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Monorail for Toronto

Well another year has past us by and god was it an eventful one.
While this has been a pretty bad year economically for a monorail guy like myself it has been an incredibly spectacular year!
A short run down........
Bombardier introduced it's new Innovia 300 monorail vehicles which are very light and a unique bogie which will make it more of an international competitor with the big guys Hitachi and Scomi. To make it even better Bombardier is building it's first monorail test track in Kingston to display it's great new technology.
Sao Paulo's massive 100km system is well under construction to be completed by 2020, The first two lines are going to be 35km and will both be open by 2014, one by late 2013. It is also a true mass transit system with trains running every 90 seconds and capacity of a whopping 52,000 pphpd!
Manaeus Brazil has begun it's new 27km system built by Scomi and will be completed by 2014 with a capacity of 37,000 pphpd.
Qom Iran's 17 km line is well construction and Karanshaw's system of 30 km is beginning this year,,,,,,,,,,,,,first line by 2013.
Osaka improved it's current line.
Daeugo South Korea began construction on it's 27km 25,000 pphpd line.
Kuala Lumper just ordered new longer trains for it's current line which they want to begin extending.
Chonquing opened another line and now has 35km system with an extention already under construction and another starting in 2012. The 2 lines are already carrying 400,000 passengers a day.
Mumbai's new line will open by March 2012. It's the first leg of a 140km system with another two lines with 40km to opening by 2014 and 2016.
Chennai has put out to tender the first 30km line to tender and they want to start construction by summer 2012. It is the first line a a massive 300km system.
5 other Indian cities want to build monorail with 2 already out to tender.
Bangkok has stated it wants to build 8 mew monorail lines as they can't build subway due to it's water table and it's roads to clogged for LRT.
Nigeria's first system is already well construction in Port Harcourt to be completed within 18 months and has stated as soon as the line is near finishing they are going to start construction of a 17 phase 2.
Ho Chi Min City has sighned a memoradum of understanding to start it's first 20km line in 2012 with Scomi.
Riyad's 6 km line is well under construction.
These are lines under construction but note these are full mass/rapid transit lines for regular transit users.
Finally, monorail is making it's move to a real international player in the mass transit field.
This has truly been a game changing year and when the massive Sao Paulo system begins with 2 years it will give monorail a real exposure outside of Japan. 20 years ago it would have been fair to say that monorails will never catch on internationally but now monorail's future is incredibly bright with more construction under way and set to begin than, by far, anytime in history.
 
Seems I spoke to soon as all the great monorail news from 2011 wasn't quite over. On Dec 30 Chonquing opened an extension of it's it's lastest monorail line. The first section opened in Sept this year but it now running all the way to the airport.
With it also came a record........at 39km it is the single largest urban monorail line in the world, a title Osaka held for a very long time. Chonquing now has 58km of monorail and even before this opening was carrying over 400,000 passengers a day. Both lines were built to accomodate a mazimum capacity of 32,000 pphpd.
 
Chongqing's wide tree lined but pedestrian unfriendly streets is really working out the the benefit of their monorail I guess. Might be a good option for Hurontario.
 
Chonquin originally choose monorail due to being a very hilly city and monorail offers incline abilities and turning radiouses that other technologies cannot match. Obviously they were very impressed with the system as after building the first line they immediately began construction on the second and then extended and are extending the first line. They wouldn't grow a system at such a rapid pace unless they were very pleased with the results.
I think Sao Paulo will be the real game changer as it will give monorail and exposure outside of Asia that it never had. The 3rd largest city in the Americas embracing monorail in a massive way really is a big deal. Mumbai's system will also be under close scrutiny as it is the first urban monorail in India and will be part of a huge system. Indian cities are lining up for monorail funds and Mumbai's success will be enough to start the mass movement.
Crowded large cities are particularily embracing monorail due to the huge cost of subways and due to high population densities, LRT and at grade Metros require to much precious land. Monorails are also very fast and affordable to construct as the pyons are the biggest disruption as the rest of the infrastructure is built off site. The much smaller disruption of traffic is a very big deal in high density cities.
 
ssiguy2 said:
They wouldn't grow a system at such a rapid pace unless they were very pleased with the results.
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In China? They build everything at such a rapid pace. For this one monorail I can point to many other Chinese cities which at the same pace built subways. They chose a technology in the beginning and one of the reasons was the topography near the core. The reason it has expanded is not because it is any better or worse than other technologies but because it is already there and there would be no point changing.

I think Sao Paulo will be the real game changer as it will give monorail and exposure outside of Asia that it never had. The 3rd largest city in the Americas embracing monorail in a massive way really is a big deal.
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I don't know about game changer. They are installing a monorail which will serve the areas away from Sao Paulo's core where wide thoroughfares exist because transit up to this point has been wholly inadequate for a city of their size. When the Docklands Light Rail, SRT, SkyTrain, Chongqing monorail, etc were installed they could argue that those were game changers as well but London continues to build subways, Toronto continues to build subways, Vancouver used a completely different technology for the Canada Line, and China continues to build subways. It doesn't change the game at all. In some applications monorail will make sense (where running an elevated transit system down the middle of a wide street doesn't have many objectors). In some applications light rail will make sense (where the vehicles will run at grade and on occasion run in the street). In some applications subways will make sense (where the route runs mostly fully grade separated at or below grade and the highest capacity is required).

Crowded large cities are particularily embracing monorail due to the huge cost of subways and due to high population densities, LRT and at grade Metros require to much precious land.
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Yet these cities have lots of land dedicated to roadways when the land is so precious. The issue is that these cities were late building transit. If you are really late building transit then at grade will be ruled out (much like it is in the central part of the Eglinton line) because there is no space for it. That leaves two options... below ground or above ground and above ground is more economical with monorails, and below ground is more economical with subways.

Monorails are also very fast and affordable to construct as the pyons are the biggest disruption as the rest of the infrastructure is built off site. The much smaller disruption of traffic is a very big deal in high density cities.
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It is a big deal because they don't have an alternative to the streets they are using. Their transit systems haven't received proper funding for a long time so closing a street is a huge issue, even their freeway networks haven't been expanded properly. It would be like closing the 401 for an LRT construction... it would never be allowed to happen. We aren't anywhere near that point on the routes at grade LRTs are proposed.
 
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Toronto is only building an 6km extension of subway. I realize that at the blistering pace of rapid transit expansion in Toronto over the decades that's a big deal but not for the rest of the planet.
Also interesting to note how you state that Chonquing already has a monorail so there "is no point in changing". Clearly Toronto doesn't agree or they would be extending the SRT not riping it down. You also state that LRT is good for at grade, which I agree with, but LRT is what Toronto is building in a complete tunnel.
The fact that Sao Paulo is expanding it's Metro but also choosing a 110km new monorail system states a lot about not only their confidence in the system but it's long term viability with future expansion and new rolling stock.
In the last 2 Monorail Conventions, Hitachi, Bombardier, and Scomi {tje big 3 of monorail manufacturers} are going to be trying to bring about a standard system where behicles could be interchangeable so it would no longer be proprietary.
I also disagree with you about the Sao Paulo system. This sytem along with the Manaeus monorail project will give monorail an exposure which it really doesn't have outside Asia. This is similar to the Edmonton LRT. Before it was built in 1978, rapid transit is NA meant one thing.....subway. The Edmonotn LRT broke that mold and set a trend that continues to this day. Eventhough LRT had been common in Europe, as monorail was in Japan, it never got any traction in NA until Edmonton. Same for BRT in Latin America where Curitiba decided to go for a rapid transit system based on buses. It had been used in Pittsburgh and Ottawa but was untried there. Once cities say the incredible success of the Curitiba system, Latin American cities have embraced the system. Latin America is the world's premium centre of BRT.
I think the Sao Paulo will have this effect as well.
One thing is for sure, monorail's future is bright with huge systems being built which even a decade ago looked like a unattainable dream.
It's a great time to be a guy with a "one track" mind.
 
It is but remeber that the footprint of monorail is the smallest of all elevated systems and much smaller than street level LRT.
 
ssiguy2 said:
It is but remeber that the footprint of monorail is the smallest of all elevated systems and much smaller than street level LRT.
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Except at elevated stations of course.

Footprint between stations doesn't matter too much when you begin elevating station boxes which are 500 foot long and 4 lanes wide.

Also, cross-overs supporting higher train speeds (useful for 90 second frequencies) tend to have extremely large profiles both horizontally and vertically and would need to be located every 3 to 4 stations.
 
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ssiguy2 said:
It is but remeber that the footprint of monorail is the smallest of all elevated systems and much smaller than street level LRT.
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No way. The gondola is smaller and the stations can be as simple as the car coming close to the ground and slowing down to a near stop. Medellin and Caracas have them. Rio is getting them. Game changer.
 
Yet more good news on the monorail front.
The Indian city of Calicut {not to be confused with Calcutta which has it's own monorail plans} has completed it's study on it's new monorail project. The Indian government has pushing Metro/Monorail for what it calls it's "tier 2" cities so they can compete with the largest cities and to make sure that India's economic growth is not just centred on the largest cities. The state government has been pushing hard for the monorail project as a PPP project. The first segment will be 13km with phase 2 an extension to bring the line to the airport with an additional 10km.
The state wants to put the project out to tender as fast as possible and start construction this year. I don't know of it's capacity but imagine it will be relatively high as this is considered Metro not commuter rail or just an airport link. The Indian government has been pushing monorail systems accross the country due to their safety, being far more affordable than standard Metro, and their small footprint and turning radiuses which is important in conjestion of Indian cities. I understand that a NA city will be building a 23km line to it's airport but unfortunately it will be using smelly, polluting, slow diesel, and only useful for tourists and bankers not for the who are paying for it.
 
Although it seems like a waste of money to rip up infrastructure {only Toronto does that}, it was ill conceived and doomed to fail.
Why?...........because it was built as a tourist attraction. They alsways seem like a waste of money to me except in larger applications like Disneyland. The Sydney Monorail is, and was built as, a tonya-toy. A downtown circulator that goes from nowhere to nowhere and back again.
I have alsways been a strong supporter of monorail but only where appropriate and functional. I support monorail as a cost effective mass/rapid transit system and Sydney's was neither.
When Ford first came out with his monorail plan, I didn't know what to think as I had not seen the plans. I was hoping it would go from Queen East to Queen West via the rail corridor and be the beginning leg of a DRL but alas such was not to be. It was just a useless circular route. This is why I was dead set AGAINST the plan and was a waste of money. Toronto is broke enough as it is with a relatively small rapid/mass transit system so the last thing they needed was to waste precious funds on a glorified joy ride.
Sydney's was worse as it was just a tourist ride but also blighted the downtown area. I have always stated that there should be no elevated structures in the inner city except those using current rail corridors.
This is why I have stated that monorail is ideal for Eglinton but only if they tunnel from DM to roughly Black Creek as it is part of a vibrant urbane area that should not have concrete pillars down the middle. It is east and west of those sections that should be elevated.
I believe that monorail is a great form of urban transport but only if it is exactly that.......urban transport and not pet tourist rides at public expense ruining , as any elevated system would, an vibrant urban district.
 
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