TransLink’s Subway Fiscal Time Bomb – A Repost from 2013

The SkyTrain/metro Lobby remain mute on the long term fiscal effects of operating subways, especially on routes that have low ridership, say less than 15,000 pphpd. Building a subway is a very expensive proposition and many factors should be considered before embarking on such a costly investment. The first questionAi??any knowledgeable transit planner must ask […]

U.S. (And Canada) Taxpayers Are Gouged on Mass Transit Costs (a repost from 2012)

With BC Transit quoting silly prices for LRT in Victoria and TransLink doing the same in Vancouver and Surrey, the following article from Bloomberg should be essential reading. As the previous post has shown, modern LRT/streetcar can be built cheaply, if there is the political and bureaucratic will to do so. With thank to Justin […]

New Tram-Train service in France

FRANCE: Tram-train services on a 64 km route linking Nantes and ChA?teaubriant are launched by SNCF on February 28. Opening on 28 February a new tram-train service is now operational on the reopened regional railway between Nantes and ChA?teaubriant. The railway has been renovated totally after the closure for passenger service at 31 May 1980. […]

BRT to LRT in Ottawa

Until now, Ottawa invested in BRT to move transit customers into the city. This of course to an operationally expensive transit system as employee costs can be as much a 80% of a transit system’s budget. (Ottawa’s bus photo’s courtesy of Mr. Haveacow) With BRT, buses jams were frequent and city streets became congested with […]

The Moonbeam Line

The Moonbeam Line is an apt name for the for Vancouver Mayor, Gregor Robinson’s pet Broadway subway project, as the subway planning has a foundation of stuff and nonsense. This hokumAi?? that a subway would be of “national significance”, is pure hoopla, from a mayor eager to spend vast sums of other people’s money for […]

Hutzpa!

What hutzpa! The Broadway subway a transit project of national significance, really? I think Mayor Robinson thinks that the taxpayer are rubes. According to our friend, Mr. Haveacow,Ai?? Broadway’s peak demand numbers on average of 2000-3700 passenger trips per hour per direction, which is barely enough to support light rail, let alone a subway. What […]

Light Rail & Tram ridership

Have received the following statistics from an Aussie mate, who is resident in Europe. 1 St Petersburg: tram 476 mill pax p.a., 205 route km. Ai??2 Budapest: tram 393 mill pax p.a., 156 route km. 3 Prague: tram 324 mill pax p.a., 141 route km. Ai??4 Warsaw: tram 270 mill pax p.a., 120 route km. […]

5 light rail projects to watch this year

Which light rail Ai??projects should we be watching this year? Here are just 5 of the many projects developing around the world. They are at different stages and may have different reasons you should keep an eye on them, for example, to find out who will land major contracts or what will happen when it […]

Traffic Flows -What The Broadway Subway Boys & Girls Do No Want Us To Know

Mr. Havecow is a transit professional from Eastern Canada, who has studied our transit system and of course SkyTrain. His findings certainly point to the fact that the public have been inundated with porkies, big and small, from TransLink , The City of Vancouver, and other retread politicians and academics who are clinging to the […]

Tracks to the Cities

Light Rail for Liveable Cities A UITP POSITION PAPER http://www.uitp.org/sites/default/files/cck-focus-papers-files/01%20LIGHT%20RAIL%20FOR%20LIVEABLE%20CITIES.pdf In countries where tramways had survived the massive closures of the 50ai??i??s and 60ai??i??s, e.g. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, many remaining systems have been modernised and upgraded and may now be called ai???light rail systemsai???. In many other countries, where tramways had disappeared from the streets, […]