Line 5 Eglinton is officially open
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb4EhJpIdm4 Just like Edmonton, Calgary and Seattle, the Eglinton Crosstown LRT is able to have longer stations than what congested Vancouver has.
Showing posts sorted by date for query Edmonton. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query Edmonton. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Monday, February 9, 2026
After more than 15 years, Toronto’s Eglinton Crosstown LRT finally opens
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDy4t0vCQ_c
Thursday, January 15, 2026
Finch LRT shut down all day due to “weather conditions.”
https://toronto.citynews.ca/video/2026/01/15/finch-lrt-shut-down-all-day-due-to-weather-conditions It should have been a proper subway line, protected from the crappy snow & ice. In contrast, Edmonton & Calgary are mostly surface lines and can usually run through the terrible winter conditions.
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2026/01/15/line-6-finch-west-lrt-delays-snowstorm-ttc-updates/
https://www.ttc.ca/riding-the-ttc/Line-6-Finch-West
Wednesday, January 14, 2026
SkyTrain's Canada Line service disruption
(service disruption ends after 14 hours) https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/skytrain-canada-line-service-disruptions-january-14-2026
For a rapid transit line that opened in 2009, on the surface, it sure wasn't designed to be an efficient high capacity line for the future. It's still just a 2 car joke of a train. Fortunately, most real cities around the world planned for not only 6 car trains, but even 8-10 car trains.
Unfortunatly, Vancouver has been hit very hard with a multigenerational agenda of continually imposed small scale infrastructure. Vancouver has water on 3 sides, as its on a peninsula. Since the powers that be couldn't build a Boundary+Road moat or trench, the next best thing was to symbolically show the reluctance to build proper big city size infrastructure. This stunted approach to things is about symbolically holding the scale of the city back for as long as possible.
Despite backwards Vancouver not being able to apply a castle-moat-and-drawbridge control system, the next best thing was to symbolically keep things smaller than what normal or proper big cities allow.
Here are some of the best examples of holding the size of things back. The 3 lane joke that is the Lions+Gate+Bridge has never had a rapid transit rail tunnel and no express bus tunnel next to it. Especially, no 6 lane highway tunnel. It's a classic BC bottleneck-chokepoint, by design.
From a 3 lane joke of a bridge to a two car Canada+Line joke of a train. It met the symbolic requirement to be shorter than the LRT in Edmonton, the C Train in Calgary and the trains in Seattle and Portland.
The+Post+building+complex could have been Vancouver's first 50 story office tower, it's not even 25 floors. It would be impressive if it were in Victoria, Kelowna, Kamloops or Prince George. That's the unfortunate thing about Vancouver, so much is done to only be impressive to small cities or towns.
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=The+small+Westin+Bayshore+Hotel+in+Vancouver
Things have been kept so small in Vancouver throughout its history, that any big city stuff might seem overwhelming. There has been an unofficial KEEP THEM OUT mentality, but since the city cant have checkpoints, building things small symbolically demonstrates the perpetual reluctance to not allow a big city in backwater BC.
Since Vancouver can't control Burnaby and can't stop Surrey from eventually becoming the biggest city in BC, they are able to build things on a larger scale than Vancouver.
Mild Victoria, BC
Victoria has been a provincial backwater for most of its history. Despite being in a mild winter setting, it's so small when compared to Edmonton, Winnipeg, Quebec City and Halifax.
https://www.onevictoriaplace.ca
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=37&status=15
While Edmonton was eventually allowed to have a tall building, even by Toronto, Calgary and Montreal standards, Victoria was always supposed to have shorter buildings than Winnipeg, Quebec City and Halifax. That's part of the KEEP THINGS SMALL mentality on V. Island.
Victoria should have had its first LRT line by now, but that might improve urban mobility. Eventually, Victoria and Nanaimo will merge into one linear urban area. Eventually, the Comox_Valley_Regional_District will have over 100,000 people, the Regional_District_of_Nanaimo will have over 200,000 people, the Cowichan_Valley_Regional_District will exceed 100,000 people and the Capital_Regional_District will have over 450,000 people.
Of course there doesn't seem to be any big regional scale planning from Sooke to Courtenay. Perhaps the island's urban planners will wait until there is 800,000 and over a million residents on the island.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Island#Demographics
So, as more people discover that Victoria and Vancouver are the mildest winter cities in Canada, more people just might want to move there. Especially, when Canadian Snowbirds don't feel as comfortable with Florida, Texas & California.
Tuesday, December 30, 2025
New Year's Eve celebrations in Edmonton
The longer that I live in backwards Vancouver, the more glad I am to see that it can't stop other cities from having fireworks...
https://www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/article/here-are-some-ways-to-ring-in-the-new-year-in-edmonton
https://icedistrict.com/event/upcoming/new-years-eve-december-31-2025
Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Peace River Nuclear Power Project in Alberta
https://iaac-aeic.gc.ca/050/evaluations/proj/89430?culture=en-CA
It would be very likely for Alberta to have the first such power plants in Western_Canada.
https://www.energyalberta.com Of course there are various risks, but Alberta likes to think big.
https://www.alberta.ca/nuclear-energy-engagement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_River,_Alberta
https://www.peaceriver.ca/business-development/peace-river-nuclear-project
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_River,_Alberta#Economy
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/ap1000-under-consideration-for-deployment-in-alberta
https://www.albertawilderness.ca/issues/wildlands/energy/nuclear-power
https://www.energyalberta.com/project#project-overview
Alberta just never had the same impose restrictions that backwater BC has.
Tuesday, November 25, 2025
Toronto’s $13 billion Eglinton Crosstown Line
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVQ8CbZK7Mo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_5_Eglinton
So, what should have been a proper high capacity subway ends up being a little like an Edmonton LRT line.
https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projects-and-programs/eglinton-crosstown-lrt/what-were-building
Wednesday, November 19, 2025
Calgary ranked the top place for GTA families moving out of Ontario
https://dailyhive.com/toronto/gta-families-move-to-calgary
If you move from Toronto to Calgary, you will still be in a real city. However, Calgary has about a 3rd of the population. The GTA is so much more vast and dense than Calgary. The Calgary_Tower is only a 3rd of the height as the CN_Tower.
For those that move from Toronto, Montreal, Calgary or Edmonton to Vancouver, you will be shocked to see mostly 4 lane bottleneck-chokepoint bridges. The few 6 lane bridges in Greater Vancouver have no proper bus or HOV lanes, so its the epitome of congestion planning.
Sunday, November 16, 2025
Burnaby apologizes for decades of discrimination against people of Chinese descent
https://globalnews.ca/news/11528001/burnaby-apology-discrimination-against-chinese-community
Asia is the most populated part of the world and until recently, China had the biggest population. Thus, people from China or people who are of Chinese descent, live all over the world. There was a strong, KEEP CANADA WHITE agenda, right into the mid 20th century. Of course this mentality wasn't just directed towards Asians, but towards anyone who was nonwhite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_head_tax
It took until the 1970s for Multiculturalism to challenge the, KEEP CANADA AS A WHITE MAN'S PARADISE.
https://pier21.ca/research/immigration-history/canadian-multiculturalism-policy-1971
https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/multiculturalism
While Canada hardly has that much of a Pacific Coast, when compared to the US and Australia, the BC part of Canada should have had at least one major city on the scale of Montreal or Seattle, Brisbane or SF. Unfortunatly, Vancouver has retained several of its overlapping restrictions, which prevent it from being on a scale similar to that of Montreal, Seattle, Calgary, Brisbane & SF...
Despite Burnaby & Grater Vancouver being multicultural for several decades, so much of the restrictive BC mentality remains like an old disruptive computer program that hasn't been deleted. Unfortunatly, after the WW2 era, Greater Vancouver and BC continued with a backwater mentality. Just look at how much bigger things are allowed to be in Australia's 4 largest cities. Look at the scale of Seattle & Calgary & see how much of Greater Vancouver is still held back. Look at how big Edmonton as a capital is, while Victoria remains as a small provincial backwater.
Unlike Melbourne, SF and Toronto, backwards Vancouver made sure that it was one of the first cities to get rid if its streetcar and tram-train (interurban) network before the 1960s. To make matters worse, the Greater Vancouver Region had and still does, have a system of mostly narrow bridges.
There was such a push to have a tracks to tires agenda, no one seemed to realize that all the bridges should be wide enough to accomodate 2 bus lanes, or at least build a bus bridge or tunnel next to an existing bridge.
Just because Multiculturalism in Canada started to officially get going in the 1970s, the city & municipal councils and planning departments were still predominantly managed by people of European descent. For most of the Colonial and postcolonial history of BC, the main municipalities were Vancouver, Burnaby, NW & Victoria. It was that way right into the 1970s.
Since the predominantly White civic structure was firmly in place well into the 1980s, there was plenty of time to implement and maintain a social engineering agenda. An unofficial (White) Urban Livability Plan was cleverly devised by scaling almost everything down. Since BC can't control non-white immigration, "Livability" had to be symbolically quite visible. Livability was an ingenious way to impose various overlapping restrictions throughout the decades. How does the Livability agenda work? Suppose that there was a mostly subconscious mentality to refuse building up proper big city infrastructure for non-white people. Thus, by symbolically constructing inadequate transportation infrastructure, it becomes a way demonstrating that you are not properly building for the future, despite most of the world being non-white. Now, Burnaby & the Greater Vancouver region are so far behind now, its difficult to catch up to other proper metropolitan areas around the world.
Despite Canada being the 2nd largest country in overall size, it has such a small area on the Pacific_Rim and Asia is the most populated part of the world. By keeping most of the bridges narrow and the trains short compared to most cities, that fits right in with the symbolism of antigrowth towards a predominantly non-white world. Canada is nowhere near close to having 1% of the worlds population, but most of the world is non-white. Its been that way since the beginning.
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Burnaby+apologizes
Thursday, November 13, 2025
Airports and Tall Buildings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_City_Airport
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_Wharf#Tallest_buildings Tall buildings there are no problem, despite the airport being relatively close.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle-Tacoma_International_Airport Prevented Seattle from having a 1000 foot tall office tower in the 1980s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_International_Airport Runways don't conflict with the tallest buildings in Boston.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonton_City_Centre_Airport#Closure Once closed, Edmonton could eventually plan for the tallest building in Alberta.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_International_Airport Untill its ever closed, buildings are kept short, because of its location.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Reid_International_Airport Tall buildings are relativly close to a runway.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_International_Airport Unlike, London and LV, Richmond is forced to have very short buildings, because of YVR.
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
Cities, the BIG and the small of it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CN_Tower
1815' divided by 581' is almost 3.13 times the height of a stump in Vancouver.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbour_Centre "Skyscraperpage lists the buildings height to the roof as being only 139.6 m (458 ft). This is stated to be the height from the Hastings Street entrance while the height from the back entrance on Cordova Street is 146 m (479 ft). It also lists the buildings pinnacle height to the tip of the antenna as being 177.1 m (581 ft)." STUMP!
This Vancouver stump is only 32% of the CN Towers height.
.jpg/960px-A_look_downtown_(759827996).jpg)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Canadian_Place The BMO. Unlike Chicago, Toronto has no 100 story office towers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bentall_Centre_(Vancouver)#Three_Bentall_Centre A 32 story BC office stump.
Being from small Vancouver, its amazing that Canada even has one megacity. Toronto is certainly a big city on a lakeshore like Chicago is. Montreal isn't allowed to have buildings as tall as Melbourne, let alone NYC. Montreal has allowed only one office tower to be over 50 floors and a few residential towers in the 60s.
Calgary has more 50+ story office towers than Denver and Perth. No 40 story office tower exists in BC. The office section of the Harbour_Centre doesn't even have a 30th floor and the revolving restaurant is closer to being like 35 floors up. However, with the overall building being 481 feet, it would be equivalent to 40 floors, if the windows went right up to the top. The flagpole has no windows, but the flag would be like the equivalent of being 48 floors up.
Not just Toronto & Montreal, but Edmonton and Seattle have longer underground train stations than backwards, congested Vancouver.
The Iron+Bridge, Oak+Street+Bridge, Knight+Street+Bridge & the Arthur+Laing+Bridge should all have a bus+and+bike bridge built next to them. The extremely inadequate Lion+Bridge should have already had a bus and train tunnel close to it.
Monday, November 10, 2025
Over half of all Metro Vancouver homes projected to be condos by 2051
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/metro-vancouver-housing-growth-forecast-condos
For several decades, trains, bridges and buildings had to be half the size of what real cities allow. Vancouver and especially the Greater Vancouver Region couldn't build a huge wall, so the next best thing was to heavily impose a symbolic resistance to build big. Thus, by watering the scale of almost everything down by imposing a series of overlapping restrictions, Vancouver & BC remained stunted.
Then, things started to slowly change going into the 21st century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Wall_Centre Opened in 2001.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Tower 2004
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Georgia_(Vancouver) 2012
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Vancouver
While restrictive Vancouver started to allow some taller buildings, its still behind what many other cities permit. Especially that of what's in Melbourne, Sydney & Brisbane...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinnacle_One_Yonge Toronto
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainier_Square_Tower Seattle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stantec_Tower Edmonton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telus_Sky Calgary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_sur_le_Parc Montreal
Since Burnaby, Coquitlam & Surrey aren't under Vancouvers imposed restrictions, they can build taller. Eventually, Vancouver will have to allow taller residential buildings, but its as if there is a strong mind virus determined to hold the scale of everything back.
Lions+Gate+Bridge Still, a 3 lane crossing with no plans for a bus, train & truck tunnel. Australia has no problem building tunnels near bridges.
YVR-Canada-Line Still, a 2 car train of a joke, when several cities will have 6, 8 or 10 car trains.
Monday, November 3, 2025
Monday, October 27, 2025
Honolulu’s Skyline Rail Expands to West Honolulu, and to a New Airport Station
Even if the widest parts of the H-1 could be 10 or 12 lanes, it would still get plugged up. Nevertheless, being from Vancouver, it's quite impressive to see such a wide H-1 by the airport. If you visit Vancouver from Hawaii, you might think that Vancouver is a big city like Sydney, SF or Seattle. Then you discover that the roads & bridges are much narrower than what's in those cities. The real big surprise is that Vancouver not only has shorter trains than Sydney, SF & Seattle, but even Edmonton. Fortunately, the Skyline to the airport isn't a 2 car joke of a train like Vancouver's airport line is.
https://honolulutransit.org/about/route-map , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyline_(Honolulu)#Route
https://www.honolulu.gov/dts/skyline
The Airport Segment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyline_(Honolulu)#Segment_2:_Airport
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lelepaua_station If only Vancouver's line to the airport could have opened with 4 car trains, then with Selective_door_operation, eventually 6 car trains. Unfortunatly, backwards Vancouver has been stuck with a 2 car YVR train since 2009, but it has the potential to become a 2.5 car joke of a train, someday.
Downtown Honolulu.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyline_(Honolulu)#Segment_3:_City_Center
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyline_(Honolulu)#Ala_Moana_extension
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyline_(Honolulu)#Rolling_stock "The line uses 256 ft (78 m) four-car train sets, each with the capacity to carry nearly 800 passengers..." "Each car is 64 ft (20 m) long, weighs 72,000 lb (33,000 kg), and has 36 seats with a listed total capacity of 195 people, and sits on standard-gauge (1,435 mm) rails."
While the Skyline cars are similar in length to the YVR-Canada-Line cars, they are of a heavier construction. Plus, the trains are twice as long as any on the embarrassingly short Canada+Line trains.
While it took a long time to get the Skyline to the airport, at least the stations were all initially built to accommodate 4 car trains. Unfortunatly, the joke that is the SkyTrain-Canada+Line is still only running 2 car trains and wasn't designed to eventually have 5 car trains. Its difficult to understand why the joke-line stations are only designed to accommodate a 2.5 car train, someday.
Honolulu like Brisbane, are very far away from the Vancouver Mind Virus (VMV) and much warmer. Thus, they are able to have longer trains to the airport, because they can build on a proper big city scale.
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Brisbane+Airport+Railway+Line
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
'Insufficient evidence' to conclude city building inspectors taking bribes in Vancouver
Allegations remain as allegations.
However, in an unrelated matter, there was a case of total $HIT-BOX mismanagement and excrement. Billions of dollars wasted in a $HIT-PIPE DREAM. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/metro-vancouver-board-votes-to-pause-nswwtp-review-until-legal-dispute-settled-1.7594512
Then there is the case as to why the Canada+Line+is+so+under-built. Apparently, as a rushed and inept cost saving measure, the Canada+Line wouldn't have 152.4m long stations like the Montreal Metro or even the Edmonton LRT stations, which range from 125m to 130m. Despite its 2 billion dollar cost the Canada-Line wasn't designed with that much future capacity in mind. The ridiculously short 50m stations should have been roughed out or level for at least 100m, if not even 160m. That would have allowed for future 5-8 car trains.
Ultimately, as a long-term, high capacity link between YVR and the 2 main ferry terminals, the stations should have had a 200m level clearance. That would have allowed for ten, 20m car trains. Unfortunatly, no provision for a 10 car train, not even a 5 car train, just an absurd 2.5 car short train, someday.
$HIT-BOX mismanagement and opting for short trains is such careless urban infrastructure planning.
The BC Mind Virus is such a horrible thing, but it officially doesn't exist. Yet, the crappy approach to things endures.
Ground broken for three towers at north end of Victoria's downtown
https://www.biv.com/news/ground-broken-for-three-towers-at-north-end-of-victorias-downtown-11378830
Despite Victoria being the most mild winter city in Canada, it was supposed to be a provincial backwater for as long as possible. Buildings were to be kept smaller than the tallest in Edmonton, QC, Winnipeg & Halifax.
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=37&status=15
In typical upside-down BC fashion, Edmonton is a mighty capital in cold winter Northern Alberta, while Victoria excels as a stunted & thwarted small city in mild SW BC.
Before Victoria could ever rival Edmonton, it would first have to rival Halifax, then Winnipeg and then Quebec_City.
Perhaps someday, Regina might equal or rival Winnipeg, but not likely Edmonton. After Toronto, Edmonton is the largest of the Canadian provincial capitals. Both cities are worlds away from the extreme imposed restrictions of Vancouver and Victoria.
Saturday, October 18, 2025
Is Seattle's Light Rail Too Good?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWeMvBEbok4
Seattle Train Extension is coming sooner than you think! Here’s why https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OjwvXr4QrQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct4bwWsP3iE
Fortunately, like Edmonton, Seattle chose to have long underground stations. Of course backwards Vancouver would end up having shorter underground train stations than Seattle and Edmonton. Thus, that helps to keep Vancouver stuck with having shorter trains so that they can fill up faster and symbolically not look like long big city trains.
Thursday, October 16, 2025
Seattle Link light Rail
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_light_rail Seattle was wise just like Edmonton to have long underground train stations. Unfortunatly, Vancouver always seems to opt for the congestive planning approach.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_light_rail#Lines Of course an all underground or all elevated line would be better than on the street. Thus, this is like a modern streetcar or a tram-train.
Why free public transport doesn't fix traffic (and what does) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6md7gny4pY
Edmonton LRT and Calgary C Train
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Edmonton+LRT While Edmonton had a good head start over Calgary, they understood even back in the 1970s to build their underground stations to be at least 125 m.
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Calgary+C+Train Fortunately, Calgary will follow the Edmonton example to have underground stations that are longer than what foolish Vancouver has.
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=LRT
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Quesnell Bridge, Edmonton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quesnell_Bridge "The bridge is the widest road bridge in Edmonton with 8 total lanes (4 westbound and 4 eastbound)."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quesnell_Bridge#History , https://www.google.com/maps/place/Quesnell+Bridge/@53.5065044,-113.567235,101m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m15!1m8!3m7!1s0x53a0224580deff23:0x411fa00c4af6155d!2sEdmonton,+AB!3b1!8m2!3d53.5461663!4d-113.4937356!16zL20vMG5saDc!3m5!1s0x53a021cf936ec1bf:0x66e58cc40db0b3bd!8m2!3d53.5065313!4d-113.5665535!16s%2Fg%2F11cn9l8kzw!5m1!1e2?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTAxMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_MacDonald_Bridge , https://www.google.com/maps/place/James+Macdonald+Bridge/@53.5358173,-113.4882233,303m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m15!1m8!3m7!1s0x53a0224580deff23:0x411fa00c4af6155d!2sEdmonton,+AB!3b1!8m2!3d53.5461663!4d-113.4937356!16zL20vMG5saDc!3m5!1s0x53a02241785584f1:0x7cdb45f31cfcea7!8m2!3d53.5358043!4d-113.4879451!16s%2Fm%2F0406q8t!5m1!1e2?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTAxMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
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