Justin10000
Banned
It's a monorail, and therefore deserves to be mentioned.
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Monorail for Toronto
- Thread starter ssiguy2
- Start date
nfitz
Superstar
The Seattle monorail was built with public money and is part of the Seattle transit system ... however you also cannot transfer to any regular transit and vice versa; not sure why that's an issue.
ssiguy2
Senior Member
Because Seattle's was built with exactly that..........PUBLIC money while LV was a PRIVATE venture hence has a huge debt load it also had to deal with.
Some very interesting releases and info for both the Sao Paulo and Riyahd systems. Seems the LV system was built using the Innovia Monorail but these new systems will use the new Innovia 300 series. The new system is automated and has frequency of 90 seconds or better potentially every 76 seconds. The 4 car trains at LV are 2.6 metres wide and 42 metres while the new 300 series have a 4 car train length of 50 metres with a width over 3.15 metres. So much for the theory that they don't have subway capacity. They are very sharp looking and quiet due to rubber wheels. The Bombardier cars are aluninum and unusually light which means significantly smaller support poles and they are made off sight.
Interesting to note that they are being designed in Kingston and manufactured in Pittsburg.
Some very interesting releases and info for both the Sao Paulo and Riyahd systems. Seems the LV system was built using the Innovia Monorail but these new systems will use the new Innovia 300 series. The new system is automated and has frequency of 90 seconds or better potentially every 76 seconds. The 4 car trains at LV are 2.6 metres wide and 42 metres while the new 300 series have a 4 car train length of 50 metres with a width over 3.15 metres. So much for the theory that they don't have subway capacity. They are very sharp looking and quiet due to rubber wheels. The Bombardier cars are aluninum and unusually light which means significantly smaller support poles and they are made off sight.
Interesting to note that they are being designed in Kingston and manufactured in Pittsburg.
officedweller
Senior Member
The main advantage of the new design is that the trains will be walkthrough.
The LV Monorail has compartmentalized cars - no walkthrough ability.
Not sure how that will be achieved - either raising the floors above the bogies which is likely the case, as straight sightlines was mentioned, or having a bulkhead for the bogies in the middle of the train car.
What was proposed by Bombardier for Seattle a few years ago was a side passage that went around only one side of the bogies.
The LV Monorail has compartmentalized cars - no walkthrough ability.
Not sure how that will be achieved - either raising the floors above the bogies which is likely the case, as straight sightlines was mentioned, or having a bulkhead for the bogies in the middle of the train car.
What was proposed by Bombardier for Seattle a few years ago was a side passage that went around only one side of the bogies.
Electrify
Senior Member
PDF brochure on Bombardier's heavy rail monorail trains to be used in Sao Paulo:
http://www.monorails.org/pdfs/INNOVIA 300.pdf
http://www.monorails.org/pdfs/INNOVIA 300.pdf
nfitz
Superstar
I don't understand your point ... you can't transfer from the Monorail to bus or LRT in Seattle because both were built with public money???
ssiguy2
Senior Member
The Seattle Monorail is basically just a tourist train from downtown to Seattle Centre. It has no use as a public transit system.
It is independent of the King County/Sound Transit.
Ya, those new cars and monorail are pretty hot looking. To bad, according to City Hall, that people would rather wallow in traffic than have have a modern, safe, fast,low capacity, road hogging, comfortable, quiet rapid transit system with wires all over the place and tiny shelters for the rain and snow because if they didn't believe that they could get a massive monorail system like Sao Paulo.
It is independent of the King County/Sound Transit.
Ya, those new cars and monorail are pretty hot looking. To bad, according to City Hall, that people would rather wallow in traffic than have have a modern, safe, fast,low capacity, road hogging, comfortable, quiet rapid transit system with wires all over the place and tiny shelters for the rain and snow because if they didn't believe that they could get a massive monorail system like Sao Paulo.
ssiguy2
Senior Member
I meant to say they would rather not have a high capacity, non road hogging..........................that's what I get for not properly rereading my own post....................................................d'oh!
Automation Gallery
Superstar
Everyone criticizes and laughs at this system, but why cant this actually become reality here in TO one day.
Subways? Nah. Let’s get some air
Monorails cost as little as LRTs, can be built more quickly and offer almost as much capacity as subways
For Mayor Rob Ford, it’s subways or bust. But why?
Subways are good at moving large numbers of people quickly, but are expensive. Many large and dense cities have spent enormous funds to construct huge subways, but we can’t afford to.
Buses are cheaper, but move fewer people and get stuck in traffic. Segregating buses in separate lanes (bus rapid transit) takes away lanes from cars.
Streetcars, or modern LRTs may be a good intermediate solution. Current streetcars impede other traffic and are themselves impeded by cars, creating chaos on the roads. This frustrates car drivers and TTC passengers alike.
Former mayor David Miller’s solution, Transit City, involves segregated streetcar lines with new LRTs.
Large and dense cities like Paris have first built huge subway systems, then selectively deployed small LRTs as supplements. Only smaller and less dense European cities have relied solely on LRT systems.
Washington and Chicago have subways almost three times larger than Toronto’s, with no LRT. Portland and San Diego, whose population is a third of Toronto’s, have LRT systems but no subways.
There is another option which has not yet been widely adopted globally, but is perfect for Toronto’s unique circumstances.
Monorail systems in Europe and North America have only been used as airport terminal transfers and theme park attractions.
This is because big, dense cities have been able to afford higher-capacity subways, while smaller, less dense areas have been able to get by with LRTs. There was little need for a system with capacity and speed between an LRT and subway.
Japan, however, has deployed several successfully in urban areas. For instance, the Tokyo Monorail is 18 km long and serves more than 125,000 passengers daily. It has operated reliably for 40 years.
Anticipating Brazil hosting the World Cup and Olympics, Sao Paolo just contracted with Bombardier to build a 24-km monorail to supplement their modest Toronto-sized subway. Mumbai and Bangalore, India, are also building monorails along with subways.
Monorails cost as little as LRTs, can be built more quickly with minimal disruption, and offer almost as much capacity as subways.
They operate on skinny pillars and can be used on somewhat narrow streets. They negotiate tight turns and run quietly on rubber tires, carrying 500-750 passengers per train. They are completely segregated from other traffic.
All pillars and infrastructure are pre-fabricated off-site, meaning quick deployment and minimal disruption.
We have to think outside the box. We have a city that requires more capacity and less disruption than LRTs. But we also need a system cheaper and more quickly deployed than subways.
Relatively few cities have deployed monorails because they have not faced the same circumstances as us, not because of any inherent deficiency in the technology.
We flounder and stagnate partly because no one has done serious analysis of such creative solutions.
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/2010/12/08/16479256.html
Subways? Nah. Let’s get some air
Monorails cost as little as LRTs, can be built more quickly and offer almost as much capacity as subways
For Mayor Rob Ford, it’s subways or bust. But why?
Subways are good at moving large numbers of people quickly, but are expensive. Many large and dense cities have spent enormous funds to construct huge subways, but we can’t afford to.
Buses are cheaper, but move fewer people and get stuck in traffic. Segregating buses in separate lanes (bus rapid transit) takes away lanes from cars.
Streetcars, or modern LRTs may be a good intermediate solution. Current streetcars impede other traffic and are themselves impeded by cars, creating chaos on the roads. This frustrates car drivers and TTC passengers alike.
Former mayor David Miller’s solution, Transit City, involves segregated streetcar lines with new LRTs.
Large and dense cities like Paris have first built huge subway systems, then selectively deployed small LRTs as supplements. Only smaller and less dense European cities have relied solely on LRT systems.
Washington and Chicago have subways almost three times larger than Toronto’s, with no LRT. Portland and San Diego, whose population is a third of Toronto’s, have LRT systems but no subways.
There is another option which has not yet been widely adopted globally, but is perfect for Toronto’s unique circumstances.
Monorail systems in Europe and North America have only been used as airport terminal transfers and theme park attractions.
This is because big, dense cities have been able to afford higher-capacity subways, while smaller, less dense areas have been able to get by with LRTs. There was little need for a system with capacity and speed between an LRT and subway.
Japan, however, has deployed several successfully in urban areas. For instance, the Tokyo Monorail is 18 km long and serves more than 125,000 passengers daily. It has operated reliably for 40 years.
Anticipating Brazil hosting the World Cup and Olympics, Sao Paolo just contracted with Bombardier to build a 24-km monorail to supplement their modest Toronto-sized subway. Mumbai and Bangalore, India, are also building monorails along with subways.
Monorails cost as little as LRTs, can be built more quickly with minimal disruption, and offer almost as much capacity as subways.
They operate on skinny pillars and can be used on somewhat narrow streets. They negotiate tight turns and run quietly on rubber tires, carrying 500-750 passengers per train. They are completely segregated from other traffic.
All pillars and infrastructure are pre-fabricated off-site, meaning quick deployment and minimal disruption.
We have to think outside the box. We have a city that requires more capacity and less disruption than LRTs. But we also need a system cheaper and more quickly deployed than subways.
Relatively few cities have deployed monorails because they have not faced the same circumstances as us, not because of any inherent deficiency in the technology.
We flounder and stagnate partly because no one has done serious analysis of such creative solutions.
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/2010/12/08/16479256.html
Asterix
Active Member
A lot of those lines look very similar to arguments put forward by our own ssiguy2.
But of more relevance, what does being the "director of the Canadian Hindu Advocacy" mean in terms of transit/transportation expertise?
NIL OMNI
Active Member
With all of the snow we get, how seriously can we entertain this - ever...?
M II A II R II K
Senior Member
Streetcars vs. Monorails
Jan. 12, 2011
By Tom Vanderbilt
Read More: http://www.slate.com/id/2280972/pagenum/all/#p2
------------
There is a great, if unnamed and often overlooked, attraction in Disney World: Transportationland. As any visitor knows, one of the most striking experiences at Disney World is navigating it. The place offers an impressively multi-modal suite of options. There's walking, horseless carriages, steamboats, the famous monorail (said to carry more passengers than most U.S. light-rail systems), horse-drawn trolleys, the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover, not to mention mobility scooters and, at some parks, bikes. Then there's the bus fleet that shuttles visitors from the parking lots to the entrance gates. (If it were a municipal fleet, a Disney engineer once told me, it would be the 21st largest in the United States.)
- What's interesting about Disney World and Disneyland is not merely the range of transportation options, but the mixture of new and old modes they represent. These varied ways to get around reflect biographer Neal Gabler's observation that Walt Disney was "at once a nostalgist and a futurist, a conservative and visionary." One imagines he would have been equally happy riding the retro trolley on Main Street as whisking through Tomorrowland in an ultramodern monorail.
- But there is something else to note here. The monorail—which must have looked to Disney and the world like the transportation of the future in the 1950s—is now, to many, considered a historical footnote, a relic of World Expos or, at best, an automated ride between airport terminals. America's highest-profile monorail project, the expansion of Seattle's line, was plagued by cost overruns and funding gaps, and was finally dissolved in 2005 (costing taxpayers $125 million).
- The Las Vegas monorail has filed for bankruptcy. At the same time, those retro streetcars, which Disney himself rode in Kansas City in the early 20th century and which must have seemed to him part of a vanishing past, are returning (or may soon return) to any number of American cities, including Washington, D.C.; Cincinnati' Tucson; Atlanta; Dallas; St. Louis; and Salt Lake City.
- So the future we thought we were going to get somehow seems antiquated, while the past looks increasingly, well, futuristic. Why is the trolley ascendant as the monorail declines?
- The first thing to know about the monorail—which, simply defined, "guided transit vehicle operating on or suspended from a single rail, beam, or tube"—is that it has a long history of being the transportation of the future. "One of the most enduring ideas in transportation has been the monorail," notes William Middleton in Metropolitan Railways, "which in a variety of forms has been offered as the solution to urban transportation ever since the late nineteenth century." The inventor Joe Vincent Meigs demonstrated his patented monorail scheme in East Cambridge, Mass., in 1886. There were other, more fantastical schemes, like the Boynton Bicycle Electrical Railway, but as Middleton notes, this, too, "like almost all monorail schemes, was soon forgotten."
- Modern monorail partisans insist theirs is a viable, if misunderstood, transportation form. (Thanks a lot, Simpsons.) The Web site of their leading organ, The Monorail Society ("Monorails … They're Not Just for Theme Parks and Zoos!"), extols successful monorails around the world (Tokyo-Haneda, the Shanghai Maglev, a monorail slated for the Philippines!) and argues their benefits: Safe (with some exceptions), popular, and cost-effective. The failure to spread in cities worldwide reflects, they argue, a sense that they are still "experimental." It is as if they can't shake the perception that their moment is not yet here. As Wayne Curtis wrote, "the monorail was twenty years ahead of its time, and it has been mired there ever since." And, more conspiratorially: "Something some transportation experts have whispered to us over the years is that a lot more people can make a lot more money if light rail or subway is built."
- Streetcar supporters counter with a battery of well-practiced rejoinders. They say streetcars are cheaper than monorails. Sure, Japanese monorail systems make money, they argue, but so do Japanese trains. Light-rail—a term that has a somewhat slippery definition, but which I'm using here to refer to streetcars (whether modern or vintage in style) that run short routes with frequent stops at street level—has a proven track record in America and has carried infinitely more passengers. Supporters also claim that streetcars promote urban development—which seems possible if not proven. (Streetcar people, like monorail people, even have their own conspiracy theories about what's holding them back.)
- In a conciliatory note, streetcar fans acknowledge that monorail is suitable "where nothing else fits and there is a need to connect at least two points of high activity"—situations in which you wouldn't have to build lots of expensive elevated stations or worry about a lot of network "branching." And if monorails are haunted by their forward-looking past, a rap on many streetcars is that they are simply vehicles for nostalgia rather than real transportation, "Disneyland toys," as Randall O'Toole snorts. As a famous article, Don Pickrell's "A Desire Named Streetcar," noted, municipal officials have persistently underestimated light-rail construction costs and overestimated eventual ridership numbers. (A later study noted planners had gotten better on rider forecasts but no better on capital costs.) Transit advocates (even those on the political right) retort that all kinds of highways "lose" money; some even go bankrupt.
..........
Jan. 12, 2011
By Tom Vanderbilt
Read More: http://www.slate.com/id/2280972/pagenum/all/#p2
------------
There is a great, if unnamed and often overlooked, attraction in Disney World: Transportationland. As any visitor knows, one of the most striking experiences at Disney World is navigating it. The place offers an impressively multi-modal suite of options. There's walking, horseless carriages, steamboats, the famous monorail (said to carry more passengers than most U.S. light-rail systems), horse-drawn trolleys, the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover, not to mention mobility scooters and, at some parks, bikes. Then there's the bus fleet that shuttles visitors from the parking lots to the entrance gates. (If it were a municipal fleet, a Disney engineer once told me, it would be the 21st largest in the United States.)
- What's interesting about Disney World and Disneyland is not merely the range of transportation options, but the mixture of new and old modes they represent. These varied ways to get around reflect biographer Neal Gabler's observation that Walt Disney was "at once a nostalgist and a futurist, a conservative and visionary." One imagines he would have been equally happy riding the retro trolley on Main Street as whisking through Tomorrowland in an ultramodern monorail.
- But there is something else to note here. The monorail—which must have looked to Disney and the world like the transportation of the future in the 1950s—is now, to many, considered a historical footnote, a relic of World Expos or, at best, an automated ride between airport terminals. America's highest-profile monorail project, the expansion of Seattle's line, was plagued by cost overruns and funding gaps, and was finally dissolved in 2005 (costing taxpayers $125 million).
- The Las Vegas monorail has filed for bankruptcy. At the same time, those retro streetcars, which Disney himself rode in Kansas City in the early 20th century and which must have seemed to him part of a vanishing past, are returning (or may soon return) to any number of American cities, including Washington, D.C.; Cincinnati' Tucson; Atlanta; Dallas; St. Louis; and Salt Lake City.
- So the future we thought we were going to get somehow seems antiquated, while the past looks increasingly, well, futuristic. Why is the trolley ascendant as the monorail declines?
- The first thing to know about the monorail—which, simply defined, "guided transit vehicle operating on or suspended from a single rail, beam, or tube"—is that it has a long history of being the transportation of the future. "One of the most enduring ideas in transportation has been the monorail," notes William Middleton in Metropolitan Railways, "which in a variety of forms has been offered as the solution to urban transportation ever since the late nineteenth century." The inventor Joe Vincent Meigs demonstrated his patented monorail scheme in East Cambridge, Mass., in 1886. There were other, more fantastical schemes, like the Boynton Bicycle Electrical Railway, but as Middleton notes, this, too, "like almost all monorail schemes, was soon forgotten."
- Modern monorail partisans insist theirs is a viable, if misunderstood, transportation form. (Thanks a lot, Simpsons.) The Web site of their leading organ, The Monorail Society ("Monorails … They're Not Just for Theme Parks and Zoos!"), extols successful monorails around the world (Tokyo-Haneda, the Shanghai Maglev, a monorail slated for the Philippines!) and argues their benefits: Safe (with some exceptions), popular, and cost-effective. The failure to spread in cities worldwide reflects, they argue, a sense that they are still "experimental." It is as if they can't shake the perception that their moment is not yet here. As Wayne Curtis wrote, "the monorail was twenty years ahead of its time, and it has been mired there ever since." And, more conspiratorially: "Something some transportation experts have whispered to us over the years is that a lot more people can make a lot more money if light rail or subway is built."
- Streetcar supporters counter with a battery of well-practiced rejoinders. They say streetcars are cheaper than monorails. Sure, Japanese monorail systems make money, they argue, but so do Japanese trains. Light-rail—a term that has a somewhat slippery definition, but which I'm using here to refer to streetcars (whether modern or vintage in style) that run short routes with frequent stops at street level—has a proven track record in America and has carried infinitely more passengers. Supporters also claim that streetcars promote urban development—which seems possible if not proven. (Streetcar people, like monorail people, even have their own conspiracy theories about what's holding them back.)
- In a conciliatory note, streetcar fans acknowledge that monorail is suitable "where nothing else fits and there is a need to connect at least two points of high activity"—situations in which you wouldn't have to build lots of expensive elevated stations or worry about a lot of network "branching." And if monorails are haunted by their forward-looking past, a rap on many streetcars is that they are simply vehicles for nostalgia rather than real transportation, "Disneyland toys," as Randall O'Toole snorts. As a famous article, Don Pickrell's "A Desire Named Streetcar," noted, municipal officials have persistently underestimated light-rail construction costs and overestimated eventual ridership numbers. (A later study noted planners had gotten better on rider forecasts but no better on capital costs.) Transit advocates (even those on the political right) retort that all kinds of highways "lose" money; some even go bankrupt.
..........
ssiguy2
Senior Member
Interesting how Monorails are actually getting the attention they deserve.
The big news and one that may change all perception is the huge Sao Paulo Monorail project. 110km long to be built this decade and was choosen over elevated subway or SkyTrain due to being more cost effective, quieter, more comfortable, and faster to build as much is built off site. They are also ideal in winter climates due to having covered single track. The tracks are also slender and create far less shadow than do the other two. It was also choosen due to it's ability to negotiate tight turns and high inclines and is automated. It will be built to accomadate 40-45,000 pphpd and when completed it is expected to carry one million passengers a day by 2030.
Toronto should be so lucky but then again why build fast cost effective mass/rapid transit when you can tunnel near Walmart for twice the price/
The big news and one that may change all perception is the huge Sao Paulo Monorail project. 110km long to be built this decade and was choosen over elevated subway or SkyTrain due to being more cost effective, quieter, more comfortable, and faster to build as much is built off site. They are also ideal in winter climates due to having covered single track. The tracks are also slender and create far less shadow than do the other two. It was also choosen due to it's ability to negotiate tight turns and high inclines and is automated. It will be built to accomadate 40-45,000 pphpd and when completed it is expected to carry one million passengers a day by 2030.
Toronto should be so lucky but then again why build fast cost effective mass/rapid transit when you can tunnel near Walmart for twice the price/
Electrify
Senior Member
SAFEGE suspended monorails were created for this very purpose:
Because the running surfaces are covered, they arguably operate better in winter than standard rail.
I think if any line could work as a monorail, it would be the DRL. Any DRL would be 100% grade separated, so light rail would be out of the question. Monorail would be less visually intrusive than an el, and would be less complex than tunneling under downtown streets.
Run this above the rail corridor leading into downtown. Space the tracks underneath so that the support poles are between the sets of tracks.
It would also be interesting to see this running along the Georgetown corridor to Pearson. It would eliminate the need to widen out the corridor in some sections, and it wouldn't be diesel. It also wouldn't increase the frequency of trains on the line. Pretty much the 3 biggest beefs the community has.