Transit advocate wins 2018 John Pearce Award
South West New Brunswick Transit Authority chair Stan Choptiany of St. Andrews NB (at right) receives the 2018 John Pearce Award from Michael Perry, a long-time member of Transport Action Atlantic’s board of directors. This year’s outstanding public transportation...
TAA 2018 AGM – this Saturday!
Transport Action Atlantic’s Annual General Meeting will be held in Moncton, New Brunswick, this coming Saturday. All are welcome to attend! Saturday, May 5 at 2:00 p.m CN Pensioners Centre 1 Curry Street (off Donald Avenue) Moncton NB This year’s feature will be an...
From surfaces to services
New Brunswick releases report and recommendations on inclusive and sustainable transportation – by Yves Bourgeois “A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transport.” – Enrique Penalosa, former Mayor...
Canada doesn’t end at Quebec City! Maritimes VIA service needs new equipment now
Transport Action Atlantic is viewing recent statements from both Prime Minister Trudeau and Transport Minister Marc Garneau on the future of VIA Rail service with a mixture of optimism and concern. Both have been quoted in media interviews as being supportive of the...
Marine Atlantic cost recovery reaches 70% – Corporation holds annual public meeting
Marine Atlantic’s customer satisfaction rates increased to 77 per cent during the 12-month period ending March 31, 2017, and on-time performance rates improved to 91 per cent. The vessel reliability rate stood at 99 per cent, and the Newfoundland ferry service...
Integrated Mobility Plan released and approved by Halifax Council
By Marcus Garnet On Friday, December 1, 2017, Halifax Regional Municipality’s Integrated Mobility Plan was released to the public as an agenda item for consideration by Committee of the Whole Council. On December 5, 2017, Council unanimously endorsed the plan – a...
Advocacy award honours John Pearce
How does an organization appropriately acknowledge more than four decades of dedicated service to its cause? When president emeritus John Pearce advised his TAA colleagues last summer in a brief e-mail that his health no longer would permit him to maintain an active...
Bridgewater transit excursion a success!
On October 21st, Transport Action Atlantic hosted its second Nova Scotia Members Event. A group of 10 TAA members made their way to Bridgewater NS on what turned out to be a gorgeous fall day, to explore the newest addition to the public transit world in the...
Sad news: Iain Dunlop, TAA secretary, passes away
We are very sad to announce that Iain Dunlop, board member and secretary of Transport Action Atlantic, passed away at the Upper River Valley Hospital on Tuesday, October 24, at the age of 72, after a lengthy illness. Iain was born on June 20, 1945 in Aberdeen,...
RuralLynx bus service in Southwest NB is on the road!
After years of hard work to make it a reality, the new bus service linking communities in Charlotte County to Saint John, New Brunswick, is up and running. RuralLynx, a partnership between the Southwest New Brunswick Transport Authority Inc., the Southwest New...
‘Problematic and tragic’: Canadians react to Greyhound decision to cut, reduce routes
Greyhound Canada’s announcement that it will eliminate or reduce passenger and freight routes in Western Canada was met with disappointment on Monday, with lawmakers and activists warning that it will leave the country’s most marginalized communities no choice but to...
Canada Line and Snow (Feb. 2017)
TransLink’s Canada Line experienced two major shutdowns (Feb 3 / 6, 2017). The cause was the apparent inability of trains to travel northbound between Bridgeport and Marine Drive Stations. These incidents are a reminder of a similar incident in November 2010 when an...
TransLink Chairman Year-end Interview
Global News BC had a 15 minute, year-end interview with TransLink Chairman Kevin Desmond on 19 Dec 2017. Issues discussed included possible later SkyTrain service on Friday and Saturday nights, safety, new Canada Line stations, Canada Line capacity expansions, double...
South Okanagan Transit Ridership Up
Transit ridership is up a reported 41% on certain routes in the South Okanagan. Good news but the numbers would be starting from a fairly low level. Unfortunately, there is no source for the numbers published and there is one oddity; a 30% decline in operating costs...
Contracting Transit Operations
The Eno Center for Transportation in Washington DC published a report touting the benefits of contracting out as a way to improve transit service. “A Bid for Better Transit: Improving Transit Service with Contracted Operations” looks at a number of examples of...
In Memoriam (Amtrak Cascades Train 501 Crash)
Transport Action BC wishes to express condolences for the deaths of Jim Hamre and Zack Wilhoite, as well as the other victim and the many people injured in the December 18, 2017 Amtrak Cascades Train 501 crash. TABC was shocked to hear the news about the derailment on...
BC Update – 2017-09-09
=============================================================================== BC’s new NDP government cancelled bridge tolls on TransLink’s Golden Ears and the province’s Port Mann bridges, as promised in the recent election campaign. Member Stephen Rees wrote an...
Next Meeting – June 27, 2017
Transport Action BC (http://bc.transportaction.ca/) Regular Meeting Agenda: 27 June 2017 (Tuesday) 19:00 Waves Coffee Shop Meeting Room 100-900 Howe St (at Smithe St), Vancouver A. Membership and Finances (19:00) 1) Approval of 24 May 2017 meeting minutes. 2) Expense...
Next Meeting – May 24, 2017
Transport Action BC (http://bc.transportaction.ca/) Regular Meeting Agenda: 24 May 2017 (Wednesday) 19:00 Waves Coffee Shop Meeting Room 100-900 Howe St (at Smithe St), Vancouver 19:00 to 20:45 PM A. Membership and Finances (19:00) 1) Approval of 3 April 2016 meeting...
Massey Bridge Machinations 2 (2017-04)
An April 5, 2017 column by The Vancouver Sun’s political columnist, Vaughn Palmer, described how the B.C. government’s pre-construction / pre-election photo-op for the $3.5 billion Massey Bridge project was hijacked by a group protesting the mega-project. TABC Member...
Revised Ministry of Northern Development & Mines(MNDM) Needed to Include Passenger Rail
Our affiliate organization, the Northern and Eastern Ontario Rail Network (NEORN) has issued a media release requesting the Ontario government to revise the mandate for the Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines to include pursuit of passenger rail service...
Response to the Greater Golden Horseshoe Transportation Plan
The Ontario Ministry of Transportation is developing a long-range (2051) multimodal transportation plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe. Objectives include reducing congestion, supporting economic growth, promoting healthy lifestyles, responding to the climate...
Second Update on Funding Gaps for Rapid and Conventional Transit in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area
Transport Action Ontario has released a second update report and backgrounder on funding gaps for transit in the GTHA. It reflects an assumed rapid transit network as proposed by Metrolinx in their 2017 draft Regional Transportation Plan, rather than that identified...
Comments on Metrolinx draft Regional Transportation Plan
Metrolinx, the regional transportation planning agency for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, released an updated draft Regional Transportation Plan in September,with comments due by late November. A collaborative of 12 non-government advocacy organizations...
Update on Funding Gaps for Rapid and Conventional Transit in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area
(Backgrounder) Update on Funding Gaps for Rapid and Conventional Transit in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area Update on Funding Gaps for Rapid and Conventional Transit in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area Source:...
Brutal Treatment by CN damaging VIA’s Canadian train
Transport Action Ontario and our affiliate, the Northern and Eastern Ontario Rail Network (NEORN) have jointly issued a media release decrying the extremely poor on-time performance of the Canadian. Data shows that the Canadian from Vancouver to Toronto was on...
TAO questions Ontario’s high-speed rail proposal, calls for replacement by a high-performance rail plan
TAO questions Ontario’s high-speed rail proposal, calls for replacement by a high-performance rail plan Will the Government of Ontario’s wildly optimistic predictions about the benefits of high-speed rail (HSR) actually materialize? The odds are they will not – and...
Transport Action Ontario rejects high-speed political vanity project, calls for high-performance rail plan
TORONTO – In a hard-hitting policy statement, the transportation advocacy group, Transport Action Ontario (TAO), calls for the rejection of the provincial government’s high-speed rail (HSR) proposal and its replacement with a more practical, high-performance rail...
A clear admission passenger rail needed in southwestern Ontario
This article by TAO board member Ken Westcar and resident of Woodstock ON appeared in the London Free Press in somewhat edited form on June 9, 2017 under the title “Westcar: Upgrading passenger rail makes most sense.” Although there are many critics of the province’s...
President’s Message, June 2017
Transport Action Ontario to focus on high-performance rail for the North Main Line and revival of the Northlander, By TAO President Robert Wightman, June 5, 2017 The way Canada and Ontario fund, govern and deliver rail passenger service desperately needs change. But...
‘Problematic and tragic’: Canadians react to Greyhound decision to cut, reduce routes
Greyhound Canada’s announcement that it will eliminate or reduce passenger and freight routes in Western Canada was met with disappointment on Monday, with lawmakers and activists warning that it will leave the country’s most marginalized communities no choice but to...