"Raymond Moriyama, one of Canada's most distinguished architects and designer of the Canadian War Museum, says: "This is un-Canadian. It's the American way to put industry and trucks ahead of human life.
"It doesn't remove trucks from King Edward," says David Jeanes, who represented Transport 2000 on the selection committee. "We complained to the consultants that their criteria were primarily based on an increase of car and truck traffic over the next two decades. It really doesn't address the need to provide better public transit," the Citizen quoted Jeanes.
In the Charlottetown Guardian on Feb 18, 2005: Jim Munves, Transport 2000 wrote: "The need for transit is well established, and we encourage the city to begin moving forward on the issue. We would like to renew our offer to share our experience and knowledge in any further discussions of public transit initiated by city council. Direct consultation with core user groups is the key to establishing a successful public transit system in Charlottetown. Munves wrote on behalf of the P.E.I. Public Transit Coalition Steering Committee. Other members of this committee are: David MacKay, ECO P.E.I.; Olive Bryanton, P.E.I. Centre on Health and Aging; Jane Ledwell and Lisa Murphy, Advisory Council on the Status of Women; Barry Schmidl, P.E.I. Council of the Disabled; and Irene Larkin, P.E.I. Senior's Federation," the Guardian reported.
"Similarly, young adults wanting to go to college or university close to home are faced with the choice of buying a car, moving out of their communities to be nearer campus or simply not going. Seniors can become isolated in their own homes ... (and) are forced to sacrifice independence by moving into long-term care facilities.
"In 2003, Nova Scotia households spent an average of $7,607 on costs associated with their vehicles. ... Now is the time for a resurgence of public transport across Nova Scotia. Fuel costs are high and growing. ... A number of local groups are springing up across the province developing public transportation services, such as the Strait Area Transit Cooperative," wrote in the Sep. 20 edition of the Post.
"The agenda itself gives no indication, and the report of interest is called "CEO Report", an innocuous title. However, within that report we find a detailed description of the "Metrolinx Project Delivery Process" which the Board is asked to endorse.
"First as a matter of process, substantive policy decisions should not be embedded in reports whose title implies a status update, unless the real desire is to hope that nobody will notice. Second, the proposed process shows that Queen's Park has no intention of letting Metrolinx operate as a truly independent regional authority, but instead will hold it very tightly under control by various Ministries," Steve Munro reported on the $50 billion dollar plan for transit and roads in Toronto and Hamilton.
"But there are major hurdles: finding and leveraging new sources of funding for major infrastructure projects. Both the east-west highway as well as highway and bridge improvements needed to aid the flow of traffic will require more money than what the states and provinces will be able to provide," the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal reported on Sept. 20.
Transport 2000's Dick Crawford notes on the harmonization of weights: "Truck weights restrictions have to do with road design. The Americans have it right. Canadian weights are creating higher maintenance costs and shorter life cycles."
"The Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators is looking at the failure of most of its Road Safety Vision 2010 targets. But good news is expected on one target.
"Road Safety Vision calls for a 20% reduction in the number of collisions involving commercial vehicles. From 2001 to 2005 (the most recent provincial government data available) there was almost no improvement. But on Jan. 1, 2007, CCMTA-developed rules "dramatically" cutting truck driving hours to 13 a day, came into effect across Canada. Top police officials are expected to deliver the news," Gow reports.
"The National Transportation Safety Board has determined that human fatigue was the probable cause of a truck-tractor semitrailer. Rollover accident that resulted in a subsequent collision of a motorcoach with the overturned truck, killing five and injuring thirty-five on the motorcoach," the NTSB said in a news release on Sep. 16.
On Jan. 1, 2006 the United States raised the number of hours a commercial vehicle operator can drive in a day from 10 to 11.
AP reported: "the two pilots for Hawaii's Go airlines who slept through their flight's landing procedure were suspended for the careless and reckless operation of an aircraft, the Federal Aviation Administration said on Sep. 23."
"The practice sometimes happens upon release from small-town jails and has included incidents of "starlight tours," in which police drive vagrants to the edge of town and drop them off. In the landmark 2006 report "Out of the Shadows at Last", former senator Michael Kirby and his colleagues on the Senate social affairs committee provided a ... definition for the term," the Globe reported on Sep. 24.
Transport 2000 opposes Greyhound therapy.
Spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh said the company is completing a safety and security risk-assessment report for Transport Canada after receiving a grant of $285,000 from the federal department last year. But she declined to divulge what Greyhound has found, nor would she say if it is considering searching passengers for weapons before they board buses," the Globe reported on Sep. 24.
http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/
http://photo.quebectrain.com -> Railfanning virtuel -> Journée VIA 2008.
"In his new book Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight without Oil, co-authored with (Richard) Gilbert, Perl says that any urban planning centred around the use of fossil fuels is extremely shortsighted and bound to fail. "I'm not suggesting any sort of conspiracy," says Perl, "or that selected people are getting together in back rooms to plan this, but obviously some people stand to make an awful lot of money from building low-density, unclustered, single-family developments throughout the Fraser Valley," the Courier reported on Sep. 26.
Prof. Perl is a Transport 2000 supporter.