BIKE: Re: Las Vegas monorail shut down

[Nawdry]

At 2004-09-06 03:20 , Michael Bluejay wrote:
>Lyndon discredits himself by trying to disparage the LV monorail just 
>because of this early shut down.  The LVM hasn't even been up for TWO 
>MONTHS!  I think it's completely fair to give them some time to work the 
>bugs out of a BRAND-NEW SYSTEM.  If they're still having problems another 
>six months from now then let's talk, but for right now it's a non-issue, 
>and anyone who thinks it is just isn't being fair.


Sorry - I didn't make my point clear.  First, 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.

LH