Vancouver’s Streetcar (Tram) Planning – TransLink Boldly Plans For The 1940’s

Recent comments on various transit blogs, by representatives of TransLink only confirm that TransLink does not wish to build with light rail and their current LRT/streetcar/tram planning for Vancouver is woefully dated. It has been mentioned several times in the past month that a 2010 news item from Karlsruhe Germany, that the main tram line […]

A day in gridlocked Richmond

Zwei had business to conduct in Richmond yesterday and it was my first time I have driven around the municipality in many years. Yes, ‘Zwei‘ ventures to Landsdown Mall to rescue his wife from TransLink when she works late in Vancouver several times a week, but that is late at night and traffic is light. […]

TransLink and the Canada Line – The real story – Part 2

It even gets better! More from the email I received Monday and what a bombshell! If the following is to believed and I believe very strongly it is true, TransLink is doing a very poor, yet very expensive job in moving transit customers. This why TransLink and the provincial government are deathly afraid of an […]

TransLink and the Canada Line – The real story

The following was emailed to me last night and contains some explosive comments about TransLink and the RAV/Canada Line. Rand Chatterjee is one of the very few people who took the time to research the cost of the RAV/Canada Line and he clearly understands the nuances of the P-3 contract and the negative impact on […]

North American light rail systems

Modern LRT is reasonably cheap to build, when compared with metro type systems, but in NorthAi??America transit planners have done the impossible, they have planned LRT to be more expensive than a metro to build.Ai?? Such stupidity should be stopped at once! From the Globe and Mail. This maybe of some interest, but the cost […]

Transit Realities In Toronto

Transit realities are coming into the fore in Toronto and Toronto’s mayor Ford is being dragged screaming and kicking into the 21st century; even the Mayor’s political appointees are singing the light rail song! The Mayor’s anti-LRT stance is based on many factors, including; Subways keep traffic lanes open for cars, thus are poor in […]

High Costs For LRT In Waterloo Ontario Questioned! Is LRT Being Designed as a Money Pit?

It seems well known light rail advocate, Malcolm Johnston, Ai??is at it again, sticking his nose in other peoples light rail business, butAi??there there is a very good point for his interest in Canadian light rail projects, as they are farAi??more expensive when compared to new build European light rail lines. Also in the fray […]

Ida Chong is afraid to order an audit of TransLink! Those damned skeletons in the closet!

Well, good old ‘Zwei’ has been arguing for this for over a decade, but the BC Liberal government and the Liberal lickspital minister in charge of TransLink, Ida Chong, is afraid to order an audit of TransLink. Why? Audits have a strange way of uncovering misspent monies or dubious bookkeeping Ai??practices or evenAi??more sinister wastes […]

How to pay for Victoria’s proposed over priced light rail….. Don’t!…..Plan for much cheaper TramTrain on the E&N!

BC Transit is an old hand at inflating costs of LRT, so they don’t have to deal with it. In the 90’s, BC Transit increased the cost of the proposed Broadway-LougheedAi??LRT to such an extent, that there was only a 7% difference between the cost for light rail and that of SkyTrain. Sprinkled with political […]

An interesting thought

An interesting thought: Has anyone made or care to make a calculation of the annual lives saved; medical costs saved;Ai??Ai??insurance not paid out; etc.,Ai??if the Fraser Valley had a regularly scheduled TramTrain service from Chilliwack to Vancouver? This an especially important question today, with the scores of accidents and injuries, just on Tuesday on the […]