Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
I was all pumped on the interview with the President of the Monorail Society until the end, when he confessed that one of the best monorails in the country is still the one at Disneyland. Then I realized I could probably be the president of the Monorail Society if I wanted to. Instead, I made myself president of the Monocle Society.
One bit of seriousness: I don't care what Michael Medved says about them, trains and monorails are the only transportation solutions ever discussed that reduce the actual number of cars on the freeways. Alternative fuels lead to more cars and actually more driving. The government is always going to be wasting money, so I'd rather they waste it on trains we can play with when they're finished. If we prove they are too expensive, that just saves money for them to spend on something worse.
- Comment (20)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (4)
Comments :
Jun '10
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
Easy for you to say, in your little play world. Try for a moment to imagine the lives uprooted...even destroyed, by the hundreds of thousands of properties overtaken by eminent domain forclosures. Even the businesses not forclosed, but in the years of construction zones, inaccessible to customers and eventually bankrupt as a result. The laws of unintended consequenses always seem to rear their ugly heads. Billions or trillions of dollars later, we are needing to increase sales taxes to subsidize mass transit that nobody wants to use. It only works in densely populated small geographical areas. Give it up.
May '10
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
Not so fast, cdor. There are a lot of places in this country where the property and, to some degree, infrastructure, already exists. You forget that railways laced this country long before there was an interstate highway system and before cities sprawled out into suburbs and exurbs. Much of that land still belongs to states and municipalities and, in the area where I live, at least, there are still rails on the ground. It may well not take as much time, money, or pain as you think.
The idea is certainly worth exploring. Building more and more roads (which, by the way, would take just as much eminent domain action as building rail rights of way) is clearly not the answer in either the near or far future.
Jun '10
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
Certainly, Jimmie, every rule has a time when it needs to be broken. There most likely are some limited areas where rail is the perfect solution,(well near perfect, anyway). I don't know where you live. But here in the Midwest we have sprawling suburbs and long distances. People won't even use buses, which cost nothing because the infrastructure (roads) is already here. We have to subsidize the bus company with tax dollars. I see a combination of solutions, but they are very far in the future. Right now, the country is broke. Give me, first, please, fiscal sanity. We need a minimum of 25 years of ever reduced government, economic growth, pay down of National debt and the elimination of unfunded liablilities. Until then any major expenditure needs to be national security oriented. A new energy grid would glean my interest.
May '10
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
Monorails require less terrestrial footprint than any other alternative, particularly when the size of the vehicles is kept relatively small. The infrastructure strength and mass required to support small cars reduces logarithmically as the mass of the cars is reduced. If you did it right, you could put it right in the middle of the freeway between the opposing lanes.
It still doesn't make sense except for a half dozen core routes (e.g., first Mpls-Chicago-Dallas, then unimportan coastal routes like NY-LA, DC-Miami, LA-Seattle) etc.. But would be an interesting experiment if you survived the source selection process and the contracting corruption. A Korean chaebol would probably win the prime contractor job, unless Congress invoked Buy American.
May '10
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
Perhaps train/rail infrastructure the dividing line between right-right and center-right? I am not convinced that there is not a place for modern rail infrastructure in densely populated corridors. But no, this is not the time to be spending money on experiments of this kind. On the other hand, cdor, 25 years?!
Jun '10
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
Paris, how long did it take us to get this broke?
May '10
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
cdor, if the leftists are thrown out over the next three years, we can cut government and get the economy going such that it won't take 25 years to undo the last 25 years--call me an optimist.
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
The Monocle Society is the dividing line between the right-right, and the right-right-right.
May '10
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
My own experience of public transport, as someone who has been without a car for two years, is that it is wonderful and essential for being able to get around. However, as a poor grad student, I by no means fall into the right tax bracket to be paying for this.
I respect the arguments that these are not cost effective. But after benefiting from the public transportation system, I would be disinclined to dismiss the importance of public transportation. As to the precise means of transportation that is most cost effective and the least offensive to property rights, I would be inclined to think that monorails/light rail would be more onerous and more of a sink hole for money than buses.
May '10
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
Yeah, but some technologies are just cool! The mag-lev from Shanghai airport into town takes 7 minutes. Even if it doesn't make sense to do, we can dream, can't we?
Meanwhile, you can take the Big Bus from Mpls to Chicago for about $40 bucks.
May '10
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
cdor, two things.
First, nothing says this has to be a federal government initiative or even a purely government initiative at all. Remember that the Great Northern Railway provided popular and profitable passenger service, and it was a privately-funded line. There is no reason that private money can't be coaxed into building rail services. We would need to ease back regulations, stop propping up Amtrak and other government-supported rail lines, and make the rights of way easily available (or easily rentable, which would put more money in local gov't coffers).
2) Sprawling suburbs and long distance is precisely the right environment for rail service. Buses, by comparison, are slow, crowded and dingy.
May '10
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
Jimmie Bise Jr, your 2)? I don't quite understand that, except that any kind of high-speed train needs to be fast enough to make multiple stops in the suburbs and still wind up being time-competitive from terminus to terminus; needing to go to Union Station, or Penn Station, etc. is FAIL.
I'm still somewhat in shock that someone botched the specs on the Acela such that it can't go as fast as it was supposed to (speed on curves).
Jun '10
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
Private money. Good on you Jimmie. Go for it. Obtaining the property is still a problem. And ROI for long distance construction to service light density suburbs is questionable. You build it friend and I'll buy your first ticket.
May '10
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
No, we're gonna demand that Joe build it!
May '10
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
Agreed, Jimmie. Folks in the suburbs north of Houston often say they'd appreciate some sort of rail system to get to and from work. I'm all for it if the line ends up being privately owned and operated.
But cdor has some valid concerns. I don't know how to answer them.
May '10
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
Cdor,
I don't know whether monorails are a good idea or not, but I do want to inject one important point into this discussion: it isn't just monorails and street cars and Amtrak and subways that are subsidized by the government, travel by automobile is subsidized too -- those roads, highways and bridges you drive on didn't build themselves, nor do the road crews constantly working on their upkeep come from tolls paid by users. Short of converting everything into toll roads there is no non-government, pure market solution here.
Jun '10
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
Conor, thanks for your input. I don't know where I demanded non-government, pure market solutions anywhere in this thread. I applauded them when they were suggested by Jimmie, true. There is no doubt in my mind that government is needed (I am a conservative, not an anarchist) and building inter State transportation or intra State transport are exactly the jobs we hire our government to do, local and Federal. My point here is that we hire (elect) them to do things smart and efficiently, treating our money as if they were reaching into their own back pocket to pay the bill. Treat our property as if they were about to lop off their own back yard to lay some track. I have never said that mass transit is bad. Only that it has some limits to its sensible, cost effective utilization. There's 10 million people on a few square miles of Manhattan island. Mass transit is not just way cool, it's imperative, and it works. But I live in a city that is broke, but wants to build rail through the heart of the central city. It will cost a billion dollars to go 5 miles. We have 2 million people who...
Jun '10
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
...live on 10000 square miles of land. Not sensible. So we adapt our infrastructure to our local needs, trying to plan reasonably into the future. One size does not fit all. And, by the way friend, you may call it a subsidy when highways are built or roads are re-paved. I call it getting something for what I pay.
May '10
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
Call me a Philistine if you will, but it's entirely impossible for me to read any sentence containing the word "monorail" without hearing this song from the Simpsons in my head:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEZjzsnPhnw
May '10
Re: Trains Vs. Monorails Vs. Alternative Fuels
Will,
I completely agree. It took every ounce of self-restraint I possess to refrain from embedding that clip into my interview.