As Predicted – TransLink’s Gas Tax is Faltering – Higher Taxes Predicted!

As predicted, gas tax revenue has failed to meet expectations as thousands of lower mainland residents fill up their family chariots east of Aldergrove or in the US, where gas is much cheaper. This was predicted by Zwei some years ago (the wife fills up her belch-fire in Point Roberts) and was roundly criticized by […]

FRA Approves First Integrated Use of Stadler GTW Rail Vehicle for DCTA – The RftV/Leewood Study is Shovel Ready!

Good news everyone, in the USA the Federal Railway Administration has approved theAi??first integrated use of the Stadler GTW Rail Vehicle for Denton County Transportation Authority’s new passenger rail line. Not quite TramTrain and not quite an old Budd RDC or Bombardier O-train, theAi??Stadler Diesel LRTAi??fits the market for light weight diesel rail cars for […]

At Last The Main Stream Media Questions The Transit Police!

For some time now I have questioned why we have the transit police and evidently the main stream media are nowAi??asking questions too. There was never any need for the transit police and more and more the transit police looked like a sop to the provincial RCMP, enabling recently retired officers to make lucrative incomes […]

Faregate Hoopla – In TransLink’s World 1 + 1 =3

Lots of hoopla in the media today about TransLink’s daft $175 million fare-gate program, with the first fare gates being installed at the Marine Drive Canada Line Station. The taxpayer is anteing up over $175 million to retrofit fare-gates to Vancouver’s mini-metro system and with operating costs estimated to exceed $15 million annually, one wonders, […]

Myth Busting!

It seems that the same tall tales about modern LRT are being told is Sydney Australia, that are being told in Vancouver and Surrey. Like always. a lie often repeated soon becomes truth, well the following sets the record straight, but will the public remain deaf to the truth all depends on the amount of […]

War on Buses? Er…No, Just Very Bad Planning

Is there a war on buses in Vancouver? Sorry, no. Instead thereAi??has been an ongoingAi??war on good transit planning and those supporting bad transit planning won decades ago. The real problem is and always has beenAi??SkyTrain and the massive costs associated with the mini-metro. The taxpayer has paid about three to five times more for […]

Detroit’s “Mugger Mover” celebrates 25 years of ‘sort of’ operation

We don’t hear much about SkyTrain elsewhere and I wonder why? Well I know the answer, SkyTrain reign of operation elsewhere has not been as successful as the SkyTrain lobby would have us believe. Please take note of the serious issues regarding the Detroit’s ICTS’s guideway, as previous discussion on the RftV commnets has been […]

Could TramTrain be the solution for the E&N?

The following article about the rebuilding of the E&N passenger station in Nanaimo and the hint of a commuter train service causes ‘Zwei’ to speculate that; could TramTrain be the best solution for a passenger or commuter rail serviceAi??using the E&N railway in both Victoria and the Nanaimo regions. Using the Rail for the Valley/Leewood […]

CancA?n tram-train feasibility study commissioned

It is so sad that just about every country in North America and Europe are looking a TramTrain (Interurban) to help solve regional transit problems, except Canada andAi??especially BC and Metro Vancouver. That the now obsolete SkyTrain mini-metro is still being planned for the lower mainland only shows how backward and irrelevant our regional transit […]

Through the past – darkly

A note from Zwei…. This post is for the real transit enthusiast, who understands the nuances of transit history. Ed T., who is mentioned in the post is Ed Tennyson, who just turned 90, is one of the USA’s foremost transit experts. The following has been making the rounds in the “transit blogs” and is […]