This was a deliberately provocative article, so I’m expecting lots of challenges. Yes, there are many other futures that can be detailed (built $23 billion in transit and had no money left for anything else, is one I’m sure will turn up here). I found out a lot more about some of the details as [...]

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Suddenly, the Broadway line is front and centre. After several years of not saying too much, Vancouver has really built up a head of steam the last couple of months (sorry for that bad pun and more to come) championing a Broadway subway line. Here’s my story from last week with the mayor and the [...]

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As mayors continue to press the provincial government to come up with some kind of solution for funding that will allow TransLink to expand services, the chair of the mayors’ council sent out an open letter yesterday with suggestions for short-term and long-term funding solutions. Short-term: – 0.5 per cent sales tax, which would pull [...]

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Council heard an update today from its engineers on plans for the line which answers some of these questions. I’ll be posting that story later. In the meantime, here’s what I had today And, for keen readers, here is belatedly the story that came out of council on the city’s position re the Broadway line. [...]

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Divorces rise when the economy is bad. I’d suggest the same dynamic is at play among the region’s 21 mayors, who find themselves being squeezed by demand for more transit from residents, resistance to new taxes and fees from taxpayers, and a province that keeps hacking off more body parts in each go-round to find [...]

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Just one thing after another at poor old TransLink. Hard to believe how much people loved it during and after the Olympics, when it was whisking around a couple of million people a day. Now it’s everyone’s favourite whipping boy, with lots of blame being heaped on and not much discussion about how this region [...]

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The region’s mayors continue to struggle to find the formula for paying for transit and roads in the region long-term. Reporters tackled them yesterday at the end of their three-hour meeting, which Transportation Minister Blair Lekstrom attended part of,  and we all tried to pull something out of them about what’s coming up next. Weirdly, [...]

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Okay, I officially give up trying to understand what is going on between TransLink and the province or among TransLink’s mayors. They signed a memorandum of understanding just weeks ago that seemed to pave the way for an agreement between Victoria and TL on how to fund future transit projects. And now they’re back this [...]

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In giddy anticipation of their one-year anniversary, TransLink sent out an updated count of their ridership this morning. Not too surprising to anyone who rides the line regularly, which seems to be packed at all times and is particularly jammed with suitcase-toting people heading out to the airport at all hours. Figures released by TransLink [...]

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Thought-provoking article from the folks in Seattle analyzing why Vancouver buses get more riders per bus and, more important, why increasing bus frequency typically does not automatically mean more bus riders. (You can bet TransLink planners are looking at this kind of research while they figure out which bus routes they’re going to scale back [...]

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