The 1986 LRTA Study: Bus ai??i?? LRT ai??i?? Metro Comparison – Reprinted

I thought I would reprint this post from May 20, 2010 as it may clear up some major misconceptions about LRT capacity. There is an ongoing debate today that LRTAi??can only carry a limited number of riders and that the magic number for a subway is about 100,000 riders a day on a transit line. […]

Subways dreams for dreamers

Interesting article from Toronto. I doAi??take issue with is the claim “that subways attract more riders than any other form of transit.”whichAi??is not supported by studies elsewhere, instead it isAi??modern LRT actually attracts more new ridership than other modes. That Toronto doesn’t have modern LRT and instead operates with the light rail variant streetcars (mostly […]

Who is driving TransLink?

Who is driving TransLink, you ask? The real answer, if a Mr. Ferry cared to investigate, is the provincial government and the Premier’s office. What is making TransLink so expensive, demanding all sorts of taxes and levies? The provincial demand for light-metro, mostly in the guise of SkyTrain, has increased the the cost of a […]

Bring Back Our Trams – A New Website for Victoria Light Rail – A question About SNC

Our friends across the pond, in Victoria have a new website, Bring Back Our Trams http://www.b-bot.ca/index.htmlAi??which contains some surprising information. Zwei has wondered why the cost of a simple streetcar/LRT line would cost over $62 million/km and BBOTAi??may haveAi??supplied the answer: Canada’s favourite engineering group, SNC Lavalin did the initial cost study. Why then, would […]

The Real Question: What are You Willing To Pay For A Subway?

Here is the question taxpayers inAi??Metro Vancouver have not been asked; “What are you willing to pay for SkyTrain/RAV/Canada line?”Ai?? The regional taxpayer has never been asked: Do you wish light rail at a cost of $20 million/km. (streetcar) up to $35 mil/km. (LRT)? SkyTrain at a cost of $90 mil/km to $100 mil/km. Subway, […]

Eric Chris Responds To The SkyTrain Lobby

Eric Chris responds to the SkyTrain for Surrey blog. It is just not Zweisystem who has questions about SkyTrain and TransLink and Eric Chris’s reply to the SkyTrain Lobby has great merit. The Vancouver Sun has always treated SkyTrain as a “mother and apple pie issue” and has never challenged the government on building more. […]

Onetime Toronto subway lover transfers support to LRT

Interesting article from Toronto. When there is honest and truthful debate about modern light rail, the public willAi??generally support the mode, leaving the die hard metro/subway lobby with a very hard debate to counter, but not in Metro Vancouver. BC Transit and TransLink have always and continue to do so, deliberately misinform the public about […]

The Toronto Transit Fiasco, Brought To You By Rob “The Edsel” Ford

The following article aptly describes the Toronto transit fiasco, which has been unfoldingAi??for the past sixAi??months. The fiasco was created, when a politician, who had absolutely no knowledge of urban transportation, forced legally and illegally, aAi??hugely expensive subway solution for regional transit needs. Subways cost a lot of money to build and even more money […]

What Fools We Mortal Be – Regional Mayors Support Road Tolling

I see many civic politicians are gambling with theirAi??political futuresAi??with taxpayer’s hubrisAi??by supportingAi??road tolling. Are they mad? Evidently so, as they all seem to have collective amnesia over the HST fiasco, which saw the humiliation of just reelected Premier Gordon Campbell beingAi??chased from office. It seems tax and spend transit policies are the order of […]

Road tolls coming – welcome to tax and spend TransLink

Road tolls, the clarion call of tax and spend bureaucrats and politicians. What the boys and girls wanting road tolls or road pricing is more taxpayers money to waste on nextAi??to useless SkyTrain expansion, new posh offices, and ever higher salaries; better public transit is just an excuse, but not in the cards. For road […]