flows along Broadway are around 4,000 persons per hour per direction in the peak, but because it riders are mostly cheap fare U-Pass holders and operates buses at a far grater frequency than needed off the peak […]

An Australian Perspective.

I will repeat this once again to prevent any misunderstanding; Congestion charges and/or road pricing will not work in our region until we have a viable public transit system to provide an attractive alternative to the car. Buses are not and I repeat, are not a viable and attractive alternative to the car and only […]

Hamilton Gets LRT

From our friend in Ottawa, Mr. Haveacow. Well its official, at a press conference at McMaster University, Hamilton will get a roughly 11km 14 stop LRT line from McMaster University in west .Hamilton to the Queenston Traffic Circle in east Hamilton. There will also be a 1 km short spur line north up James Street […]

Study Supports LRT

Someone should tell the SkyTrain Lobby that no one builds with SkyTrain anymore; even the Canada Line isn’t SkyTrain! Modern light rail made SkyTrain and light metro obsolete decades ago, yet no seems to read the news in this part of the world, with many people still championing SkyTrain, a transit system that costs more […]

TransLink dumps planning veterans Tamim Raad and Brian Mills – Adios Surrey’s LRT?

It seems anyone who even breathes light rail in Metro Vancouver is quietly terminated from TransLink. UBC educated Tamin Raad, was a supporter of light rail and understood the issues surrounding light metro. TransLink CEO Tom Prenderghast was forced out of TransLink because he dared to challenge the SkyTrain Lobby, by supporting light rail and […]

Understanding the benefits of modern light rail

What is good for New South Wales in Australia, is certainly good for BC. The benefits of building with light rail and I so wish local politicians take the time and read the following. ITLS_presentation_5_May_2015_-_McKibbin_-_Light_Rail[1] The key building with light rail is building it right, serving major transit destinations as well as areas of housing, […]

Metro Madness

In one of the silliest items written in Canada about public transit, The Globe and Mail’s (Mop & Pail) Jeffery Simpson has inked a article about how the taxpayer in the lower mainland should vote YES to build subways because Asia builds them. * Why then are subways built? * The answer is simple, subways […]

More TramTrains For Karlsruhe

Karlsruhe, Germany, the birthplace of the TramTrain concept, goes from success to success. For twenty-two years, TramTrain have been operating in the Karlsruhe region with no major accidents, track sharing with both the city tram systems and mainline railways, providing affordable tram services to regions which otherwise would not been able to afford a quality […]

How to build light rail in our cities without emptying the public purse

An interesting read and quite pertinent to our transit situation in the lower mainland. Both the BRT and SkyTrain Lobby’s have so perverted the concept of modern light rail, to support their own projects, that the concept of affordable LRT has all but disappeared from the TransLink lexicon. The following quote; “……….while cities with rubber-wheeled […]

BRT- “just like light rail only cheaper” – NOT!

For Bus Rapid Transit, to be real BRT is must either have its own road or busway or it must be guided, using an exclusive guideway. Express buses, which operate in mixed traffic, with autos and commercial vehicles suffer the same issues as streetcars only slightly worse. Streetcars are cheaper to operate. In the UK, […]