Monorails have been the transportation of the future for more than two centuries, as a British engineer named Henry Robinson Palmer filed a patent for a monorail in 1821. A monorail was displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.
Two forms of obsolete transportation in one photo: the Seattle monorail and Seattle streetcar. Photo by Oran Viriyincy.
The Wuppertal monorail was more than 60 years old when Seattle helds its Century 21 World’s Fair in 1962. But people still thought monorails were the transportation of the future, so one was built to connect downtown Seattle with the fair.
Now the Seattle monorail itself celebrated its 60th birthday last week. Objectively, it is an urban eyesore that really doesn’t go anywhere and does it pretty slowly, taking 90 seconds to go 0.9 miles or 36 mph. In fact, for most Seattleites, it is more an object of nostalgia than an aspiration towards the future.
Yet for some people, monorails are still the transportation of the future. There’s a monorail proposal for downtown Miami that would not only have an “astronomical price tag,” the pillars needed support it would make congestion worse. There was a recent monorail proposal for Los Angeles that even Streetsblog thinks should be ditched. Someone thought a monorail would be a good idea in Fairfax County, Virginia and someone else proposed on on the Maryland side of the District of Columbia. Of course, there are always more proposals for monorails in Seattle.
Monorails suffer the same problems of all fixed guideway systems: they are expensive and don’t go where most people want to go. But I suspect that, for many, they will still be the transportation of the future a century from now.
0.9 miles in 90 seconds…. Can you do that in traffic or on foot?
In addition to the en-route speed/time there is stairs/escalator/elevator time and cost.
“Capitol Hill Station’s escalator problems apparently here to stay”
https://bit.ly/3v66NfZ
Posted to Antiplanner:
For anyone interested, a steam monorail system was actually built in Ireland in 1888 and ran until 1924. I have ridden on the replica, fun but quite ridiculous. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lartigue_Monorail and a video including historic film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfU53PjeQMk
That’s pretty neat. It needed careful balancing, though, according to the video, including using two mirror image steam engines and boilers, one on either side.
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There’s a monorail proposal for downtown Miami
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There are 2 monorail proposals for a 3 mile line connecting Miami with Miami Beach ( a mainland connection to a barrier island ). Because anything involves lots of bridges, all options will be expensive.
The 2 monorail solutions are both beyond a billion dollars. One is extending the current Metromover, a monorail people mover. It is commonly referred to as Metromover.
The other was some sort of vague private-owned plan to build a new monorail on the 3 mile route. You’ll see this one referred to as the monorail.
I’m open to the need some improved movements between miami and miami beach. Hard to understand how any reasonble person think the cost of 3 miles should be in the billions.
It’s called buses…The systematic tendency to over-estimate ridership and under-estimate capital and operating expenses introduces a distinct creeping bias toward the selection of capital-intensive technologies such as rail lines. Rail systems are far more complicated. In contrast, rail lines take years to plan and build and railcars while they have longer lifespans than buses, are very expensive to overhaul and replace. NYC subway has an onsite machine shop, to fabricate parts 100 year old systems that were rendered obsolete in 1930s’…… This means both rail routes and rail technologies are likely to be obsolete before they are done. Monorail is Bus, they simply elevate it above ground and change wheel direction to hold it to it’s infrastructure.
Monorail may have worked, namely because it’s ease and speed of deployment. Monorails in particular may have suffered from the reluctance of public transit authorities to invest in the perceived high cost of un-proven technology when faced with cheaper mature alternatives, but rail was anything but cheaper and buses were anything but ill received….Monorail is expensive because it’s sparingly built. By contrast it’s infrastructure is built by simply pouring concrete…………
Using straddle beams, derailment is virtually impossible event. Since it’s elevated above All vehicle traffic, accidents with surface traffic and pedestrians are also impossible (unless the train derailed and landed on the road; again a highly unlikely scenario).
Because the system uses rubber tires for traction it’s acceleration is very smooth and it’s decelerations similar; Also translates to less system down time, less liability suits and most importantly, a safer public.
Street rail systems with grade crossings (light rail, trams, commuter rail or trollies) can’t approach this level of safety since foolhardy people often try to beat the speeding train at the crossing with disastrous results. Monorail has no Crossings, it also; unless terrain demands; doesn’t need expensive bridges, underpasses and overpasses to move.
Also underground rail is prohibitively expensive (tunneling through clay and soft soil is doable by cut and cover, but still expensive. Tunneling thru rock, expensive as shit.)
Running on rubber tires makes monorails relatively quiet compared to the loud clickety clack of metal on metal. And because of it’s infrastructure demands; it can be built without significant impact on neighborhing area; case in point, dig a hole, pour foundation, insert column; go home. Install horizontal beams, done.
Contractors and rail consultants love heavy rail. It keeps them busy for years and brings in the big bucks. And contractors rip up the entire cities infrastructure just to saddle it. You pay for it Mr. Taxpayer. As if that isn’t enough, operational costs of heavy rail are so high that Mr. Taxpayer (you again) have to subsidize it heavily for as long as it operates.
Mono means one
and rail means rail
When we have practical nuclear fusion in 30 years it will come in handy to power all these monorails.
I yearn for day in paper-thin fusion comes. Til then fission is just fine ?
Is LazyReader a bot?
“Is LazyReader a bot?”
Sure seems like it.