BIKE: Las Vegas monorail shut down

[Roger Baker]

  I see monorail as a kind of visually exciting yuppie thing without the 
capacity or reliability or ground level connectivity needed to solve 
serious peak hour transit capacity problems that are easier and cheaper 
to solve with light rail integrated with buses at ground level.

Grade separated transit is not a very practical kind of transit unless 
you absolutely have to do it that way because of ground level space 
limitations. The same reasons they invented and built the "el" in 
Chicago and subways elsewhere.  With cities like Austin you have a 
natural high level corridor of transit demand extending north past the 
university and south of the Capitol to south of the river.

If you are for some reason too backward to install ground-level rail 
transit use along this blue ribbon rail potential corridor, and 
assuming you want to retain the ground level for near-total car 
domination despite its inefficiency and poor safety, then you can 
indeed pay extra to move your transit up to tree level.  But  why here?

But I have faith that Austin will embrace old fashioned but eminently 
practical light rail in a few years if not now,  because of fossil fuel 
prices and also because our local TxDOTocracy's  policies are so crazy 
and short-sighted that they have even pressured local government into 
agreeing to attempt to fund lots of toll roads with huge deficit 
spending.  Only a financial failure and ensuing scandal will stop what 
seems to me to be totally irresponsible financial gambling on new roads 
with public/federal/private investor money.

-- Roger


On Sep 6, 2004, at 12:45 PM, Bob at Amp Electric wrote:

> paraphrasing Michael Bluejay "Monorail would have been out of the
> question on
> the strip because it would be a visual intrusion that blocks the view
> of all the eye candy up and down the strip."
>
> This begs a question: Which system, light rail or monorail, would be
> more flexible in changing grades? That is, can both systems be ground
> level for a stretch, then elevated, and back down for these
> aesthetically sensitive areas? Is there a precedent for monorail
> structures at ground level?
>
> Bobby Sledge