The province has decided to blog, this time about their upcoming changes to the Water Act, changes that are very controversial, to say the least. It will be interesting to see how their comments policy plays out as plans become more concrete. (The Tyee) While BC Transit’s budget increases, Translink holds the line in Vancouver, [...]
Posts under ‘Public Transit’
Late night buses, expanded service coming in January
While many transit organizations are in the middle of financial meltdowns, including the MTA in New York, BC Transit is set to buck the trend and expand bus service here in region (PDF) for the second time in less than six months. This fall brought (PDF) the new 12 and 13 routes out of UVic, [...]
Weekly news roundup
The Times Colonist is running a series of articles called Outlook 2010, covering a vast variety of issues around Victoria. Two today caught my eye: The latest piece on the Victoria Regional Rapid Transit project. Not much new here that I haven’t spoken about before, although it is nice to here the CEO of BC [...]
Ford saves GM bus
The Henry Ford Foundation is working hard to preserve a General Motors bus. This bus carries the serial number of #1132 and used to be part of the Capital City Street Railway Company or The Lightning Route, established in 1886, in the city of Montgomery, Alabama. So why is Ford money being used to save [...]
Say goodbye to rapid transit in Victoria
So the new alignment study is out and it (Times Colonist, BC Local News), as I predicted, takes Douglas St to the Highway and then the E&N route. All is good except for one little detail: they ditched the centre running lanes for curb lanes. What a lovely disaster. So lets count the ways they [...]
Malahat crash shows need for better rail
The Malahat crash that killed at least one person is merely the latest in example of why we need to fix the rail link up the island. Imagine if this accident has involved one of the dozens of trucks carrying dangerous chemicals and gases up and down the island? The consequence are pretty horrible to [...]
Provincial and Federal governments hand out loot
It is the season for giving, being a recession with Keynes back in and Friedman out, so today the two senior levels of government did just that. Or at least, so says their rather triumphant press release. Sadly (or not, depending on your point of view) there is no money for a new Johnson Street [...]
Canada Line thoughts
This is a bit belated, but I did managed to get over to Vancouver for the opening of the Canada Line, the newest addition to the SkyTrain network. First, a little bit of history. The Canada Line is a Public-Private Partnership, something that the BC Gov forced onto Translink as a condition of provincial funding. [...]
Notes from yesterday’s BCTransit open house
The latest in the seamingly endless studies about rapid transit is entering it’s public consultation and thus BCTransit is holding a series of open houses.This one is called the Victoria Regional Rapid Transit plan and managed the first open house yesterday at the Legion Hall on the Gorge. I doubt this will be the last [...]
Getting to the game by bike, transit or walking
One of the most persistent problems facing non-car drivers is that complete auto-centricity of directions listed on most websites, of which sports teams and their stadiums seem to be especially bad for. Take the new Highlanders FC team. For starters, they choose to play in car-happy Langford rather than Royal Athletic Park or UVic’s Centennial [...]
