Dutch Regional Railways – A Model For The E&N?

Single track stub terminal station at Leeuwarden. (Harlingen–Nieuweschans Railway) Scheemda Station. Please note, cyclists use bicycles to commute to the station to take the train! (Harlingen–Nieuweschans Railway) A single stub terminal station at Stavoren. (Leeuwarden–Stavoren Railway) Franeker Station. Simple platform station with minimal amenities. (Harlingen–Nieuweschans Railway)

Toronto’s Transit Failures – Or Not Listening To The Experts!

The problem in Canada, with “rail” transit, especially light rail (LRT) is that politcans get involved and when politicians get involved, costs rise dramatically. Unlike Europe, Canadian University’s do not offer degrees in Urban Transport and the vast majority of Engineers and Planners who work on transit projects have little knowledge of what “light rail” […]

BRT – A View From a Canadian Transit Expert

Originally posted in 2015 I have updated the post but since very little has changed about BRT over the past decade, that there is little to update. Real BRT has reached its maximum potential, unless tree-articulated buses become the norm and that has made BRT a niche transit mode to deal with niche transit issues. […]

TransLink’s Fear Of The Future And “The Interurban”

First posted by zweisystem on Tuesday, July 7, 2020 Updated. As the clamour continues by Vancouver politicians for the federal government to fund the now $8 billion Broadway subway to UBC, TransLink stays largely mute and for good reason, they know in today’s politcal climate, the feds won’t be anteing up. As politcans recklessly promise […]

Sorry City of Vancouver, Movia Automatic Light Metro is the Brand Name…….

……..Of What We Call SkyTrain And It Is A Proprietary Light Metro! Get Over It! This was first published in 2021, but with all the hype about building the Broadway subway, the city of Vancouver has reverted back to to the old song that, what we call SkyTrain, is a successful brand and definitely not […]

Transit lessons unlearned

First posted in 2009 – Updated 2025 Two and a half decades later, the following lessons have not been learned by TransLink, Metro Vancouver and the provincial NDP. It is sheer negligence on the part of TransLink, the Mayor’s Council on Transit, and the Ministry of Transportation, that they remain ignorant of what was commonly […]

A Slow Train to The Future

What is is badly needed in BC and Canada is regional railways. Local pundits have called for faster and faster rail transit, with some even advocating for high speed rail (HST) for the Fraser Valley as the only way to get people out of their cars. The current cost for the Expo Line extension to […]

Facts Don’t Seem To Matter – UBC Students Gaslights The Truth.

Gaslighting:  a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgment, often evoking in them cognitive dissonance and other changes including low self-esteem. Using denial, misdirection, contradiction, and misinformation, gaslighting involves attempts to […]

BCIT to UBC and Picnics In The Park

First published in 2009., The post has been updated. A Wee Bit Of Local History In early 1996, during BC Transit’s meaningless public consultation period for the Broadway Lougheed Rapid Transit Project which later morphed into the Millennium Line, Zwei received a phone call from an European Transit specialist, who worked for Asea Brown Boverai […]

TransLink Underestimated Capacity Of LRT By 150% And The Time Penalty By Infinity

First posted by zweisystem on Tuesday, November 17, 2020 (updated) I am reposting this from November 2020 because TransLink, civic and provincial politicians are singing hosannas about Bus Rapid Transit, with some going so far to say that BRT makes light rail obsolete! What is damning today is that the numbers used in TransLink’s 2019 […]