Chennai monorail controversy
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Chennai monorail controversy
by Paul Barter
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Chennai monorail controversy
by fekb
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The history of monorails fiascos is so long, so rocambolesque (is that a word in English? .. otherwise think Cervantes), and so without real exception that one wonders about our collective memory. I started looking at them in the context of my first world transport technology survey in 1969 which gave me an opportunity to kick their wheels in half a dozen places, and yes! I did have several months of thinking maybe they had a place in the future of our cities. But these are the sins of a foolish youth, and how in the world could any reasonably informed sapient person give in to the crude disinformation machine and sweetheart deals that the monorail lobby has come up with in city after city around the world. Oh dear.
So for your reading pleasure, just below the couple of exchanges that have introduced this hot topic, I reproduce the text of “Back to the Future: Which way is the new Las Vegas Monorail heading?”, by Wayne Curtis;-)
-----Original Message----- I would suggest that concerned individuals have a look at the Seattle Monorail fiasco. It shouldn't be hard to follow if one goes to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Seattle Times websites and does an archival search.
Eric Bruun
-----Original Message----- >From: John Ernst <itdpasia@...> >Sent: Feb 6, 2006 1:11 PM >Subject: [sustran] Re: Chennai monorail controversy > >The experience in Chennai appears to be >increasingly common in the larger Asian >cities. Following some initial work by ITDP, >Hyderabad was considering a BRT system, but >monorail and rail companies quickly came in with enticing proposals. > >Typically, these companies overestimate demand >and promise a totally self-sustaining system >running with only private investment. Though >untrue, the promise is still appealing to governments. > >After one false start, Jakarta had a privately >financed monorail start construction. But the >company soon came to the government asking for a >subsidy, then stopped construction. The governor >set a deadline of 6 days ago for the company to >get started again or he would look for yet another set of investors... > >It seems monorail is an easy dream to sell, a hard one to fulfill. > >Best, >John > >At 12:18 AM 2/6/2006, Paul Barter wrote: >>content-class: urn:content-classes:message >>Content-Type: multipart/alternative; >> boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C62AED.77CA1878" >> >>Some of you may be interested to know that >>Chennai (formerly Madras) in India is in the >>midst of a heated controversy over public transport. >> >>The Tamil Nadu state government decision to opt >>for a huge monorail network is the issue. >>See >><http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=chennai+monorail&btnG=Search+News>http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=chennai+btnG=Search+News >>for the latest. >> >>Both 'Metro' supporters and BRT supporters seem >>to be weighing in (with the heavy rail >>supporters louder and more influential it seems). >> >><http://www.hindu.com/2006/02/03/stories/2006020315440700.htm>http://www.hindu.com/2006/02/03/stories/2006020315440700.htm >>(Monorail plan ill-advised: Sreedharan) >>"The Tamil Nadu Government's decision to go for >>monorail for Chennai city to meet its growing >>traffic needs is most `unfortunate' as it will >>not help meet the transport requirement of city >>commuters," says Delhi Metro Rail Corporation managing director E. Sreedharan. >> >>Already the State had burnt its fingers with the >>"ill-advised" mass rapid transit system (MRTS) >>and the monorail would be its another >>"ill-advised venture," he said in a letter to the State Government. >> >>The State, which had asked the DMRC to submit a >>comprehensive report for a rail based metro >>system for Chennai, dashed off a letter to the >>Corporation recently asking it to stop all its investigations and surveys. >> >>Expressing surprise over the decision, Mr. >>Sreedharan suspected that the State had been >>"influenced by monorail lobby with its tall >>claims and false promises." The lobby, the >>letter noted, had already stalled the metro project in Bangalore. … >> >>or >><http://www.hindu.com/2006/01/29/stories/2006012901640500.htm>http://www.hindu.com/2006/01/29/stories/2006012901640500.htm >>(Divergent views emerge on utility of monorail project) >> >>Any comments? >> >>Paul >> >>Paul A. Barter
Back to the Future
by Wayne Curtis .....
Howard Hughes was right. He said Las Vegas could be a "city of the future," setting a course for the rest of America. (Hughes envisioned a "super environmental" city free of smog and run by an enlightened local government—but whatever.) When I read that Las Vegas had opened a new monorail system last year to whisk travelers up and down the Strip, my first thought was, Of course: all cities of the future have monorails. My second thought was, When can I ride it? Those of us who came of age making pilgrimages to Disney's Tomorrowland know that monorails produce a complicated nostalgia for the future. For me the very word "monorail" triggers a slightly faded Technicolor reverie in which my back yard has its own helipad and my wife, Zorga, wears a silver body suit and sports a stiffly epoxied hairdo that resembles an inverted chafing dish. So when I visited Las Vegas in September, it wasn't the buffets or the baccarat tables that lured me out of my hotel room before I had even unpacked. It was the prospect of a monorail ride. I made my way over to the nearest station, paid my three dollars, and hopped on the next train, uncertain whether I was bound for the past or the future.
I have my own criteria for a monorail. It has a single rail, of course. But it must also run swiftly on quiet rubber wheels right into the lobby of a hotel or an office building. There should be a soft swooshing sound as it slows; bonus points are awarded for a slight but discernible change in air pressure when it arrives. The opening of the doors should be accompanied by a soft bonging, followed by a lush female voice, at once intimate and aloof, urging one to step smartly inside. The Las Vegas Monorail gets mixed marks on these counts. Its cars, based on the five-eighths-scale Alweg cars originally commissioned by Disney, are pleasingly futuristic—not fully Jetsons, but not far from A Clockwork Orange. Most of them are wrapped in advertising, like the buses that double as billboards. A beguiling female voice beckoned me inside, but after the doors closed, the spell was broken by piped-in ads for casinos, including one in which Barry Manilow personally implored me to disembark at the Hilton. Perhaps the most disappointing thing about the Las Vegas Monorail is the route. The trains don't glide into hotel lobbies or even past football-field-size neon signs. The platforms are behind the casinos on the east side of the Strip, and getting to them from the west side requires a wearying hike across traffic and through bewildering, unmarked thickets of clanging slot machines. Once you're on board, the view out the window is sadly quotidian. The four-mile track winds behind the hotels, affording views mostly of parking lots, croupiers taking cigarette breaks, and vast, sand-colored roofs dotted with HVAC domes that shimmer in the desert heat like distant Bedouin encampments. And the ride is bumpy and not very fast, owing to track curves and frequent station stops. "I have to admit, it's a little rough," said Pedersen, who recently spent five days in Las Vegas shooting video to promote monorails in other cities. "Especially having ridden so many Japanese monorails, which are as smooth as glass." Monorails have more history than you might think. A patent for the first prototype was registered in 1821, and the first one-track passenger train appeared in 1825, drawn by a single horse. The Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, in 1876, featured a Victorian-looking double-decker steam monorail, and in 1911 the first of the modern monorail cars—those that resemble huge suppositories—made an appearance in Seattle, running on a wooden track. But not until the middle of the past century did America reach the brink of its golden Monorail Age. In 1961 Disney nearly tripled the length of its 1959 Tomorrowland monorail, to two and a half miles, and made it as much a form of transportation as an amusement ride. A year later Seattle opened its mile-long monorail linking downtown to the World's Fair grounds and the Space Needle. A 1964 Saturday Evening Post article painted a glorious picture of tomorrow: "After reaching their train via escalator, the passengers recline in molded fiber-glass seats and gaze out large picture windows as electric power shoots them from station to station at 90 miles per hour." And tomorrow was nearly here. "The climate is right for a breakthrough in urban transportation," Popular Mechanics reported at about the same time, "and those monorail builders are just itching to show what they can do." So what happened? "Well, that's the mystery," Pedersen told me. "It runs the gamut from conspiracy theories involving oil and automobile companies to the fact that they just haven't been looked at seriously because they've been at theme parks and world's fairs." I blame the future. The monorail shows that an idealized tomorrow can be every bit as encumbering as an imperfect yesterday. The monorail was twenty years ahead of its time, and it has been mired there ever since. It is to mass transportation what the theremin is to the symphony—a novelty that most people feel is best experienced once. This vexes Pedersen, who remains convinced that monorails make good practical sense—despite the fact that the Las Vegas Monorail has been plagued by problems since its opening, including metal pieces that fell into the street, trains that stopped for no apparent reason, and one that left the station with its door open. Pedersen has also videotaped monorails in Malaysia and Japan, and he notes that one-track elevated systems can be installed relatively quickly and without claiming a large right-of-way in crowded urban cores. He sees the burgeoning urban interest in trolleys and other light rail, which often blocks car lanes and contributes to ground-level congestion, as "insane." And he wishes that people (I sense that by "people" he means writers like me) would stop imprisoning monorails in the future and let them come rolling into the present.
This all sounded important, and I tried to focus on what he was saying. It was difficult. The second-floor conference room in which we sat was just yards from the elevated track, and every few minutes a monorail would streak past cinematically, filling the window with the canary-yellow cars of the Nextel train, or the Martian-green cars of Star Trek: The Experience's Borg Invasion 4D. (Resistance is futile, they read. You will be assimilated.) It brought to mind Alvy Singer's home under the Coney Island roller coaster in Annie Hall. Each time, I looked away from Myles and stared at the trains. He noticed. "I get a review of my job performance every six minutes," he said. It was more than that. Sitting in the quiet office with the monorail whispering past, I was wholly transported to another time. Here was the future—just as I remembered it.
================================================================ SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred, equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries (the 'Global South'). Because of the history of the list, the main focus is on urban transport policy in Asia. |
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Re: Chennai monorail controversy
by Karl Fjellstrom
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Re: Chennai monorail controversy
by Walter Hook
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Re: Perceived railmarket in Asia + BRT in Europe
by Todd Edelman, Green Idea Factory
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Re: Perceived railmarket in Asia + BRT in Europe
by Zvi Leve
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Re: Perceived railmarket in Asia + BRT in Europe
by Karl Fjellstrom
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Re: Perceived railmarket in Asia + BRT in Europe
by Sujit Patwardhan
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Re: Perceived railmarket in Asia + BRT in Europe
by Zvi Leve
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Re: Perceived railmarket in Asia + BRT in Europe
by Walter Hook
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Dear Eric, Certainly The Delhi High Capacity Bus system is still
being widely talked about and they say they are going to implement the first
corridor any day now, but they have been saying that for more than three
years. The main factor seems to be that there was
simply enough money both foreign and domestic in the Delhi metro to allow the
project promoters to force through the creation of a fully independent parastatal We have been pressing for years now to get
The problem is that the DMRC and its
various domestic and foreign corporate backers are actually killing politically
much more cost effective BRT proposals. Per capita incomes in Sensible municipal authorities in India
could just make rational plans for metro in one or two high volume corridors
and BRT in other corridors and develop integrated systems, but this just isnt’ how projects are promoted and implemented in
India right now largely due to the weakness of the government. -----Original Message----- Sujit: What are the "obvious reasons" that Govt
prefers Metro? I see several reasons, some of which might be "bad" some of which might be
"good" depending upon your perspective. I think that this is the only realistic approach given
the urgency and severity of the air pollution, the traffic congestion and
the distances involved. While BRT could certainly be cheaper to construct than
the Metro, my analysis of the situation is that it would have taken
years to gather the right-of-way through the core of the city. The population
densities reach 23,000 per square kilometer. Some people and businesses would
have to be displaced and relocated. No doubt the motorists would have protested
taking their precious road space, too. Probably the policy-makers themselves
are amongst those opposing taking space from autos since they are amongst the
elite who own cars. (I think this is also one of the main reasons why
bicycle lanes are disappearing in China.) It would also take years to get the traffic
re-organized to favor the BRT vehicles consistently, reliably and safely across
intersections and through neighborhoods. It would have to be very reliable
and with long station spacings in order to have a decent speed. Speed is
important for a city with the distances of Delhi. Speed is the way that
people living in the outer areas can reach employment in far away locations and
also what attracts people out of their autos and off their motorcycles.) As I have argued here before, I think that
high-performance Metros sometimes are the only realistic answer, even
if it does cost more money. Because a nation doesn't have as much money to
spend on infrastructure doesn't change the physical and political
realities facing megacities. Finally, I note from the IRJ article posted
yesterday that the 55 kms of the Metro already open are carrying 700,000
trips per day. It must be pretty heavily used. The entire Washington DC Metro
system of about 140 kms carries the same amount and it gets plenty crowded
during the rush hours. Eric Bruun
Sustainable
Urban Transport ================================================================ SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred, equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries (the 'Global South'). Because of the history of the list, the main focus is on urban transport policy in Asia. |
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Las Vegas is the Los Alamos of urban design, the nation's
leading laboratory for experimenting with how our cities will look and function
a half century from now. Among the questions currently under investigation: How
much fake do Americans want and what kinds of fake do they prefer? How high and
how far can celebrity-chef franchise dining go? How will hybrid hotel-condos
actually work on a citywide level? How do you build a compact,
pedestrian-friendly city around what amounts to a short but congested ten-lane
highway? 
his much most people agree
on when it comes to monorails: they run on a single rail. The trains can sit on
top of the rail, as they do in Las Vegas, Seattle, and the Disney theme
parks, or they can be suspended underneath, as they were at the 1964 New York
World's Fair. Kim Pedersen, the founder and president of the 4,300-member
Monorail Society, is driven to distraction by people who indiscriminately talk
about "monorails" that aren't any such thing. Seattle has a monorail,
he says; Detroit, with its People Mover, does not. Disney World has a monorail;
Miami, with its Metromover (which, as anyone can see, is just an automated,
elevated bus system), clearly does not. 
n this Pedersen has a
natural ally in Curtis Myles, the president and chief executive officer of the
Las Vegas Monorail Company. I stopped by to visit Myles at the monorail's
office, a few blocks east of the Strip, and found that he, like Pedersen, was
quite optimistic, perhaps largely because he'd been on the job only two months.
A former executive with the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern
Nevada, Myles sees the monorail as the last best hope for unknotting the
Gordian traffic that plagues the Strip. Several times during our meeting he
bounded up to a wall-mounted satellite photo of the resort corridor to show the
several new routes he hopes to build, glossing over the fact that ridership so
far had fallen short of projections. The train will go from the existing
terminus to the airport, he said, and then along the west side of the Strip,
through the MGM Mirage's new $5 billion Project CityCenter, and onward.
"It has the potential to really address what is probably going to be the
biggest problem this valley faces, which is getting people from the airport to
the resort hotels," he told me. "I don't think people really
appreciate how bad that problem is going to be." | < Prev | 1 - 2 | Next > |
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