US Light Rail News

News from Detroit, Denver and Minneapolis Detroit: The Republic, Columbus Indiana City schedules neighborhood meeting on proposed $25 million light rail project in Detroit http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/2e8de5cf80324a10a7ace0814c52098a/MI–Light-Rail-Detroit/ DETROIT ai??i?? City transportation officials are scheduled to meet with Detroit residents at Mount Olive Baptist Church to answer questions and give details about a proposed light rail project along […]

Comparing Light Rail, Bus and Subway Costs

Two  reports on Canadian Light Rail systems The following link is to a report published in 2006 by Calagary Transit Light Rail Transit in Calgary  http://www.calgarytransit.com/pdf/Calgarys_LRT_1st_25Years_TRB_revised.pdf Currently, the average hourly operating cost of LRT is approximately $163, including operating, maintenance and utility costs. With an average of 600 boarding passengers per revenue operating hour, the […]

Rebalancing Our Transportation Network: A Case Study

Hamilton, Ontario has for long been promoting a Light Rail system for the city, details of their campaign can be found on the Hamilton Light Rail web site: http://hamiltonlightrail.com/index.html Details of the economic case for Light Rail are: http://hamiltonlightrail.com/article/an_economic_case_for_light_rail/index.html Similarly to Rail for the Valley in BC, the Hamilton Light RailAi??promoters are citing examples of […]

Generational divide on regionA?ai??i??ai???s light-rail plans?

In June 2010, The Province of Ontario committed $300 million towards the capital cost of constructing a rapid transit system in Waterloo Region. http://rapidtransit.region.waterloo.on.ca/ Approved a light rail transit (LRT) system from Waterloo to Cambridge as the Region’s long-term preferred rapid transit system; Recognized that a staged implementation would be required to ensure the best […]

TramTrain to Gloucester Estates & the Zoo

The following news item has peaked Zweisystem's interest, for the old interurban route passes just to the North of the Gloucester Industrial Estate and adding a tram stop would be quite easy and quite cheap to do. By doing so, a minibus service could be instituted to service not only the industrial estate, but the Greater Vancouver […]

More transit, more traffic problems, says think tank. But is that really the problem?

Interesting study out of the USA, but unfortunately wrong conclusions will be made, especially by the roads lobby. As for buses not attracting new customers, well duh, that little gem has been known for at least 30 years and if this were not so, we would not have been building new light rail lines in the […]

Allez le Tram, the Politics & Financing of the French Tram

The Cardinal has reported on the success of French Light Rail/Tramways, regularly on the Rail for the Valley blog. In this article the history, development, style, politics & importantly financing will be outlined. With a light rail renewal France has gone full steam ahead to become a leader in technological design and leading style. Howard […]

Toronto again! Ford & Gilbert sound-off & more irrelevant comparisons

Toronto owes mayor a thank you on transit Toronto Star.com February 24th http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/943888–toronto-owes-mayor-a-thank-you-on-transit#article Toronto owes Mayor Rob Ford a big thank you for three things. [Most definitely not] The first is for raising timely doubts about the wisdom of proceeding with Transit City. This was the previous council’s expensive one-size-fits-all plan to replace buses on […]

More Porkies – The Port Mann Bridge

It has been said that a picture is worth a thousands words……………………….. ……………..but this picture of a cross section of the new ten lane Port Mann Bridge says it all – there is no rail transit being planned for the bridge! Even Zweisystem, with his rudimentary knowledge of engineering knows if that a bridge is […]

Staffing on light rail systems

From a previous post http://www.railforthevalley.com/latest-news/zweisystem/now-we-know-why-skytrain-is-so-expensive-to-operate/ we find that there are 600 or more employees (530 in the CUPE Union) that work on the SkyTrain Expo and Millennium Lines. The Canada Line is a conventional metro and employs over 200 people (with 180 in the CUPE union) and both metro systems are quite separate. The Canada Line, a […]