Have We Crossed The Rubicon, With Regional Transit Planning?

According to Suetonius, Caesar uttered the famous phrase ālea iacta est (“the die has been cast”). The phrase “crossing the Rubicon” has survived to refer to any individual or group committing itself irrevocably to a risky or revolutionary course of action, similar to the modern phrase “passing the point of no return” In the late […]

If the UK is Reinstating former Passenger Routes, Why Can’t We?

Really, $4.6 billion to build 12.8 km of light-metro is an awful lot of money for so small increase in a rail route; 5.8 km to extend the Millennium Line in Vancouver and 7 km in Surrey. By comparison, $1.5 billion would provide a 130 km Vancouver to Chilliwack service, with three trains per hour […]

Public Transit In Canada – All About Profits and Politics

Just like the Canada Line, politics and profits; REM is the Canada line on steroids. Just like transit planning in Metro Vancouver, it isn’t about providing better transit options, it is all about profit and politics, rezoning, demovictions, and building high rent towers and high rise condos. And like Vancouver, Montreal calls it’s light metro […]

Toronto’s ‘SkyTrain’ Is Not Going Softly In The Night

The end of ‘SkyTrain’ service in Toronto is nearing and it seems the subway replacement is now treading on financial thin ice. LRT is the big bogey man of both light and heavy metro supporters, simply because LRT has proven far more economic to operate than light metro and can economically cater to loads at […]

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! Mr. Burgess brought up a interesting point, the city of Vancouver claims that SkyTrain is not proprietary and SkyTrain is the “brand” name. Really? Really, really? The term SkyTrain is used on a lot of elevated transit systems, notably Vancouver […]

Old News, But Where Is The Funding?

Thanks to Mr. Cow, Rail for the Valley knew about this over five years ago. RftV knew that the current Edmonds yard was near capacity and a new yard had to be built to accommodate the new cars as far back as 2016. Couple of items ignored with this story, which is nothing more than […]

Hungary’s New TramTrain

  A new TramTrain operation has opened on Feb. 22, in Hungary and all one can say is wow. The 26.2 km Szeged-Hódmezővásárhely (please watch video) tram-train system is now open for operation in Hungary, connecting two of the cities of Szeged and Hódmezővásárhely. Costing a total of €224 842 224  (CAD$345,750,843 or $8.6 million/km)), the diesel-electric […]

Italian Tram Renaissance

Italy has rediscovered “Il Tram” and a renaissance of the modern tram in eleven cities. The following are six Italian city tram and light rail systems. The Bergamo–Albino light rail is a 12.5-kilometre (7.8 mi) light rail line that connects the city of Bergamo, Italy, with the town of Albino, in the lower part of […]

Not Cost Effective.

Another suicide, another death and TransLink washes it hands of the problem. The SkyTrain light-metro system doesn’t have an attendant on board to monitor the tracks. This is the darker side of driverless trains. Unlike other automatic metros, there are no sliding glass gates at stations to prevent egress onto the tracks. This costs money […]

Meet The Canada Line’s French Cousin, REM.

REM is a clone of the Canada Line, a faux P-3 project designed to benifit land speculators, land developers and of course the financiers, which in this case is the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, or CDPQ . The local rail advocates are now fully understanding at how REM will not provide better […]