BIKE: Re: Rail Issues (2)

[Michael Bluejay]

On Oct 28, 2004, at 10:56 PM, Nawdry wrote:

> No, the Vegas monorail should not be fatally judged by this one 
> experience so soon after its launch.  But, as I said, this experience 
> does seem to point to drawbacks of the technology...

There you go again, and this is exactly what I'm talking about.  A 
brand-new system has some startup problems and that's enough for you to 
indict whole technology.  Amazing.

You can add as much verbage to your posts as you want but your real 
feelings are laid bare with comments such as the one above.  And that's 
why I'm now tuning you out.

-MBJ-

P.S.  Of *course* I cherry-pick your comments.  It's necessary to 
filter out all the excess babble and spin to get to the heart of your 
real position.  The gazillion paragraphs of your last post are fluff; 
the substance is your excerpted quote above.


>
> At 10/27/2004 21:21 , Michael Bluejay <bikes> wrote:
>
>> It would be nice if you afforded the same generosity to the 
>> *brand-new*
>> LV monorail, but no, they have some problems during startup and you
>> can't resist ranting and raving about how it "proves" that monorail is
>> just stupid, unworkable technology.  But when light rail runs into any
>> problems you fall all over yourself to offer excuses and come to its
>> defense by dismissing the "occasional glitches" and the need for
>> "tweaks".
>
> Michael,
>
> I have never asserted that monorail is "stupid, unworkable 
> technology", and it is extremely irritating to have words and 
> viewpoints repeatedly fabricated for me.
>
> What I have said is that the Las Vegas monorail is pretty clearly not 
> the public transit miracle that has been portrayed by many fanatical 
> supporters, particularly in their relentless campaign to attack light 
> rail, regional "commuter" rail, and virtually all other standard 
> railway modal applications, and to obsessively advance monorail 
> technology as a sort of magic-bullet solution to every conceivable 
> possibility for urban rail transit.
>
> Furthermore, I have repeatedly acknowledged that light rail and 
> virtually ALL new transit installations will tend to have startup 
> glitches of varying levels of severity.  Here's what I pointed out in 
> my posting of Sun, 05 Sep 2004:
>
> >>Other rail systems have had startup problems, but none of them have 
> been shut down for such a prolonged period because of the malfunction 
> of a single vehicle. Certainly, all operators want to get at the root 
> of any problem.  What I infer from the Vegas situation is that the 
> system somehow cannot operate with the prospect of this type of 
> malfunction recurring.  The only comparable situation which comes to 
> mind is the grounding of aircraft because of a mechanical problem 
> discovered in a single aircraft.  But for an urban transit system to 
> be forced into total shutdown because of a single vehicle's 
> malfunction suggests a basic weakness of this relatively complex 
> technology (and of a design by which major vehicle parts can fall 
> straight onto whatever is on the ground below).<<
>
> Here's what I wrote in my posting of Mon, 06 Sep 2004:
>
> >>I agree that having a  "bug" in the early weeks of startup is itself 
> not a good reason for strong criticism.  Most new rail operations have 
> had their glitches - e.g., Houston and the recently opened Minneapolis 
> Hiawatha LRT system have had brief shutdowns because of power 
> distribution outages.
>
> What I find striking about the current Vegas monorail situation is 
> that a relatively small guidewheel problem on one vehicle would force 
> the shutdown of the entire system over a period of a number of days.  
> This suggests to me several things:
>
> (1) Complex, automated systems certainly do work, but they are 
> "catastrophically" vulnerable to relatively small failures almost 
> anywhere in the system.  High technology implies high maintenance.  (I 
> use "catastrophic" in a technician's sense - it brought down the 
> entire system.)
>
> (2) This in turn implies high technical maintenance costs, another 
> point I've made.  Remember a couple of years ago, when we were all 
> being assured by Patrick et al. that automated monorail operation 
> would dramatically lower operating costs, so much so that they would 
> all make a profit?  The current incident I think drives home one of 
> the reasons why this just doesn't happen.  In fact, this shutdown, 
> plus the spate of ongoing problems prior to it (especially operational 
> delays in part because real-world passengers, in real-world 
> experience, were holding doors open for others in their party), is 
> probably eating away Bombardier's lunch.  I note, in this regard, that 
> Bombardier pulled out of the bidding for the Seattle monorail project 
> partly because they couldn't raise the surety bond required.  I don't 
> know if the Vegas experience will bankrupt Bombardier, but I would 
> imagine that it has got their monorail division on quite a hot seat.  
> And I also note that Patrick, who a year or so ago was singing the 
> praises of the Bombardier technology, is now dissing them and 
> suggesting they "should get out of the monorail business".  Tch, tch.
>
> (3) The Vegas monorail guidewheel problem is probably extra-serious 
> because Bombardier & Co. have made no provision for a drip pan below 
> the support beam to catch any debris, drippings, etc. - as I have been 
> arguing it should for some time, to the ridicule of Patrick.  As it 
> stands, anything which falls off has a straight drop to whatever is on 
> the surface below.
>
> Automated transit operation does have its benefits.  But, like 
> anything of human creation, it's not a miracle.  That's one of the 
> main points I'm making.
>
> No, the Vegas monorail should not be fatally judged by this one 
> experience so soon after its launch.  But, as I said, this experience 
> does seem to point to drawbacks of the technology (i.e., it's not the 
> silver bullet for urban mobility that monorail promoters have 
> portrayed) and it does seem to corroborate several points I've been 
> making, as indicated above.
>
> I will also note that LRT is not immune from total shutdowns.  
> Portland's MAX system was shut down for about a day last winter, due 
> to an unprecedented ice storm, and Houston's LRT operation has been 
> shut down for a day by flooded streets and its operation truncated 
> several times because of partygoers in the streets downtown.  (A whole 
> 'nother issue, but I won't go there right now...)  Obviously, those 
> incidents point to drawbacks of surface LRT as a mode.<<
>
> And keep in mind that the above comments were written BEFORE the 
> additional problems leading to the PROLONGED TOTAL SHUTDOWN which is 
> now the current situation.
>
> Clearly, both monorail and light rail have their problems, as do other 
> modes.  In view of my comments above, I would strongly challenge 
> Michael's characterization that I "fall all over [my]self to offer 
> excuses and come to its defense by dismissing the 'occasional 
> glitches' and the need for
> 'tweaks'."
>
>> This is why you've lost credibility with me.  I don't have any big
>> preference towards monorail or light rail, I can't feel I'm getting a
>> fair analysis from you.  Probably much of what you say about various
>> things is true, but it's too hard for me to try to pick out the truth
>> from the spin and so I'm just tending to ignore most of it.  I think 
>> if
>> you focused on fairness rather than trying to obliterate the 
>> opposition
>> while painting your own side in glowing terms you'd actually wind up
>> with more people on your side.
>
> I think you're cherry-picking among my comments, ignoring or "tuning 
> out" my actual statements, and misquoting and misrepresenting my 
> views.  That would skew anyone's judgement.
>
> LH
>
>
>
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