Showing posts sorted by date for query Metro Vancouver. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query Metro Vancouver. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Wednesday, January 21, 2026

Perth, WA, Australia

 https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/travel-information/driving-in-wa/driving-in-perth 

https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/technical-commercial/smartfreeways While WA take a spart aproach, backwards BC still takes a dumb approach to things.

https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/projects-initiatives/all-projects/metropolitan/smartfreeways/ 4 lanes each way with 2 track in the middle. You won't find that in Vancouver or anywhere in backwards BC. 

https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/projects-initiatives/all-projects/metropolitan/canning-bridge-bus-interchange 

https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/technical-commercial/smartfreeways/how-to-use-a-smfy/making-way-for-emergency-vehicles

https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/projects-initiatives/all-projects/metropolitan In contrast, the Metro Vancouver Region is a joke!  

"Perth is Australia’s fourth biggest city, with a population of 2.3 million. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhS-fiJ14GU Perhaps surprisingly, Perth has an expansive suburban railway network. 8 lines, 85 stations and 270 km of track – it’s a large system for a relatively small city." 


https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Perth

Saturday, January 17, 2026

The Great SkyTrain upgrade (potential)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D2CXdZ_4Ro 

Unfortunatly, the first 2 Skytrain lines were designed to only have 80m stations and trains. The 3rd line to YVR and Richmond was only designed to have 50m stations. In contrast, the Montreal Metro has stations long enough to accomodate 152.4m long trains. Thus, the greatest mistake was to not enable the Skytrain to eventually become a very high capacity train system. Combine that with mostly narrow bridges and roads in Greater Vancouver and you have the epitome of congestive urban planning. 

At least by late 2025 some of the new 5 car trains were out, along with some of the old 6 car little box trains on the 1st line. The 2nd and 3rd lines are still running 2 car joke trains, but that symbolically fits right in with the, KEEP BC SMALL AND BACKWARDS mentality. 

A proper big city long-term plan would have been to allow for 10 car trains, with at least 5-6 car trains at the start when each line opened.

Wednesday, January 7, 2026

Metro Vancouver's SkyTrain transit system turns 40

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeSQtHusn1A  

The history of SkyTrain 1985-2025 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEt76BgRP5E 

Expo Line Extension (Surrey - Langley) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CavX1TWYUsE 

Surrey Langley Skytrain Construction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRARdwNIbls 

17 years and waiting for UBC SkyTrain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIEhFrTuqkc  

YVR-Skytrain: Canada Line https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvwFeKtbyxU

Wednesday, December 24, 2025

Spacex starship height

 https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship 123m or 403 feet in length.

https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starship-nasa-saturn-v-sls-moon-rockets-comparison-2019-7

https://www.nps.gov/wamo/faqs.htm 169m or 555 feet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Monument 


Even the Skytrains in backwards Vancouver aren't allowed to be as long, due to such short stations. Of course the Montreal Metro can run 152.4m or 500 foot long trains, because of building longer stations in the first place.

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

A Six-hour SkyTrain shutdown caps chaotic pre-Christmas morning in Metro Vancouver

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/bridges-skytrain-shutdown-chaos-december-23-2025 

There is nothing like short trains that stop running and mostly narrow bridges which prevents a proper and efficient regional rapid bus network.

Monday, December 15, 2025

Metro Vancouver leadership chaos

 https://globalnews.ca/video/11579521/metro-vancouver-leadership-chaos 

This has been such an inept and mismaged organization for several decades. Too many short trains and mostly narrow bridges, but always enough money to put into another $HIT box project. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_Vancouver_Regional_District

Saturday, November 22, 2025

Some Canada Mega-projects Under Construction

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwsOVZ-j7hg 

Oakridge_Park is on a much smaller scale than MetrotownBrentwood and Lougheed. It will especially be on a much smaller scale than Parramatta in NSW. 

Unfortunatly, the Oakridge-41st_Avenue_station was only designed to have 50m platforms, when it should have been at least 100m. Thus, the utter foolishness has meant that instead of allowing for a future level station clearance to accomodate 5 car trains, the Canada (embassament) Line was only designed to just have 2.5 car trains. While its extremely short stations might have been disguised as a cost saving measurer, there didn't seem to be any key people onboard to make sure that it could eventually become a proper big city train line. Its sad that a line which opened in 2009 is still only running 2 car trains. While the 2.5 car configuration is still a joke of a train, at least half of an extra coach-length is better than nothing. Plus, there should have been extra cars ordered by now so at least during the very busy times the trains could be operating at 1 minute headways. Unfortunatly, this goes against the Vancouver & BC congestion planning mentality.

Despite being built several years after the Sydney_Harbour_Bridge, the joke that is the Pattullo_Bridge was designed to only have 4 narrow lanes & only 1 sidewalk. Of course the replacement_bridge will only open with 2 lanes each way. It was as if someone really wanted to make sure that there won't be 2 bus lanes and no HOV lanes when the bridge opens. While the new bridge is designed to be expanded from a 4 lane joke to eventually having 6 lanes, it still won't be wide enough to accomodate 2 HOV lanes as well as 2 bus lanes. Of course the new bridge won't have any emergency lanes, just like the old bridge. However, it will have 2 bike lanes and 2 sidewalks. https://www.globalhighways.com/news/pattullo-bridge-completion-end-year Its only fitting that in backwards BC this new bridge wouldn't be designed to eventually have a lower deck to accomodate 2 bus lanes and 2 LRT tracks. 

If the planners were afraid to symbolically have a wide bridge between NW and Surrey, the old Pattullo_Bridge should have been designed to eventually have a lower deck for trams, trucks and busses. Even when the SkyBridge between NW and Surrey opened in 1990, it wasn't designed to have any bus lanes or emergency vehicle lanes and especially, no bike and footpaths. 

Is Vancouver the best city in North America? (2019) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8dmVUrNt38

 One of the biggest mistakes in Vancouver & SW BC is to have short trains combined with mostly narrow bridges. Thus, the region doesn't get to have long, high capacity trains and there isn't a proper regional network of bus-bridges. The refusal to twin most of the bridges means that it's almost impossible to have a proper and efficient regional network of rapid-bus and HOV lanes.  

While Montreal built the REM to augment their long-train Metro system, Vancouver should have allowed for enough clearance to eventually have 500 foot long trains. 80m-50m Skytrain stations are going to become inadequate, when there should have been a 152.4m provision so that the trains could eventually become as long as the ones on the Montreal Metro. 

Is Regional Rail in the Future of British Columbia? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PeIOVy6fFc

Monday, November 17, 2025

Broadway Subway Construction as of November 2025

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uot7oIA9-ZE The station platforms will be 80m, which can only accomodate a 5 car train.

Unfortunatly, even if this segment had 500' or 152.4m long stations like the Montreal Metro, the rest of the first 2 lines only have 80m stations. Thus, 80m is only about 52% of the length of a Montreal Metro station, which can accomodate 9 car trains. It's taken until 2025 for the SkyTrain to gradually start running 5 car trains. In theory, if two Vancouver 80m trains run at twice the frequency as one 152m Montreal Metro train, a similar capacity could be attained. 

However, in the long run, it would have been much more cost effective to have the first 2 SkyTrain lines stations already roughed out to 152m, or a least have enough level clearance to eventually become twice the length. But that's what a proper big city would do, something that Vancouver is against.   

Even as an initial cost saving measure, the YVR-Canada Line should have opened with 100m stations, instead of the inadequate 50m joke. Then it could immediately accomodate 5 car trains. The station platforms should have had enough level clearance to eventually accommodate a 160m long train consisting of 8 cars reaching both ferry terminals. Of course there seems to be no plan to connect YVR to both ferry terminals.

Its very difficult for BC cities to allow proper big city size infrastructure, because that would symbolize a pro growth initiative. Since the world is mostly composed of non-white people, a slow growth agenda became a clever way to symbolically demonstrate a refusal to build big. BC is multicultural, but Canada has less than 1% of the worlds population. Even in the 2020s, BC still retains some of its colonial outpost mentality. Just keep things small and backwards and try to remain a backwater for as long as possible. 

Metro Vancouver sales tax and vehicle levy suggested for new TransLink revenue sources

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/translink-sales-tax-vehicle-levy-new-revenue-sources-movement-competition

Canada Public Transit Fund

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/canada-public-transit-fund-building-communities-strong-fund 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/metro-vancouver-transit-funding-1.7490218

https://housing-infrastructure.canada.ca/cptf-ftcc/mra-erm/index-eng.html

https://housing-infrastructure.canada.ca/cptf-ftcc/index-eng.html 

https://www.canada.ca/en/housing-infrastructure-communities/news/2024/07/backgrounder-federal-government-launches-the-canada-public-transit-fund-investing-in-public-transit-needs-across-canada.html 

https://www.railwaypro.com/wp/canada-creates-transit-fund-to-support-public-transport/ 

https://globalnews.ca/news/10702607/canada-public-transit-funding-shortfall/ 

https://www.railwaygazette.com/urban-rail/canada-public-transit-fund-aims-to-boost-public-transport-and-housing/66985.article

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

Why the SkyTrain and DLR are So Unique

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrMISsHZ85s  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docklands_Light_Railway , https://tfl.gov.uk/maps/track/dlr

The DLR could have been built better right from the start so that more capacity and efficiency were in place since its first day. It was never meant to rival any section of a tube line in capacity per KM. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docklands_Light_Railway_rolling_stock 


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_(Vancouver)

While the first 2 Skytrain lines only have 80 m stations which are slightly more than half the length of a Montreal Metro train station, there should have been enough level station clearance to eventually double the length of each station. The 3rd line to YVR only has a level station clearance of 50 m, vs. the 152.4 m Montreal Metro stations. The YVR-Canada-Line should have had enough level station clearance to eventually become 160 m in length. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_(Vancouver)#Rolling_stock

Sunday, November 2, 2025

Getting to and from the Airport Doesn’t Have to be Difficult

Getting to the Airport Doesn’t Have to Suck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WDCfDHQrxQ 

The Missing Transit in This Fast-Growing Canadian Province https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LGigNBLuS0

The Transit Every Airport Needs | Airport Rail Links https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YeVZVluQWI  

Metro Vancouver's Future Transit Plans https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVVfYwn7vmI 


https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=the+airport+train

Tuesday, October 28, 2025

Surrey primed to surpass Vancouver population in the very near future

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/surrey-vancouver-population-estimates-rennie Fortunatly, the Vancouver Mind Virus won't be able to stop Surrey from having taller residential buildings. While Vancouver still won't permit any office tower to have 40 floors, Surrey will very likely have the first office tower in BC to have more than 40 stories.

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/surrey-metro-vancouver-population-growth-forecast-bc-city-2038 


https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Surrey