Rail advocate quotes Gretzky to push plan

Another fine article on the proposed ‘valley’ rail. There is an ever growing support for the ‘return of the interurban’ but please, there is really no such thing as ‘community rail’ and it would sad if the proposed interurban project were to beAi??Ai??side-tracked by an unproven transit philosophy. Any form of rail transit is expensive […]

Transit at a crossroads – From The Surrey Leader

Well here we go again, TransLink is planning for ‘rapid’ transit for Surrey and the Fraser Valley.Ai??Ai??Zwei has seen this all before and I’m afraidAi??Ai??I amAi??Ai??not at all enthused with the process, nor have much faithAi??Ai??in TransLink to do an honest study. Zwei hates the term ‘rapid transit’ as it refers to metro and only […]

Two letters in the North Shore News

The usual suspects yes, but an insight to the up coming Evergreen Line/Broadway – UBC metro line debate. Take the regional view on transit investment North Shore News Published:Ai??Ai??Wednesday, March 24, 201o Dear Editor: In her March 17 columns Costly SkyTrain Technology Choices Baffle, Elizabeth James, cites U.S. professor Panos Prevedouros saying, “Light rail service […]

A letter in the Aldergrove Star & The Surrey Leader

Affordable transit needed Published: March 18, 2010 Editor: I find it surprising that the Mayor of Chilliwack does not want to join the ‘South of the Fraser Rail Task Force’ until after the $400,000 study has been completed. Certainly she hasn’t shown the mettle as previous politicos a century ago that lobbied and welcomed the […]

Mayor not ready to jump aboard transit . . . just yet – From the Chilliwack Times

More Valley transit news. Tyler Olsen, The Times Published:Ai??Ai??Friday, March 12, 2010 Promoters of a rail line connecting the Fraser Valley with Metro Vancouver are urging Chilliwack politicians to jump aboard plans for a demonstration project along the old interurban rail line. Chilliwack is the only municipality between here and Delta not represented on the […]

From the Tyee On Line NewsPaper: Vancouver’s Street Car Gift: Keep It?

An interesting article from the Tyee. Vancouver’s Street Car Gift: Keep It? To the delight of tourists and locals, the Olympic Line streetcar has been delivering people smoothly from Athlete’s Village on lower Cambie Street to Granville Island since Jan. 21. A Bombardier Flexity Outlook on loan from Brussels for the duration of the Games, […]

All Party Parliamentary Light Rail Group (APPLRG) report – Should we do the same in BC?

Some interesting news from across the pond. Urban transit development in the UK has been hamstrung by a very powerful and vocal ‘Roads Lobby’, within the central government (not unlike the SkyTrain Lobby in Victoria), which has all but stopped light rail development in the UK. In an era of peak oil and global warming, […]

Hamilton Looks to Europe for Light Rail Plans – How About Vancouver?

The good Burghers in Hamilton have realized that it isn’t the amount of money you spend on transit, rather how you plan andAi??Ai??build rail transit, that makes it successful. This is a lesson that BC politicians and TransLink fail to acknowledge and continue to plan for expensive light metro. The Canada line is a good […]

The (AVG) Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft GmbH- Karlsruhe’s longest tramtrain route – S4

The AVG’s longest run is now a 210km (130 mile) S4 service from A?ai??i??hringen through central Karlsruhe to Achern, south-west of Baden-Baden. The TramTrain route uses DB mainlines, regional railway lines and on-street running in various cities. The above map gives the various routes of Karlsruhe’s famous TramTrain network;Ai??Ai??largely in an area of comparable density […]

Of Transit, Funding, TramTrain, and a Sustainable Future.

Zwei first met Brendan Read in 1986, while traveling to Abbotsford on the BR Pacer unit that ran three return service to New Westminster each day during the Expo 86 Worlds Fair. It was during this trip that the idea of the “return of the interurban” was conceived. It was all there, track, vehicle(s), and […]