A Question Of Capacity Reprinted from the Light Rail Transit Association

A QUESTION OF CAPACITY THE CAPACITIES of different modes of transport are generally quoted as 0-10 000 passengers per hour for bus, 2000-20 000 for light rail, and 15 000 upwards for heavy rail.     * Maximum capacity is only likely to be required for a few hours during peak hours, and even here […]

The Return Of The Tram!

One of the recurring themes for the SkyTrain types is that big cities have subways and little cities have trams. Well Berlin, the Capital of Germany with a population 3.7 million, is now investing in trams in the former “West” portion of the city as the old Communist “East” section retained the pre-war tramways. This […]

Fear of Subway Costs Grips Mayors Council

As our friend, Haveacow indicated some time ago, the Broadway subway is going to cost a lot more than many think. Some years ago, Zwei entered into correspondence with a German transit Engineer, Wolfgang and he warned of subway construction and operating costs, which hobbled German transit authorities and also lead to the rebirth of […]

TransLink CEO No Better Than A Cheap Carny Huckster

In Metro Vancouver, local journalists remain largely ignorant of transit issues and believe, without reservation, what they are told by TransLink. There is no investigative journalism with TransLink and its favourite, SkyTrain. This “puff” piece is nothing more than softening up the public for both the Broadway subway and Road Pricing, which is needed to […]

The Ignorance Of Light Rail Knows No Bounds – Distinctly In Vancouver

It is sad that anti-tram journalist, Francis Bula, writes such tawdry articles about transit and by doing so, demonstrates that she does little or no research and repeats the anti-tram myth. Citing Jarret Walker as a renowned transit expert is stretching it a bit, as he is a bloggist, catering to the anti-tram crowd. He […]

King Street Welcomes Toronto to the 21st Century

Toronto’s King Street experiment, bringing 21st century tram philosophy to Toronto and has opened a great many eyes. What has happened is simple, on portions of King Street, the streetcar has been turned into light rail at very little cost. There is no war on the car, rather priority has been given to transit customers […]

Toronto Politicians Fear Scarborough Subway Costs

As expected, the costs for the Scarborough subway, the subway that is replacing the Scarborough ICTS Rapid Transit line, is escalating. Toronto’s ICTSAi?? or locally called SRTAi?? is a very close cousin to Vancouver’s ALRT/ART system, which we collectively named SkyTrain. What should interest Metro Vancouver residents is the final cost of the 6.4 km […]

Toronto’s King Street – A Template For Broadway?

The European light rail Renaissance in Toronto seems to be successful. Active traffic calming will both improve transit service, while at the same time pull more people to transit, a lesson that TansLink and Vancouver traffic engineers refuses to learn. Putting transit underground, may make local improvements, but the high costs hurts transit operations elsewhere. […]

A Novices Guide To Transit – Updated

ai??i??ai??i??ai??i?? or cutting through the BS about light rail, SkyTrain and BRT. The following is a guide plus definitions about ai???railai??? transit. ALM: Automatic Light metro, the fourthAi??marketing name given for the SkyTrain family of light-metros, when Lavalin briefly ownedAi??SkyTrain before going bankrupt. ALRT (1): Advanced Light Rail Transit, the secondAi??marketing name for SkyTrain. ALRT […]

Thoughts For November

As 2017 wanes in the days of September and October andAi?? now the chill winds of November are upon us , the unprecedented dry spell, reeks of global warming. 7mm of rain in July and August must be setting off alarm bells in the various forestry and environmental ministries. This summer and autumn I had […]