Back To Basics

What is light rail? LRT is a transportation system based on electrically powered light rail vehicles (LRV) that operates on a track in a dedicated right-of-way (meaning separated lanes). It is the operating on dedicated or “reserved rights-of-ways that makes a simple streetcar or tram light rail! many simple streetcar or tram systems have sections […]

Adding More Highway Capacity Only Increases Congestion And Gridlock

Where will the new traffic go? You cannot build yourself out of congestion, as it never works. A good example is Boise Idaho, where between 1993 and 2017, roads expanded 141 percent while population grew 117 percent. But congestion increased 446 percent. The previous example is what is happening across the united States and Canada. […]

Vancouver Will Need To Adopt Lower-Cost LRT In Its Lesser Corridors – Updated

The consensus is the same, Metro Vancouver will need to adopt lower-cost LRT for its future transit needs. This was first posted in 2019 and the costs and the financial numbers have changed somewhat. Currently, the province and metro Vancouver is spending over $11 billion for 21.7 km of new light-metro line, including the Broadway […]

Gold Plated Union Contract For A Gold Plated Transit System

Hmmm – election coming and a fear of of another transit strike, well what can a government do? Give transit workers a “gold plated” union contract. TransLink, despite claims otherwise, is run by the premier’s office. All major TransLink decisions must have the approval by the Premier of British Columbia and this union contract is […]

Eby And The NDP Have Missed The Train

It seems Premier Eby and the NDP have been left behind at the station with this. With two railway projects that would have set BC as a leader in “Green” transportation, Premier Eby and the NDP continue to promote Greenhouse gas projects with new highway and tunnel construction: in other words, good old “rubber and […]

Can A City Fall In Love With A Tram?

    Can Vancouver fall in love with trams?

Same Opportunities – Same Excuses

Light rail is not a panacea, but it is a proven method in reducing auto traffic, something those promoting SkyTrain cannot claim. Building with trams opens an opportunity for not only providing a user-friendly and environmentally- friendly alternative to the car, the mode offers an almost universal transit mode as the modern tram can operate […]

And Then There Was Six

Alas, poor SRT! I knew of it, TTC: A system of infinite cost, of most expensive fancy: It hath taken us more than thousand times; and now, how abhorred it is! My gorge rims at it. Here, it cost much money, I know not how much. Where be your new systems now? Your LIM’s so […]

Incompatible Transit – A Taxpayer’s Nightmare

I thought this would be an interesting article as we have in Vancouver two incompatible light metro systems, the Canada Line and the Expo and Millennium Lines. The Canada Line uses ROTEM built EMU’s, standard railway fare and can be used on most standard gauge electric railways. The Expo and Millennium lines use the proprietary, […]

As Preddicted, Major Switch Replacement Begins.

Mr. Cow has been bang on with his predictions of the growing cost of SkyTrain light metro expansion and the following news item certainly shows the ongoing expensive problems TransLink faces. Replacing two switches should take a weekend at most, but these are new high-speed switches, which needs a lot of engineering done to the […]