Mayors, Premier and Transportation Minister to meet next week – The Blind Leading the Blind
Talk about the blind leading the blind. BC Transportation Minister, Shirley Bond (who knows little or nothing about transit), the besieged premier (who knows that building glitzy metro lines buys votes), and regional mayors (who are equally unread on transit) are going to have a private meeting regarding TransLink’s ongoing financial crisis. The first hing […]
European News
ALSTOM ORDER FOR RATP LINE T3 Alstom has received zamA?A?wnienie for 25 tramsAi??Ai??for Paris.Ai??Ai??Twenty-fiveAi??Ai??Citadis trams ordered a French Alstom RATP – the operator of public transport in Paris. Warehouses to be delivered in 2012.Ai??Ai?? The Alstom order was announced today an option agreement signed in December 2003 . Its value is EUR 77 million, along […]
Off The Rails – From the Abby Times
An interesting tome in the Abbotsford Times. Anyone wanting to put ‘rail’ transit down the median of the number 1 highway forgets that it would be hugely expensive and the curvature and gradients along the route would mean very expensive engineering would have to be done. Going ‘greenfields’ construction is always an expensive propositionAi??Ai??which knowledgeable […]
The SkyTrain Lobby – Just The Usual Suspects!
Transit again is making front page news in the dailies and regional newspapers, with TransLink claiming that the next big rapid transit (read SkyTrain) line will be in Surrey, not Broadway. A few international transit blogs have picked up the storyAi??Ai??with the usual suspects singing hosannas about SkyTrain, while in the same breathe libeling anyone […]
Surrey mayor calls for transit expansion to be low profile to make sense – From the Vancouver Province
Surrey mayor, Dianne Watts, clearly understands the costs of ‘rail’ transit (the term ‘rapid transit’ is used by lazy or uniformed people) and that to get a larger more workable ‘rail‘Ai??Ai?? network for her city, she must opt for modern light rail. While Vancouver pines for another multi-billion dollar subway under Broadway, its politicians seem […]
STREETCARS: THE MISSING LINK? – September 29, 2010
For Immediate Release A?ai??i??ai??? Please circulate! Ai??Ai??Lawrence Frank, PhD, CIP, ASLA Bombardier Chair in Sustainable Transportation University of British Columbia 604-822-5387 ph / 604-822-1628 fx Ai??Ai??Bombardier Active Transportation Lab http://www.act-trans.ubc.ca/Ai??Ai?? Ai??Ai??——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————– UBC School of Environmental Health and the UBC School of Community and Regional Planning are pleased to inform you of our upcoming symposium: Ai??Ai??STREETCARS: […]
A letter from Oslo
This has been forwarded to Rail for the Valley from the Eurotrams e-group. Now where have you heard similar arguments? Read RoyA?ai??i??ai???s last two paragraphs, a certain resonance with the situation in the Fraser Valley & Metro Vancouver? The infrastructure in Trondheim suffers from lack of interest from the city council. The tramway has been […]
World wide Transit and Light Rail News
Nanjing. http://www.railway-technology.com/projects/nanjingmetro/ Lagos. http://www.railway-technology.com/projects/lagosrailmasstransit/ Ho Chi Minh http://www.railway-technology.com/news/news94402.html http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/single-view/view/ceremony-launches-work-on-ho-chin-minh-city-metro-line-2.html Phoenix http://www.valleymetro.org/metro_light_rail/ Keep rail local, says pteg http://www.railtechnologymagazine.com/dataview/News/News_Article.aspx?KeyValue=2262 Edinburgh http://news.scotsman.com/news/Tram-shifts-for-Pope.6498683.jp http://news.scotsman.com/transport-news/Platform-Richard-Jeffrey-defends-the.6497807.jp
Prefab tram track = fast construction! Friends of the Broadway Light Rail/Streetcar Take Note!
The following article from EccoRussia, gives an account of the installation of 670 metres of prefabricated tram track on the Athens (Greece) light rail/tram in just 10 days or about 67 metres of new tram track a day! At this speed of track laying it would take a mere 14 days to lay one kilometre […]
TramTrain’s Now Invade Australia
What is good for Karlsruhe, Germany and maybe good for the Vancouver/Fraser Valley region, is now seen as good for Newcastle Australia! For a transit mode that is yet 20 years old, the simplicityAi??Ai??andAi??Ai??cost effectiveness of TramTrain is being demonstrate not only in Europe and North America, but now also in Australia. Communities are pressurizing […]
Recent Comments