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

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.

Thursday, January 15, 2026

Early nightly closures at Oakridge-41st Avenue SkyTrain station for construction extended by two months

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/oakridge-41st-avenue-skytrain-station-early-closure-2026 

While some improvements are possible with the very short Canada+Line stations, there was a lack of vision to allow for enough level clearance to be able to double the length of the stations.

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/skytrain-oakridge-41st-avenue-station-upgrade-design-renderings 

Indeed, the stations should have been at least 100m long, but only can be 50m. So instead of eventually having 5 car trains, only 2.5 car trains will be the maximum. WTH? 


https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=YVR-Canada+Line

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.


https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=YVR-Canada+Line

Friday, January 9, 2026

Original cars on SkyTrain's Canada Line set to be refurbished

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/skytrain-canada-line-original-trains-refurbishment 

Perhaps allowing for enough future station clearance to accommodate 10 car trains would require too much forward thinking in backwards BC. However, this line should have been started with at least 5 car trains. Unfortunatly, the very short stations were only designed to accommodate 2.5 car trains. As of 2026, only 2 car joke trains are still being run.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_(Vancouver)#Canada_Line It's one thing to say that having very short stations can save on construction costs, but to not allow for significant future expansion defeats the purpose. Someone clearly didn't want the Canada_Line to eventually have proper, long big city trains. 

There still is hope that this Half-A$$ED, small-scale line can become a little closer to that of a proper big city train, someday. 

Feb 12, 2020 https://www.richmond-news.com/local-news/canada-line-continues-to-break-records-translink-3116818 "On an average weekday last year, the Canada Line had an average of 150,000 boardings, continuing to “outperform projections,” according to TransLink."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Line "During the 17 days of the 2010 Winter Olympics, the line carried an average of 228,190 passengers per day."


https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=YVR-Canada+Line


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

Monday, December 8, 2025

The Montreal Metro and REM Trains

The REM vs. Reality: Does Montreal's new train meet expectations? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq1xpxOt7FM

Wednesday, November 26, 2025

Pattullo to partially close for three nights as 4 lane replacement bridge opening draws near

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/pattullo-bridge-closures-replacement-opening 

No matter how much NW wants to be one of the smallest cities in backwards BC, it can't stop Surrey from eventually being the biggest city in what should be bustling BC. The SkyBridge was deliberately designed to not have any HOV or truck lanes. The narrow SkyBridge wasn't even designed to eventually become a bus and bike bridge. Just a train bridge without even any sidewalks. It really should have been given an award for one of the worlds best examples of inept urban infrastructure. 

It's like the SkyBridge (1990) was designed to be the first part of the new inadequate crossings between NW and Surry.

Indeed, just like its 1937 predecessor, the Pattullo_Bridge_replacement will open with only for lanes, but at least it will have 2 bike lanes and 2 sidewalks. The Pattullo_Bridge_replacement should have opened with 6 lanes and 2 wide shoulders or emergency lanes, but that would go against funneling everything into just 2 lanes each way. No emergency lanes or wide shoulders helps to reduce emergency vehicle inefficiency. No bus & HOV lanes helps to increase transportation congestion. Despite being a seaport region, there aren't any truck lanes. Perhaps the best feature of all is than the bridge wasn't designed to eventually have a lower deck for trains and trucks. 

Multibillion dollar bridges can be designed with future widening capabilities, or at least having a provision for a lower deck. Unfortunatly, it's very difficult for BC to design prober big city size transportation infrastructure. 

Tuesday, November 25, 2025

The Ontario Line

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-fUP_6RVDo 

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

https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projects-and-programs/ontario-line/what-were-building/trains-and-technology

Airport Rail Links

The Transit Every Airport Needs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YeVZVluQWI&t=247s 

https://www.upexpress.com/en/about-up/things-are-looking-up Its only a two and three car train, when it should be between 4-6 cars, depending upon the time of day. https://www.torontopearson.com/en/transportation-and-parking/up-express

At least it's not a perpetual 2 car train joke that is the YVR-Canada Line. The eventual airport REM line should consist of 4 car trains, but the entire REM should eventually have 6 car trains.

Somehow, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane & Perth all are able to have longer trains to the airport. The 10 car SFO-BART trains are pretty cool.

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

Wednesday, November 19, 2025

A Richmond encampment under the Oak Street bridge

 https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2025/11/19/growing-calls-to-clear-richmond-encampment 

Of course any neighborhood will be concerned when a bunch of people are living under a bridge and wandering around.

Living under a bridge is hardly affordable housing. There needs to be proper secure housing with plenty of security and staff to help people who are stuck living outside. 

That bridge is so narrow and inadequate. 

SW-Vancouver needs a proper transportation upgrade. Granville Street should be extended across the Fraser River on a parallel bridge to the Oak Street Bridge (OSB). Then, the 2 bridges could provide 4 general lanes each way. Plus, another 4-lane parallel bridge to accommodate 2 BRT lanes and 2 HOV lanes. 

Or, a totally built a new version of the Oak+St+Bridge that could provide 6 lanes northbound. Then, a Granville Street extension could provide 6 southbound lanes onto a new OSB. Four general lanes each way, plus a rapid bus lane each way & 1 HOV lane each way. 

For the most part, the Oak+Street-Granville+Street+Corridor has 12 lanes. A yellow paint strip designates 3 lanes each way. Instead, Oak could have 6 northbound lanes and Granville could have 6 southbound lanes. The 5th & 6th lanes could be for the Oak & Granville BRT lane & HOV lane on complete one way streets.

Unfortunately, the OSB remains as a 4 lane traffic bottleneck or chokepoint. 

The 2009 Canada (embarrassment) Line is still only using 2 car trains in 2025. A proper big city YVR-Canada Line should have been started with 5 car trains. Unfortunately, this joke of a train is only designed to ultimately run a 2.5 car train, someday. 

This stunted infrastructure approach is so absurd. Transportation planning in the most populated parts of BC is so inadequate, but its all part of backwards BC symbolism. The symbolism is all about showing a thwarted or watered down a city can be. Narrow bridges and short trains are some of the best ways to increase congestion and inefficiency in backwater BC.

Tuesday, November 18, 2025

City of Vancouver exploring Olympic Line streetcar test revival after the 2026 FIFA World Cup

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-olympic-line-streetcar-demonstration-revival-proposal 

The city and greater urban region should have never gotten rid of the streetcars and interurban tram-trains. Now, its extremely difficult to bring them back. Fortunately, backwards Vancouver was unable to get Toronto, Melbourne and SF to get rid of their street railways. Those cities and many others just never had anything like a Vancouver Mind Virus or BCMV to thwart them. 

Of course Seattle & Portland would bring back some of their streetcar lines long before slow-moving Vancouver can.

The Tsawwassen, Delta Dilemma

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/tsawwassen-town-centre-redevelopment-delta-housing-supply-rejection 

Unfortunatly, there are some serious examples of poor transportation planning in backwards BC. There never seemed to be a multistage plan to gradually have at least 5 car trains running between YVR and the BC Ferry terminal. Indeed, the YVR-Canada Line has stations that are only designed to eventually accomodate a 2.5 car train, not 5 cars. Plus, no train tunnel or bridge into Delta. 

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

https://www.delta-optimist.com/local-news/competing-proposals-for-deltaport-expansion-still-not-over-11215614 

https://www.portvancouver.com/project/deltaport-truck-staging-facility 

Despite being on the same ocean, but half a world away, the Port_of_Brisbane has much better highway and freight railway infrastructure in place. 

While the YVR Line or the Canada (Embarrassment) Line only runs trains that are a 2 car joke, Brisbane actually has a proper big city Airport_railway_line with longer trains. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport_railway_line,_Brisbane#Criticism While long trains are better for capacity, a frequent number of trains per hour is also important.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_Airport_railway_station,_Brisbane  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane_Airport#Rail  

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Airtrain_NGR_Indigenous.jpg

Fortunately, Queensland was never stunted by anything like a BC Mind Virus (BCMV).

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. 

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 

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/multiculturalism-anti-racism/chinese-legacy-bc/history/discrimination

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://lop.parl.ca/sites/PublicWebsite/default/en_CA/ResearchPublications/200920E#:~:text=In%201969%2C%20the%20Royal%20Commission,Its%20key%20objectives%20were%20these: 

https://publications.gc.ca/Collection-R/LoPBdP/CIR/936-e.htm#:~:text=A%20Ministry%20of%20Multiculturalism%20was,fully%20participate%20in%20Canadian%20society. 1973 

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

Saturday, November 15, 2025

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.