Global Warming, Copenhagen, & Light Rail – The Solution That Is Ignored

When one looks past the European street theater of riots, the embarrassment of Canada, the intransigence of the USA, China and Russia, what will Copenhagen climate conference accomplish? Probably very little. The world is not ready for global warming and if a few island nations submerge due to rising sea levels, no one will really […]

Has SkyTrain become British Columbia’s Greatest Bamboozle?

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. Carl Sagan Is SkyTrain a colossal bamboozle? Does the SkyTrain lobby and […]

Trams for the 21st Century – Alstom Citadis

Ai??Ai?? Bombardier and Siemens trams also have stiff competition from France’s Alstom’s Citadis modular tram. Alstolm’sAi??Ai??Citadis family of modular tramsAi??Ai??includes both partially low-floor and 100% low-floor trams,Ai??Ai??which can be delivered inAi??Ai??three, five, and seven sections, to suit the needs of individual costumers. The Citadis family of modular tramsAi??Ai??comprises of: Citadis 100 – three section, 70% […]

Trams for the 21st Century – Siemen’s Combino

With Bombardier’s two Flexity Outlook trams arriving in Vancouver, let’s take a look what the other companies have to offer for trams for the 21st century. Siemen’s Combino modular car The Combino is a low floor tramAi??Ai??made by Siemens Transportation Systems and firstAi??Ai??model came off the assembly lineAi??Ai??in 1996 at the Duewag works in DA?A?sseldorf, […]

The Streetcars are coming, The Streetcars are coming – or are they?

There has been some media attention given to the arrival of the the two BombardierAi??Ai??Flexity OutlookAi??Ai??trams from Belgium, for a demonstration operation on a short section of Vancouver’s ‘Downtown Historic Railway’, during the Olympics. I was very disappointed in BCTV News when the commentator described the trams as “old fashioned“, as the Flexity generation of […]

Cambie merchants hope for better fortunes – From CKNW News Radio

As predicted, those thousands ofAi??Ai?? RAV/Canada Line passengers are not getting off the train to shop at Cambie Street stores. The sad fact is, the inference from RAVCo. and later InTransit BC, was that the Canada Line would bring thousands of shoppers to Cambie St., it hasn’t and only those merchants lucky enough to be […]

Looming Bus Rapid Transit Fiasco in the UK? – From the Cambridge News: Millions at stake after latest busway wrangle

The UK government have been very pro BRT and the Cambridge – St. Ives BRT was to have been a showcase for Bus Rapid Transit. A dedicated group called CAST. IRON, promoting a ‘rail‘ solution predicted many of the problems now facing the Cambridge BRT and questioned the financing of the scheme. Sounds familiar doesn’t […]

Portland’s Ice Storms – A Chilling Reminder That Mother Nature Is Unpredictable

Zweisystem was in Portland during the 2007 ice storm and what an experience. Portland’s car drivers seemed ill equipped to deal with ice and tried to drive like it was snow and the following video shows the results. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyfjZlOSq2A] The following video shows a four car MAX train clearing the ice build up in the […]

Last of the Interurbans Part 6 – The Rittnerbahn – A True Interurban Railway

Ai??Ai?? The 11.8 km. Rittnerbahn, located in the Western part of the Italian Dolimites,Ai??Ai??once connected the cityAi??Ai??Bolzano with the Ritten plateau and today only connects the villages on the Ritten plateau. Opened in 1907, the interurbanAi??Ai??line started at Walther Square in the center of Bolzano where it shared the track with the Bolzano trams untilAi??Ai??it […]

From The Centre For Transportation Excellence – The Anti-Public Transit Crowd

The following from the CFTE is interesting, as the following names pop up North of the 49th once in a while. Strangely, many in the SkyTrain lobby think that these people support SkyTrain because they attack modern Light Rail in the United States, but of course, they don’t build SkyTrain in the U.S. do they. […]