From the Seattle Times – $26 million sought to buy land for portion of Eastside rail corridor

This transit story from the Seattle Times illustrates the land value for a soon to be abandoned rail lines, which with the current railway land deal, amounts toAi??Ai??slightly over $1 million a mile or about $0.6 million/km. A local example would be the Arbutus Corridor, which using the same formula as used in Seattle, would […]

From the Vancouver Sun – Canada Line delivers 15,000 extra visitors a week to River Rock casino. Are gamblers the only new ridership?

There is utterAi??Ai??pathos in this news item as it seems to be theAi??Ai??only news worthy storyAi??Ai??the mainstream media can say about the RAV/Canada Line, that it’s delivering 15,000 gambling addicted people,Ai??Ai??by metro,Ai??Ai??to the River Rock Casino each week. Did weAi??Ai??spend a nearly $3 billion metroAi??Ai??just toAi??Ai??deliver more people to a casino? The RAV/Canada line was […]

Post number 300 and many more to come.

This post marks the 300th posting on the Rail for the Valley Blog and congratulations to (now) Dr. John Buker for all his efforts with the valley rail project. When John asked me to post for the RFV blog, I don’t think he expected such a “stormy petrel“. I have tried hardAi??Ai??to keep the blog […]

To Toll Or Not to Toll – That is The Question

There is a current push to implement Road Pricing or Road Tolls in the region by various levels of government, to help fund public transit. The problem is, Road pricing or tolling will not work unless there is a viable public transit alternative in place. There isn’t and road pricing will fail and those politicians […]

The Seattle Monorail debate – The Blog’s Most Viewed Post

The Rail For The Valley’s most viewed blog post is “SeattleA?ai??i??ai???s monorail versus LRT debate A?ai??i??ai??? Same story, differentAi??Ai??players!”,Ai??Ai?? http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/seattles-monrail-versus-lrt-debate-same-story-different-players/Ai??Ai?? which at first glance is a little puzzling, but when one understands the massive public debate over the proposed Seattle monorail, it is not surprising at all that there is still much interest South of […]

From the Abbotsford News – TramTrain perfect for Valley LRT

TramTrain perfect for Valley LRT Published: November 10, 2009 The Light Rail Committee has long supported the reinstatement of the Vancouver to Chilliwack interurban service and has long corresponded to transportation experts in Europe and the USA, who also support the return of the interurban. The concept of TramTrain, where specially designed streetcars or diesel […]

From the Vancouver Province – Canada Line to lose millions each year despite strong ridership – Another TransLink Bambozzle

From the “Tip of the Iceberg Department”; the RAV/Canada Line is going to cost TransLink money but until theAi??Ai??BC Auditor General has a go at TransLink, SkyTrain and RAV, the public will never know the true costs of the new subway or of TransLink’s metro operation. The $14 million to $21 million shortfall mentioned is […]

From the Gaurdian UK – Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower

Some sobering news from the U.K. If the article is true, then Campbell’s gamble on Gateway and the new Port Mann Bridge will be a colossal mistake; again the same is true of the RAV/Canada Line and the yet to be built Evergreen SkyTrain Line, which are far too expensive to expand to meet demand. […]

From the Seattle Times – Consortium on verge of owning Eastside railway land

Interesting news from Seattle, the BN&SF East side line is to be purchased by various government and utility bodies in Washington State. The East side Line, formerly a Milwaukee Road R.R. Line, ambles South from Snohomish to Renton on the east side of lake Washington. Now with portions abandoned or used for irregular freight traffic, […]

From the Vancouver Sun – "Financial review finds TransLink has "significant operational issues" – So, what else is new?

The province’s financial review was all too predictable, TransLink has problems. Well, for anyone who has tried to deal with TransLink’s bloated and arrogant bureaucracy, this is not news and the report is as I expected. The problems with TransLink can be summed up as: 1) Building metro (SkyTrain & RAV) on routes that do […]