Review of Light Rail/Tramway costs

A Federal Parliamentry Review of Light Rail/Tramway/Transit costs must be carried out!Ai?? Both Fang & Zwei have posted articles in the past weeks on the high costs of Canadian LightAi??Rail, Tramway & Transit schemes. Vancouver, TorontoAi??and Waterloo. Design, Utility relocation, Financing vehicles (ie P3) Project management, Construction management, Land purchase and now theAi??concern that Ai??Canadian […]

Whatai??i??s the Best Way To Get Users To Embrace Mass Transit?

Make it pleasant? Or make it efficient? An article in Slate magazine http://www.slate.com/articles/life/transport/2012/01/jarrett_walker_s_human_transit_are_we_thinking_about_urban_planning_all_wrong_.html Make it pleasant? Or make it efficient? by Tom Vanderbilt A few months ago, at an urban mobility conference in Frankfurt, the British consultant Charles Leadbeater presented a sort of x-y matrix for thinking about how to manage and design cities. The […]

North American light rail systems

Modern LRT is reasonably cheap to build, when compared with metro type systems, but in NorthAi??America transit planners have done the impossible, they have planned LRT to be more expensive than a metro to build.Ai?? Such stupidity should be stopped at once! From the Globe and Mail. This maybe of some interest, but the cost […]

Transit Realities In Toronto

Transit realities are coming into the fore in Toronto and Toronto’s mayor Ford is being dragged screaming and kicking into the 21st century; even the Mayor’s political appointees are singing the light rail song! The Mayor’s anti-LRT stance is based on many factors, including; Subways keep traffic lanes open for cars, thus are poor in […]

High Costs For LRT In Waterloo Ontario Questioned! Is LRT Being Designed as a Money Pit?

It seems well known light rail advocate, Malcolm Johnston, Ai??is at it again, sticking his nose in other peoples light rail business, butAi??there there is a very good point for his interest in Canadian light rail projects, as they are farAi??more expensive when compared to new build European light rail lines. Also in the fray […]

Ida Chong is afraid to order an audit of TransLink! Those damned skeletons in the closet!

Well, good old ‘Zwei’ has been arguing for this for over a decade, but the BC Liberal government and the Liberal lickspital minister in charge of TransLink, Ida Chong, is afraid to order an audit of TransLink. Why? Audits have a strange way of uncovering misspent monies or dubious bookkeeping Ai??practices or evenAi??more sinister wastes […]

How to pay for Victoria’s proposed over priced light rail….. Don’t!…..Plan for much cheaper TramTrain on the E&N!

BC Transit is an old hand at inflating costs of LRT, so they don’t have to deal with it. In the 90’s, BC Transit increased the cost of the proposed Broadway-LougheedAi??LRT to such an extent, that there was only a 7% difference between the cost for light rail and that of SkyTrain. Sprinkled with political […]

An interesting thought

An interesting thought: Has anyone made or care to make a calculation of the annual lives saved; medical costs saved;Ai??Ai??insurance not paid out; etc.,Ai??if the Fraser Valley had a regularly scheduled TramTrain service from Chilliwack to Vancouver? This an especially important question today, with the scores of accidents and injuries, just on Tuesday on the […]

Utilities – to divert or to not divert?

The need for utility relocation on LRT schemes has been a major issue for promoters in Canada, the US and Great Britain but less so in continental Europe, where many utilities remain public owned,Ai??for decades. The Cardinal has received details of the project costs for the Waterloo, Ontario Light Rail project; http://www.tritag.ca/light-rail/why-light-rail/Ai??and http://www.wonderfulwaterloo.com/showthread.php?t=219Ai??also http://rapidtransit.region.waterloo.on.ca/ that […]

Why transit fares must increase.

Some years ago, I corresponded with a chap in the UKAi??who was (and still is) a respected transit consultant and much what I discuss about in this blog comes from our discussions. One striking comment he made; “Building metros on routes that do not have the ridership to sustain them, only invites higher subsidies and […]