A Rail Reniassance in L.A.

An interesting read from California. I wish the Provincial Government would read this quote; ai???Realistically speaking, thereai??i??s no new highway building in the future.ai???, when planning for their bridge and highway vanity projects in Metro Vancouver. LOS ANGELES Daily News reports that Southern California planners are making strikes in a rail transit renaissance that owes […]

First look at Nottinghamai??i??s new tram line

Zwei lived in Nottingham in the mid 70’s and is where I first gained interest in urban transit. While waiting for my then girl friend, who was attending night school, I chanced a free public lecture by a Professor of Transportation (forgot his name) and was so entertaining that I still smile at some of […]

Transit Planning in the Vancouver Region ai??i?? The Years The Locusts Have Eaten

    Ai??A repost from 2012 and is as pertinent today as it was three years ago; even more so. Transit Planning in the Vancouver Region ai??i?? The Years The Locusts Have Eaten Posted by zweisystem on Sunday, June 24, 2012 In the beginning, Vancouver was serviced by a sizable streetcar network and several interurban […]

A portent of things to come?

Brisbane Australia has a showcase BRT system, yet transit costs are extremely high. Maybe it is time to get back to basics about modern light rail and forget the capacity and density debates and build LRT for the economic reason, one tram and one tram driver is as efficient as 4 to 8 buses and […]

LRT Saves Highway Space

Back in the 1980’s old Zwei was in constant contact (snail mail) with a Siemens representative in Europe. What was really interesting is that Siemens knew more about the proprietary SkyTrain system, than BC Transit. That was thirty years ago, but what is relevant to day is that modern LRT has always and still saves […]

Is it time for TransLink to study TramTrain?

Another TramTrain is being installed and I thing it is time that both TransLink and BC Transit send a fact finding tour to Europe to investigate TramTrain! As expensive vanity transit projects are seriously in trouble, the time has come to study 21st century transit philosophy and rethink expensive 20th century mini-metro. The Leewood/Rail for […]

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 […]

LRT is physically easier to expand and add routes.

The monorail lobby is like the the SkyTrain lobby and their motto seems to be;Ai?? don’t confuse me with facts.” There are many similarities between monorail and SkyTrain ALRT/ART and in fact our SkyTrain is sometimes mistakenly called a monorail overseas. The big drawback, of course, is that they are proprietary railways and the operating […]

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 […]