BIKE: Re: Las Vegas monorail shut down

[Michael Bluejay]

On Sep 6, 2004, Nawdry wrote:

>  First, nowhere did I say that the Vegas monorail's "simple mechanical 
> failure" has "proven" that monorail technology is "unsound".  Patrick 
> just makes this up.


Oh come on, that's pretty much *exactly* what you said.  Read your own 
email, below.  You said:

> Complex, automated systems certainly do work, but they are 
> "catastrophically" vulnerable to relatively small failures almost 
> anywhere in the system.

By the way, you're *really* not being fair by harping on how the whole 
system was shut down over this problem.  You know as well as anyone why 
they shut the whole thing down:  It's a BRAND-NEW system, and when 
there's a problem in a brand-new system, especially in Vegas where the 
whole world is watching, they want to make damn sure that everything is 
working perfectly.  Anyone who DIDN'T shut the whole thing down to 
investigate an early failure should probably be fired.

So not only *SO WHAT* that they had a problem during the first two 
months of operation, but also

*so FREAKING what* that they shut the whole thing down to investigate 
that problem.


Patrick wrote:

> Also, I'm not entirely sure that monorail would not have been 
> appropriate right on the strip.  This is perhaps the biggest argument 
> we have with new urbanist planners who oppose monorail.  Their claim 
> is that, being up in the air, monorail blocks views and makes the 
> streetscape less pleasant for pedestrians, consequently negatively 
> affecting pedestrian-oriented uses of the urban environment.

My point was a little different.  I'm not saying that monorail would 
have been *ugly* on the strip.  I'm saying it would have blocked the 
view of what's across the street.  Part of the wonderland of being on 
the strip is seeing all the eye candy across the street, no matter 
which side of the street you're on.  The hotels pour billions of 
dollars into their buildings to make them look nifty -- they don't want 
any obstructions to people viewing their handiwork, and neither do the 
tourists, I imagine.

-MBJ-


> 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
>
>
>
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