The Pursuit Of European Ideals In Toronto

As expected, upgrade a heritage streetcar line to a light rail standard and ridership increases dramatically. By making King St. an exclusive route for trams, increased both commercial speed and ridership, so much so, it overwhelmed the servcie. This is old news as our European friends knew his decades ago and the question must be […]

The SkyTrain Cult Is Today’s Version Of The Cargo Cult

The Cargo Cult is a millenarian movement first described in Melanesia which encompasses a range of practices and occurs in the wake of contact with more technologically advanced societies. The name derives from the belief which began among Melanesian’s in the late 19th and early 20th century that various ritualistic acts such as the building […]

“We do not have to watch reruns of Monty Python for our amusement, we just have to tune in to Vancouver’s transit planning for our entertainment”

It is now 2017 and the transit year is off with a dull thud. The title comes courtesy of an old transit acquaintance from the UK who was badly burned by his Canada Line experience. With the planned Pattullo Bridge replacement bridge having only 4 traffic lanes; the Surrey Hawthorne Park road debacle (where a […]

The Return Of The Tram!

One of the recurring themes for the SkyTrain types is that big cities have subways and little cities have trams. Well Berlin, the Capital of Germany with a population 3.7 million, is now investing in trams in the former “West” portion of the city as the old Communist “East” section retained the pre-war tramways. This […]

Fear of Subway Costs Grips Mayors Council

As our friend, Haveacow indicated some time ago, the Broadway subway is going to cost a lot more than many think. Some years ago, Zwei entered into correspondence with a German transit Engineer, Wolfgang and he warned of subway construction and operating costs, which hobbled German transit authorities and also lead to the rebirth of […]

Vancouver’s Dirty Subway Politics Continue

A Vancouver reader to this blog received the following letter today from the City of Vancouver.   The gentleman received the letter one day past the RSVP Date and the city evidently got the bus route numbers mixed up, as well. This continues the dirty subway politics practiced by Vision(less) Vancouver and with a former […]

Scarborough Subway Sticker Shock

More info on the Scarborough controversy. First, modern LRT can carry more than 15,000 pphpd, in fact modern LRT can carry well over 20,000 pphpd. In Karlsruhe Germany, one tram line carried over 35,000 pphpd in the peak hour! Toronto’s old Bloor Danforth streetcar line, using coupled sets of PCC cars were known to move […]

TransLink CEO No Better Than A Cheap Carny Huckster

In Metro Vancouver, local journalists remain largely ignorant of transit issues and believe, without reservation, what they are told by TransLink. There is no investigative journalism with TransLink and its favourite, SkyTrain. This “puff” piece is nothing more than softening up the public for both the Broadway subway and Road Pricing, which is needed to […]

The Ignorance Of Light Rail Knows No Bounds – Distinctly In Vancouver

It is sad that anti-tram journalist, Francis Bula, writes such tawdry articles about transit and by doing so, demonstrates that she does little or no research and repeats the anti-tram myth. Citing Jarret Walker as a renowned transit expert is stretching it a bit, as he is a bloggist, catering to the anti-tram crowd. He […]

King Street Welcomes Toronto to the 21st Century

Toronto’s King Street experiment, bringing 21st century tram philosophy to Toronto and has opened a great many eyes. What has happened is simple, on portions of King Street, the streetcar has been turned into light rail at very little cost. There is no war on the car, rather priority has been given to transit customers […]