The Emperor has no Clothes and no Transit

Zwei has decided to reprint this post from 2010, written by someone outside the metro Vancouver bubble, who tried to better the region’s transit. In the ensuing time nothing has changed; the same oldAi??tired cast of charlatans trundling out the same old tired transit plans,Ai??desperately tryingAi??to convinceAi??the ever increasingly skeptical taxpayerAi??to ante up more and […]

The 1986 LRTA Study: Bus – LRT – Metro Comparison

Every year I reprint this post to remind everyone of the ability to move large amount of people at an affordable cost. There is an ongoing debate today that LRT can only carry a limited number of riders and that the magic number for a subway is about 100,000 riders a day on a transit […]

Sounds of Silence

No surprise here, as Zwei has been sounding alarm bells over this upcoming fiasco for years Now TransLink has an American out of Seattle as the new CEO and this means the sky is the limit for spending on rail transit. Seattle’s LRT is LRT in name only as it is actually a light metro […]

Unlike Toronto, TransLink Can’t Cancel A SkyTrain Contract

Toronto is cancelling its contract with Bombardier, which would have provided light rail vehicles for Toronto’s planned LRT network and the TTC is also looking at dumping Bombardier as the supplier for their tram replacement program due to non delivery of new trams as per the contract schedule This is why Bombardier Inc. love proprietary […]

Broadway Subway Is Luxury Wrapped In Opulence – Designed To Sell A Mock P-3?

It did not take long for the Liberal fixers in Ottawa to hatch a scheme to keep their political friends awash in taxpayer`s dollars. Public transit schemes are generally not money makers, in fact the vast majority of public transit operations around the globe are subsidized, many heavily subsidized. A few light rail transit lines […]

SkyTrain Ka-Put Again. Is TransLink Out Of It’s Depth?

It is becoming all to regular, the Expo and Millennium Lines go down; TransLink can’t cope with the problem and transit customers are badly dealt with. I think new TransLink CEO, Kevin Desmond is out of his league and if these frequent stoppages do not cease, he must resign. What is even more disturbing is […]

In Metro Vancouver……

The subway lobby seem hard at it in Toronto and have been caught out by an independent public watchdog, set up to protect the taxpayer. Metro Vancouver and its member municipalities has no such watchdog to watch for bureaucratic or political malfeasance and with the media well in bed with Metro Vancouver politicians, the taxpayer […]

Trams for Kuala Lumpur? Evidently Light Metro Did Not Reduce Congestion!

Interesting news from Kuala Lumpur, transit experts urge that trams be used. Kuala Lumpur already has an elevated RT line; a ART (SkyTrain) Line and an monorail, now transit authorities urge trams! The key phrase; “…….the mode of transportation could also reduce vehicles on the road and simultaneously solve traffic congestion in Kuala Lumpur especially […]

INFRASTRUCTURE

One politicians “infrastructure” is another one’s waste. It’s not transit or transportation projects we build, rather it is infrastructure. The SkyTrain Broadway subway is deemedAi?? by Vancouver politicians to be a good investment of the taxpayer’s money because it is “infrastructure” , but the subway is not based on sound transit and transportation planning, thus […]

Calgary, Alberta: Green Line LRT tunnel option approved in principle by Calgary city council

Everyone wants tunnels and subways. Victorian railway companies in the UK, bankrupted themselves with needless and over engineered tunnels because they were in vogue. Calgary’s LRT was designed more as a light metro than light rail, but that still did not stop transit planners from putting the C-Train mostly at grade, with on-street operation in […]