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 […]

User-Friendliness – The Key For Ridership

Interesting, that an Alberta University is doing a study about how Covid affects transit use. All we hear from TransLink is yesterday’s ridership records, which were mainly for “subway propaganda” than anything else. TransLink’s ridership claims are based on boarding’s and as boarding’s inflate actual ridership numbers, means ridership assumptions and predictions are inflated and […]

And Then There Were Six

Despite the hype and hoopla of regional mayors, five very important facts about our SkyTrain light metro system are glossed over in Metro Vancouver, by metro mayors, bureaucrats and transportation planners: The Expo and Millennium Lines operate a dated proprietary railway, now called Movia Automatic Light Metro. Only seven of these proprietary railways were sold […]

Alstom-Bombardier Deal to Complete in January

This is big news as Bombardier is the sole supplier of the proprietary, linear induction motor powered Movia Automatic Light Metro system used on the Expo and Millennium Lines. Alstom may or may not continue the production of the now stale dated Movia Light Metro and give notice to its customers that they will wind […]

Floundering Public Transit and the Resurrection of the Car.

An interesting read. TransLink, the Mayor’s Council on Transit and the provincial government should take serious note of the following, but they won’t. Riding in their cars, subsidized by generous car allowances and more, politicians remain oblivious to current issues and pretend nothing has happened. For politicians it is “Do as I say, not as […]

Light Metro Fiasco In Honolulu

Light-metro, a 1970’s solution for a 1950’s transit problems and made obsolete by light rail by the early 90’s. Why oh why do politicians love gadgetbahnen. The total cost of Honolulu’s 20-mile (32 km) rail line and 21 stations is $9.862 billion. If the add-ons approved by the board Friday are included in the final […]

Mobility Pricing – The Rapture of Megaprojects

The first rule of mobility pricing is: One must have an affordable and user friendly public transit alternative. Metro Vancouver doesn’t, nor is planning for one. Instead metro Vancouver is planning for politically prestigious mega transit projects and like all megaprojects, they cost a lot of money and government, whether it be civic, provincial or […]

Broadway Subway: Based On Inaccurate And Manipulated Assumptions

Haveacow is an avatar of a very knowledgeable chap from back east who works with public transport. In the arcane world of transit in Canada, speaking one’s mind or even being truthful can send one to Coventry. To send someone to Coventry is an English idiom meaning to deliberately ostracize someone. Typically, this is done […]

TransLink Underestimated Capacity Of LRT By 150% And The Time Penalty By Infinity

It verifies what we all knew: that TransLink underestimated the capacity of surface rail by 150% and the time penalty by infinity. Professor Patrick M. Condon, James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Livable Environments, UBC Yes we all knew; American Transportation Expert, Gerald Fox told us in 2008: The Evergreen Line Report made me curious […]