Funding – How to restore Passenger Rail

The UK, as well as many European countries, are reopening long abandoned rail routes for passenger service. The lesson is simple, if you want to attract the motorist from the car, you must develop a user friendly alternative. The railway is a proven user friendly alternative to the car. In BC, politicians have not learned […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Alstom Completes Bombardier Transportation Acquisition

Alstom is now the owner of the proprietary Movia Automatic Light Metro (MALM) system and the big question is, will Alstom continue to produce the MK.2/3 cars or even honour Bombardier’s contracts with TransLink. Will Alstom treat TransLink and regional politicians as rubes for the taking? The early resignation of TransLink CEO Kevin Desmond, and […]

A Tale of Three Letters

It seems there is much confusion with TransLink and metro cities regarding transit mode. It is the old shell game, practiced by BC Transit, TransLink, both the provincial Liberal Party and the NDP, regional Mayors and very sadly, both University of BC and Simon Fraser University. Rapid transit refers to metro and not light rail, […]

A Letter to Regional Politicians

Zwei has been copied a letter that has been sent out to Metro politicians. I also have been informed that the provincial NDP have blocked receiving said letter. It is of great importance that the media should ask pointed questions about regional transit, but they don’t and have given largely given regional transit a free […]

Fake News And The SkyTrain Lobby – Who Are They Really Working For?

A repost from November 21, 2017 A comment from Zwei (2021): The Daily Hive has become the mouthpiece for TransLink and the Hive prints news releases as if they were news, without any fact checking. Really, can’t the SkyTrain Lobby do any better? The following is so silly and juvenile because it is all hearsay […]

The Realities of Subway Mania In Lotus Land

A repost from March 4 2020 The realities of subway mania. Vancouver politicians live in “The Land of the Lotus Eaters”, when it comes to transit. In Greek mythology the lotus-eaters, were a race of people living on an island dominated by the Lotus tree. The lotus fruits and flowers were the primary food of […]