Has The SkyTrain Flip-Flop In Surrey Derailed?

Ah, the realities of political promises as the new Mayor of Surrey has now discovered; a very big $514 million problem. Even the most ardent of SkyTrain supporters, except for the tin foil hat brigade, realize SkyTrain costs a lot more to build than light rail and even may concede it costs more to maintain […]

Dated Thinking From A Dated Mayor

Dated transit thinking comes from SkyTrain, because light-metro is a dated transit system. There is no backbone for transit, except for a network of transit lines and only if it is designed properly, designed for the needs of its customers and not the electoral needs of politicians. One $2.95 billion SkyTrain does not a backbone […]

The Idiot’s Delight In Surrey Cancels Light Rail

Well its done, the idiots delight of new politicians in Surrey have voted to stop light rail. Now they think they can build SkyTrain to Langley for the same cost as light rail.. Laughable. The HATCH Report, planning to build SkyTrain to Langley put the cost at $2.95 billion, in 2017 dollars. So Surrey new […]

McCallum’s $2.9 Billion Question

From the 2017 Steer Davis Gleave – HATCH report, the total cost for SkyTrain, including fifty-Five new cars is $2,914,798,721.00. As 2019 nears, the cost is rising. Memo to Doug McCallum: we are not building SkyTrain to 1980’s cost of construction. Memo to Gord Lovegrove: I think you need to join the Light Rail Transit […]

An Idiot’s Delight In Langley

Idiots, what can I say, complete idiots, the pair of them. SkyTrain is an obsolete proprietary light metro system, made obsolete by light rail! This has been known by all competent transit planners since the late 1980’s! The proprietary SkyTrain system patents are owned by both Bombardier Inc. and SNC Lavalin. Again, well known by […]

The Subway To Stupidville

Patrick Condon is the James Taylor chair in Landscape and Livable Environments at the University of British Columbia’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and the founding chair of the UBC Urban Design program. Prof. Condon is worth listening to, as he gets it about transit, which is a rare commodity with Metro Vancouver’s academia […]

A Matter Of Perspective

What is interesting with this story is the matter of perspective comparing Vancouver and Toronto. In Toronto, the 504 streetcar servicing carries around 80,000 riders a day in 2018. In Vancouver, where a subway is being proposed for Broadway, as far as Arbutus and with some promoters wanting it to terminate at UBC; in 2012 […]

If the SkyTrain News Fits, the Globe & Mail Will Print It.

So, where are the important stories about SkyTrain and transit Ms. Bula? Any mention that Transport Canada’s Operating Certificate for the Innovia SkyTrain system (Expo and Millennium Lines), limits capacity to 15,000 pphpd? No? Have you ever penned a story about how the Expo line is worn out and much of it’s existing infrastructure needs […]

The Sum of Zwei’s Fears – Part 3 The New FastFerry Fiasco

It is interesting indeed that Vancouver Sun columnist, Vaughn Palmer is writing about transit and the two massively expensive rapid transit projects, the Surrey LRT and the Broadway subway. With both federal and provincial backing, these two ill conceived projects will cripple transit planning for the next quarter century. In the long term at least, […]

The Sum of Zwei’s Fears – Part 2

A fiasco is brewing  in Surrey, as the cost for LRT construction is now exceeding $165 million/km! Is it by design, by TransLink, who wish to continue building with SkyTrain? Is it by devious planning by other City of Surrey, piling on massive infrastructure costs on the light rail project? Is it nothing more than […]