A Repost From November 2018 – Mayor McCallum Has Screwed The City of Surrey

After three years, the news about rapid transit goes from bad to worse. The Expo Line extension to Langley is now costing more than the revised cost of $3.95 billion and despite much false information that the line is fully funded, it is not. The claim that Prime minister Trudeau’s Liberal government will fully fund […]

The Cost Of Rehab

This article shows the full breadth of work that needs to be done when expanding a major rapid transit line, above, at or below grade. This will happen to all stations on the Expo and Millennium lines, when the much needed system $3 billion rehab takes place and must take place if the Expo Line […]

A Repost From 2019 – Here We go Again……

 A repost from Wednesday, June 19, 2019. Some things have changes since this item was posted in 2019. Alstom now owns the proprietary Movia Automatic Light Metro system, when they finalized purchasing Bombardier’s rail division earlier in the year. The estimated cost for the Langley extension is now over $3.95 billion mark and heading north […]

A Letter to Vancouver Island Politicians

With the spectre of global warming wreaking havoc on our province, it is time to get serious about doing what we can to alleviate emissions from internal combustion engines. At the same time we must invest in ways other than asphalt solutions to mitigate endemic traffic congestion. Today, only a rail based transit system can […]

TramTrain For 2022

A re-post from earlier this year. With the devastation caused by this years heat dome, wild fires, tornado, atmospheric rivers, flood and of course our modern day plague, Covid, the provincial government must rethink its plans to spend over $10 billion to build less than 22 km of the SkyTrain light metro network. $10 billion […]

First Hungarian TramTrain Service Begins

Good news, the opening of the first TramTrain service in Hungary. What is largely of interest is that the TramTrain route is mainly single track with passing loops, using hybrid vehicles, built by Stadler and can operate either by electricity and diesel.There is a lot of scope for TramTrain to operate in the Fraser Valley, […]

A Renewed Call For Judicial Inquiry on TransLink and the Mayor’s Council on Transit

November 22, 2022The Hon. David Eby, Q.C. Attorney General, The Province of BC.Dear Sir, A renewed call for a Judicial Inquiry on TransLink and the Mayor’s Council on Transit with the proposed SkyTrain Broadway subway and the SkyTrain extension in Surrey to Langley. I am writing to you on the above matter. The Broadway subway. […]

FROM THE LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT ASSOCIATION – TRAMS ARE SYMBOLS OF CITIES

From the LRTA, the modern tram, workhorse of today’s public transit systems in over 600 cities around the world, yet noticeably missing in Metro Vancouver. Indeed, the modern tram is absent in soulless Vancouver and it is time to change this. Let’s put some soul into Vancouver; let’s plan for trams! For the Fraser Valley […]

Planning Fallacy

  From Norman Farrell’s In-sights blog, commenting on the NDP’s continuation with the Site “C” dam project despite the fact that Site “C” is a risky $16↑billion energy project that will cause massive ecological damage and produce electricity at 4x the cost of alternative sources.. The same is true with the now $3 billion Broadway […]

Entering The Land of Unicorns and Pixie Dust – TransLink’s Current P.R. Gamble

Well, the first surprise was that this news item came via the Alaska Highway News of all places. This tells me TransLink is spinning the story to everyone it can to give the good news to! The big problem that there is no money to fund these grand schemes and the post Covid economy may […]