BIKE: Re: Las Vegas monorail shut down

[Librik or Babich]

The problem of a wheel falling off the vehicle would ground any fleet of
public vehicles. If one rolled off of a bus, trolley, or dump truck, they
would all get inspected right away. It is probably the shop manager and
staff who are getting worked over as much as the lug nuts. A few of the
early BART trains had some brake failures and tended to stop in the parking
lots of the stations (at least according to the fellow I rode with passing
through Oakland).

The problem of a vehicle getting in an accident would be no cause to ground
the whole system, unless the accident was caused by a mechanical failure
(above). To its credit, any grade separated system would avoid driver-error
collisions completely. Mechanical problems would be such a system's' main
weakness, aside from of short-term cost-effectiveness (considering the
higher starting costs of building structures).

It seems that the degree of automation is always a hassle and a liability
just as it can be a convenience and a safeguard. This automatic door problem
sounds like something the engineers need to work out, and something we would
need to ask about should a local system be proposed. I do not see automation
as necessary for elevated vehicles, nor are bugs much of a criticism of a
system (more a criticism of the people responsible for the system, and the
people responsible for them, etc.).

Grade separated does sound nice, and "monorail" makes me think of what is
at, well, Disneyworld (which seem to have run smoothly for decades) assuming
they still have the things. But I see light rail as the cheap and sleazy
solution that will have more appeal to the cheap and sleazy American voters
we have here in central Texas. It is more likely to get >50% of the voters
to back it than something called "monorail."

But I tend to find separated systems, elevated or underground, more
appealing due to the station, which is so much a place of its own, and so
better for waiting. Waiting at curbside, like for a bus, is a bit
humiliating. You stand in the open while all others go by enclosed. You are
some risk from this movement and at no gain. Amusing or interesting things
can go on the street, but it is much nicer overall to wait in a station. I
like how a train emerging from a tube pushes a volume of air ahead of it,
heralding its approach.

--
Mike Librik, LCI #929
Easy Street Recumbents
512-453-0438
45th and Red River St., thereabouts
Central Austin
info
www.easystreetrecumbents.com
www.urbancycling.com

"Is it about a bicycle?"