Risky to bust up flow of gas tax to TransLink: Walton

North Vancouver, mayor and  chair of the region's mayors council, Richard Walton, just doesn't get it. No matter how much federal tax money is paid to TransLink, the insatiable bureaucracy's will never have enough money. If the region splits into to or three transportation entities, those with the SkyTrain and the Canada line metro will […]

The (AVG) Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft GmbH- KarlsruheA?ai??i??ai???s longest tramtrain route A?ai??i??ai??? S4

I am reprinting this post from last year due to a series of recent correspondence on the 210 km. TramTrain route. Those guys on the Skyscraper page really do a great disservice with regional transit with their extremely dated way of thinking. It is almost as TransLink sponsors the blog! It must be remembered that […]

An Open Letter To The New Minister of Transportation Blair Lekstrom

Dear Mr. Lekstrom; Welcome to your new ministry, with its many challenges. The Gateway project is one that will give a few headaches as it's a grossly overbuilt highway that will not carry much traffic. In BC, politicians love to build new highways because their political friends in the Road Builders Association and the trucking […]

Comments From The Sandhouse

An AVG TramTrain, from Karlsruhe, on a rail tour on the Swiss mainline. The Sandhouse is the journal of the Canadian Railroad Historical Association, Pacific Coast Division. In  Vol 35, No. 4, Issue 140 – Winter 2010/11, is a summary of the Rail for the Valley/Leewood report and the BC government's effort, with some important observations. It must be pointed out that […]

Where’s The Transit?

It has been overAi??six months since the release of the Rail for the ground breakingAi??Valley/Leewood TramTrain report and very little of substance has happened. In BC and Metro Vancouver, it is business as usual, where civic and provincial politicians are fretting about funding for the discredited Evergreen metro line. The hype and hoopla on the […]

Current issue of Trains should be required reading

Matthew at Transport Action BC http://transportactionbc.wordpress.com/ writes on March 8th The April issue of Trains magazine has a special 48 page report on fast trains. It describes new high-speed trains in China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Europe, relative speed, why some Americans canai??i??t seem to embrace high-speed rail, a map showing the highest speed portions […]

Susan Heyes

It seems TransLink, in the guise of RAVCo; in the guise of the Canada Line P-3, is the only major subway cut-and-cover projects that did not plan for compensation to affected businesses. In three years of research, Zwei has failed to find a major transit scheme, let alone a cut-and cover subway projects, that didn't […]

TramTrain to Gloucester Estates & the Zoo

The following news item has peaked Zweisystem's interest, for the old interurban route passes just to the North of the Gloucester Industrial Estate and adding a tram stop would be quite easy and quite cheap to do. By doing so, a minibus service could be instituted to service not only the industrial estate, but the Greater Vancouver […]

More transit, more traffic problems, says think tank. But is that really the problem?

Interesting study out of the USA, but unfortunately wrong conclusions will be made, especially by the roads lobby. As for buses not attracting new customers, well duh, that little gem has been known for at least 30 years and if this were not so, we would not have been building new light rail lines in the […]

Added costs for the Canada Line – Has The Taxpayer Assumed Risk?

It seems that TransLink’s costs are rising but what peaked Zweisysytem’s interest is that there has been a cost escalation of the Canada Line contract – what cost escalation? Isn’t the Canada Line supposed to be a P-3 project and that SNC Lavalin and not the taxpayerAi??assumed risk? Now we know all the hype and […]