TransLink stumbles on

Liz James, who writes for the North Shore news, is one of the very few columnists that who has both researched the regional transit issue and understands transit issues. As TransLink CEO Ian Jervis, is busy shilling for the very expensive Evergreen Line, he refuses to look a cheaper alternatives, such as light rail. SkyTrain […]

Are modern streetcars the future?

Due to the small backlash to TransLink’s tax increases that were announced on Wednesday, the pro-LRT and pro-streetcar groups were out today promoting surface rail on CTV News as being cheaper and a fitting tribute to a past.Ai??Ai??   http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110708/bc_interurban_tram_110708/20110708/ Are modern streetcars the future? Vancouver’s interurban train system — the first in Canada — […]

News Flash – TransLink trying to pull a fast one? Updated!

Well the masters of flim-flam are trying to pull a fast one over local mayors, why? The probable answer is that denying proper scrutiny of the 2012 TransLink base plan, indicatesAi??thereAi??must be itemsAi??that TransLink doesn’t want local mayors to see. I hope that the Mayor’s Council has the collective backbone to demand TransLink give proper […]

Expanding Calgary’s Light Rail

Already emission-free, doubling in size since 2001 and taking delivery of new Siemens SD160NG LRV’s, Canada’s CTrain is a model of sucessful light rail. http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/technical_information.htm Light Rail in Calgary is in the midst of a mini revolution. New vehicles, new stations and new routes are all part of a major expansion described by the Canadian […]

Another letter the media ignores

Another letter from a friend of Rail for the Valley,Ai??which the mainstream media wish to ignore. HereAi??is the problem with our current financial transit debacle, very few, if any in the region understandsAi??what SkyTrain is and why the Vancouver region has it. Most politicos just repeat TransLink’s bumf ad nauseoum! SkyTrain, both the Expo and […]

Lies, damn lies, statistics and ART

From the “You’d better believe it” Department Although sometimes attributed to Mark Twain ai??i?? because it appears in his posthumously-published Autobiography (1924) ai??i?? this should more properly be ascribed to Disraeli, as indeed Twain took trouble to do: his exact words being, ai???The remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: ai???There […]

Death, taxes and TransLink

We all want better transit options, but are we willing to pay for them? Well our rather confused regional mayors think so. The root of TransLink's financial woes has been the SkyTrain proprietary mini-metro system and its clone, the Canada Line. Skytrain costs about four to five times more to build than LRT and about fifteen times more […]

Copenhagen to get light-rail network by 2020: transport ministry

LRT in Copenhagen One welcomes the announcement that Copenhagen will have its first tram/LRT line built by 2020.  In several transit oriented blogs, much has been made that the Danish capital, Copenhagen, opted to have a driverless metro, instead of light rail. Automatic metro is the way of the future, was the clarion call by many […]

Metro mayors pitch ideas to keep Evergreen Line from going off the rails

Looks like the regional mayors are trying to save face with the delay in building the Evergreen Line. How about just saying no. Regional mayors should tell the Minister of Transportation and TransLink this: "If your government compels TransLink to plan and build with the proprietary SkyTrain light-metro system, then your government should pay the […]

SkyTrain justifications are way off track

It seems The North Shore News’s Liz James has scored a direct hit with her most recent article andAi??I hope the rest of the Post Media papers pick this up and print it. BC Transit and now TransLink has made the LRT/SkyTrain debate an idealogicalAi??one and not a debate about what is best for the […]