An alternative to Luas

Tom Dunne

I was in Seattle at the weekend and took a ride on their old monorail. For those not familiar with it, it sits on stilts about two stories above the streets and has no cables hanging from above as all the electrics/motors are under the train.

Ok, so it's an ancient relic from the '60s and it only goes for a mile or two, but I thought it was an interesting alternative to street trams, such as the Luas.

The roads would only have to be dug up to support the columns on which the track lies (therefore no need to dig up the other utilites such as water/gas/electricity) and the trains themselves don't interfere with traffic.

And seeing that stilts seem to be in favour in Ireland these days....

P11 Comms

Monorails are worthless for public transport. They are alright for theme parks and transport to airport carparks, but LUAS Line A will handle 40,000 passengers - a monorail car hold a hand ful at a time. What about a line of concrete columns running down Harcourt Street.

LUAS will be a huge success for the moment it opens and all the anti-LUAS rhetoric we hear today from people who know nothing of transport systems will vanish just like it did when the Anti-DART hysteria vanished as soon as the trains started running. By August 2004 the LUAS knockers of today will be boasting about it to foreigners visiting Dublin.

Also, Dublin is not an American city. Even if certain elements in TCD in the 1960's decided it was going to be with a "superhighway network" linking "downtown" to Tallaght and the "other leafy suburbs of the future designed for recreation and open spaces". The sad thing is that the government and most of the rest of Ireland thought this was a great idea, so they closed down the railways and forgot about building the motorways. Monorails are from that silly time. We know better in IReland now belive it or not.

sceptre

Originally posted by tom dunne
Ok, so it's an ancient relic from the '60s and it only goes for a mile or two, but I thought it was an interesting alternative to street trams, such as the Luas.

Was it built at the same time as the Space Needle (ie for the World's Fair)?

Tommy Vercetti

Our streets are too narrow for that

Tom Dunne

Originally posted by sceptre
Was it built at the same time as the Space Needle (ie for the World's Fair)?

It was, yes.

And P11, I certainly don't fall into the category of Luas basher. I am merely playing devil's advocate and showing an alternative. I am no expert in transport, but as a commuter, I see an alternative that, upon initial impressions, seems to avoid some of the pitfalls of the Luas.

In fact, where I am in the US, there is a light rail system right outside my front door and I think it is absoloutely brilliant. It's frequent, quick, reliable and cheap - what more could you ask for?

BrianD

In fairness, monorails are pretty ugly in "old cities" - even in Sydney the damn thing looks horrible and is really only a tourist attraction.

Amyway in Ireland we seem to have an unwritten automatic objection to anything that goes up in the air - no highrise, no overhead signage on roads ...

P11 Comms

Sorry Tom, I was not calling you a LUAS basher at all and I apologise if this is the impression you got. It was just a general comment on the frankly boring and increasing desperate LUAS bashing that is still going on.

Cheers,

Tom Dunne

Originally posted by BrianD
In fairness, monorails are pretty ugly in "old cities" - even in Sydney the damn thing looks horrible and is really only a tourist attraction.

Agreed. But surely some arty-farty design crowd could design a modern looking monorail that is actually appealing to the eye. Doesn't Japan use high-tech monorails?

Amyway in Ireland we seem to have an unwritten automatic objection to anything that goes up in the air - no highrise, no overhead signage on roads ...

ROFL

BrianD

What does ROFL mean??

Tom Dunne

Definition here.