Hamilton Looks to Europe for Light Rail Plans – How About Vancouver?

The good Burghers in Hamilton have realized that it isn’t the amount of money you spend on transit, rather how you plan andAi??Ai??build rail transit, that makes it successful. This is a lesson that BC politicians and TransLink fail to acknowledge and continue to plan for expensive light metro. The Canada line is a good […]

More Financial Woes For TransLink

Instead of doing what most other ‘rail‘ transit projects have done, offer compensation packages to affected merchants and residents along the construction route, TransLink did nothing and now has to pay the ‘piper’s price’. Not only will future awards drive up the RAV/Canada Line’s price tag, the legal costs alone will take money away from […]

Of Transit, Funding, TramTrain, and a Sustainable Future.

Zwei first met Brendan Read in 1986, while traveling to Abbotsford on the BR Pacer unit that ran three return service to New Westminster each day during the Expo 86 Worlds Fair. It was during this trip that the idea of the “return of the interurban” was conceived. It was all there, track, vehicle(s), and […]

Density shouldnA?ai??i??ai???t be Cambie corridor focus, prof says – From the Georgia Straight.

Ai??Ai?? Since the province and BC Transit and TransLink embarked on light-metro only construction in the region 30 years ago, the public have been told over and over again that higher densities were a must. Made redundant industrial lands (made redundant by municipal politicians rezoning land) were rezonedAi??Ai??to higher density residentialAi??Ai??housing along the Expo Line […]

Bored Subway Tunnels – Are They Problem Free? Will a Broadway SkyTrain subway be Another Cambie St. Fiasco?

The SkyTrain Lobby andAi??Ai??many Vancouver politicians are claiming that a Broadway subway tunnel will be bored in stead of cut-and-cover, eliminating the many problems caused to those living or have businesses adjacent to the subway route, thus eliminatingAi??Ai??protracted litigation forAi??Ai??compensation. The problem of course is aAi??Ai??bored tunneling causes it own set of problems and may […]

Battle looming between Vancouver and other regions over priority of rapid transit – From News 1130 Radio

Ai?? As expected, the Broadway UBC rapid transit project has gained prominence in the past few weeks and the SkyTrain lobby has taken to the blogosphere to spread “SkyTrain Speak.” SkyTrain Speak, is the myth and propaganda created by the SkyTrain lobby to further the causeAi??Ai?? promoting further construction of the obsolete proprietary light metro. […]

Will legal woes derail TransLink?

The merchants along Cambie Street were treated extremely badly by everyone involved with the RAV/Canada metro line subway construction project. Now, with Ms. Heyes winning a $600,000.00 lawsuit against TransLink, the legalAi??Ai??floodgates have been opened for other merchants negatively affected by the RAV/Canada Line cut and cover subway construction to sue TransLink. The sad part […]

Trouble in Paradise – Honolulu’s Troubled Mini-Metro Project

There has been much comment on Honolulu’s elevated rapid transit project and now, asAi??Ai??expected (as with Seattle’s stillborn monorail project)Ai??Ai??financial problems are rearingAi??Ai??their ugly heads. What I find astounding that the estimated cost of the elevated metro is now pegged atAi??Ai??USD $5.3 billion andAi??Ai??is to carry a paltry 100,000 daily passengers by 2030. Shades ofAi??Ai?? […]

From the Georgia Straight – Transportation activists mobilize to thwart South Fraser Perimeter Road and Broadway SkyTrain

Charlie Smith has another good article in the Georgia Straight about transit and transportation in the region and of course the comments are well worth a read. http://straight.com/article-280315/vancouver/transportation-activists-mobilize-thwart-south-fraser-perimeter-road-and-broadway-skytrain Please attend the meetings. The January 16 meeting will take place from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Sundance Banquet Hall (6574 Ladner Trunk Road). It’s served […]

France programs CAD $31.5 billion for urban electric rail transit development

Interesting news from France, where the government is investing at least CAD $31.15 billion in urban transit projects. What should be of interest to Rail for The Valley is that France is also investing TramTrain, which “operation is currently adamantly prohibited in the USA by the Federal Railroad Administration, but it has become widespread in […]