[ale] OT: Maglev funding?

[Jeff Hubbs]

Robert Reese~ wrote:
> People Movers are fantastic for certain applications. However, those
> applications typically are micro environments; an airport is a perfect example 
> as is an amusement park.  Las Vegas could use one, probably, as well as a few 
> other places where there is a high concentration of people in a localized space.
>   
They've got one; it's a linear route that spans roughly seven city blocks. 
> It isn't really feasible for the longer commutes, not even from the airport to 
> another destination.  That's where the monorail's purpose lies inside the city.
>
>   
Again I have to ask - why are you assuming it's not feasible?  The WDW 
Epcot line is a looped spur that runs about five miles away from the 
Transportation and Ticketing Center; it crosses highways and waterways 
as it does so.  For longer expanses, there are issues of power 
(self-contained like a diesel-electric, third-rail like WDW or MARTA, or 
pantograph like TGV) and there would have to be a rather involved 
passenger rescue support infrastructure, but those are reasonably 
solvable problems.
> The other problem is that the maintenance cost on a People Mover are quite 
> high... imagine the thousands of bearings, electric motors, switches, and so 
> forth that have to be maintained just at WDW alone.  Sure, the usefulness there 
> warrants the high maintenance, but as a replacement for MARTA it just wouldn't 
> make sense financially.
>   
Like MARTA *doesn't* have that...or Amtrak, or TGV? 

No one in their right mind would propose replacing MARTA with a 
monorail, primarily because the sunk cost and everything about MARTA is 
predicated on heavy rail plus no grade crossings.  But those two things 
together are what helped drive the sunk cost of MARTA so high and have 
kept it maddeningly limited in its range.  Imagine what MARTA could have 
been like if underground tunnels and stations weren't anywhere near as 
necessary...if it could have run over streets, like the El in Chicago 
but with nowhere near the blight or per-foot cost.  Actually, it would 
be possible to run monorail right along the top of existing MARTA RoW 
without interfering with MARTA service in the least; maybe a long 
monorail line out of Atlanta could piggyback for part of the way.

No, the real block to monorail adoption in this country has been that 
it's *too* cheap and *too* flexible - like I said, there's huge money to 
be made whenever heavy rail is involved.  The only monorails that exist 
in this country exist because someone with money to spend on 
transportation decided they'd get the most for their money; governments 
*can* do that but sadly, they tend not to for public works projects.