Global Warming, Copenhagen, & Light Rail – The Solution That Is Ignored

When one looks past the European street theater of riots, the embarrassment of Canada, the intransigence of the USA, China and Russia, what will Copenhagen climate conference accomplish? Probably very little. The world is not ready for global warming and if a few island nations submerge due to rising sea levels, no one will really […]

Has SkyTrain become British Columbia’s Greatest Bamboozle?

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. Carl Sagan Is SkyTrain a colossal bamboozle? Does the SkyTrain lobby and […]

Cambie merchants hope for better fortunes – From CKNW News Radio

As predicted, those thousands ofAi??Ai?? RAV/Canada Line passengers are not getting off the train to shop at Cambie Street stores. The sad fact is, the inference from RAVCo. and later InTransit BC, was that the Canada Line would bring thousands of shoppers to Cambie St., it hasn’t and only those merchants lucky enough to be […]

A Flash From the Past – "Skytrain gathers speed despite cost to taxpayers" – From Charlie Smith & The Georgia Straight.

In light of TransLink’s newly departed CEO, Tom Prendergast’s parting shot at the SkyTrain Lobby,Ai??Ai?? A?ai??i??Ai??ItA?ai??i??ai???s overcoming the culturalAi??Ai??embracement of SkyTrain that has existed to date.A?ai??i??A? …… “TransLink is seeking to cut through the pro-SkyTrain A?ai??i??Ai??cultural biasA?ai??i??A?…………….”, which isAi??Ai??entrenched in all levels of civic and provincial bureaucracy; we should look at the warnings given almost […]

On-street Light Rail – Streetcars & Trams – How would it look?

The following are streetscapes and street cross sections of modern LRT (streetcars or trams) operating on-street and will help many to visualize how a modern tram would look on a typical city street in Vancouver, Langley, Abbotsford and even Chilliwack. The above picture shows a pure streetcar setting with cars and trams sharing a common […]

From the Vancouver Province – Transit must derail cheats: Politicos

Here we go again department. The hoary old turnstile debate is again before us and leading the charge is Richmond council, wonderful. The current council in Richmond know little, if anything, about transit and I would suspect that the ‘turnstile issue’ is nothing but a propaganda ploy to hide the real problems with our light-metro […]

LRT versus BUSES – Why Portland chose light rail – from the LRTA

The following article written by Gerald Fox,Ai??Ai??former TriMet Rail Corridor Manager, is well worth a read as it gives good insight why Portland opted for modern light rail. http://www.lrta.info/tramforward/TAUT-Oct09-LRTvBus.pdfAi??Ai?? Gerald Fox, one must remember is the same chap, who in the early 90’s, published a study, “A comparison of Automated Guided Transit (AGT) and Light […]

Post number 300 and many more to come.

This post marks the 300th posting on the Rail for the Valley Blog and congratulations to (now) Dr. John Buker for all his efforts with the valley rail project. When John asked me to post for the RFV blog, I don’t think he expected such a “stormy petrel“. I have tried hardAi??Ai??to keep the blog […]

To Toll Or Not to Toll – That is The Question

There is a current push to implement Road Pricing or Road Tolls in the region by various levels of government, to help fund public transit. The problem is, Road pricing or tolling will not work unless there is a viable public transit alternative in place. There isn’t and road pricing will fail and those politicians […]

From the Vancouver Province – Canada Line to lose millions each year despite strong ridership – Another TransLink Bambozzle

From the “Tip of the Iceberg Department”; the RAV/Canada Line is going to cost TransLink money but until theAi??Ai??BC Auditor General has a go at TransLink, SkyTrain and RAV, the public will never know the true costs of the new subway or of TransLink’s metro operation. The $14 million to $21 million shortfall mentioned is […]