Common Sense From Aus

Metro Vancouver is not alone with transit ills and this item from the Australian – Sydney Ferry Blog certainly fits with our transit woes. When it comes to transit and commonsense, TransLink’s planners and senior bureaucrats, as well as metro politicians, academics, the Ministry of Transportation and the Premier, seam to lack any at all, […]

Professor Condon on CBC Radio

  A BCIT to UBC surface light rail line would reduce traffic congestion, while at the same time allow cars to access merchants along Broadway UBC Planning Professor Patrick Condon was on CBC Radio on Jan. 29, echoing the growing concern about the proposed Broadway SkyTrain subway sucking away federal monies from other local transit […]

Lund Sweden – New TramWay to Cost $23.3 Million/km to Build

Contrary to TransLink’s habitual gold-plating of its LRT projects, modern light rail can be built reasonably cheaply, when compared to other modes of transit. The cost of the 5.5 km. starter tram line in Lund Sweden, with seven trams is estimated to be CAD $128.1 million or about $23.3 million/km to build. Not bad considering […]

Professor Patrick Condon: Dear PM: Don’t Waste Billions on Bad Transit Projects

I see the good professor is taking the same track a Zwei, with my earlier letter to the PM. Expensive vanity projects like the Broadway subway drive up transit costs, yet provide negligible transit improvements. The only benefit a Broadway subway will bring is excessive profits to land speculators and developers, who are now assembling […]

Good News Everyone – Valley Rail One Legal Step Closer

The following is from our friend Mr. Haveacow, from Ottawa, who is a transportation engineer. Zwei has always stressed that for modern LRTAi?? and TramTrain to operate in BC, the legalities of both must be dealt with. For trams and LRT, the rules of the the road must be addressed, such as who has the […]

Broadways Subway – A Boondoggle In The Making

Subways are very expensive items and only built when there is no other alternative available. SkyTrain ICTS/ALRT/ART, was supposed to mitigate the high cost of subway construction, but it didn’t as it proved to almost as expensive as a heavy-rail metro to build, with the capacity of modern light-rail. The result: No one builds with […]

Broadway Subway Reality Check – Toronto’s 8.6 km Spadina Line Subway Now $3.2 Billion!

For those of you who have been pooh-poohing, Zwei’s cost estimate for the Broadway subway, the following news item from Toronto should send a not too subtle message that subways are very expensive to build and are only built when there is the massive traffic flows that demand long trains and large stations to accommodate […]

Sobering Thoughts

The future may not be as transit friendly as many would have wished. The preceding chart should send chills down TransLink’s collective spine. Metro Vancouver’s transit system is based on the “Spoke and hub” theory of transit practice where major “transit hubs” are connected by light-metro and fed by a network of bus routes (spokes). […]

Chemnitz tram-train set for early 2016 launch

Another TramTrain operation opening in Germany, where customer friendly transit is the order of the day. We also have a shovel ready TramTrain plan for Metro Vancouver, the Leewood/Rail for the Valley TramTrain, reinstating the Vancouver to Chilliwack interurban service. All that is missing is the political will and bureaucratic and academic acceptance of the […]

Happy New Years, Or Is It?

Transit news in the Vancouver metro region in 2015 was dominated by the TransLink plebiscite and despite over $12 million dollars spent to bolster the ‘YES” side the vote was decidedly against giving TransLink any more tax money. What is even more tragic is that the politicians, bureaucrats and academics who supported the “YES” side […]