Sandy Springs proposes Monorail Plan (Atlanta, Washington: linear, moving, trains)

[primaltech]

Elevated monorails are awesome. Great space efficiency, elegant great looks and minimal sized support beam infrastructure, and very quiet and smooth operation. Also cool that you get to kinda feel above it all, typically with great views.

Just need a small support column every 30 feet or so, along side the road or in the median or wherever. Probably could design a huge monorail system for Perimeter Center, without even losing any lanes, or affecting the roads at all.

Elevated light rail is comparable I guess, but all the power lines above it are so ugly. Plus I think monorails can usually make tighter turns.

[cwkimbro]

I'm finding the comments in this thread a bit interesting.

I fear when considering monorails too many people have a disney monorail syndrome. (ie. Bryant's point 'monorails are a joke')

They don't take it serious and/or they only see it as an expense for an exhibition of some type. That isn't entirely accurate or fair, the theme park's used of a monorail is just very well known.

All a monorail is a single track...that''s it. There is no unified monorail technology, single car type, or way of implementation.

Monorails are a bit more common than many may think, especially with small distance circulators that mainly need to run on all elevated tracks. They are also used on some APM systems, which is not an exclusively different type of technology. It is just automated... there are different ways to build and implement it.

The Airtrain at Newark's airport is a monorail. The reason they are not common is they are easier to build when its an all elevated system. This is also when they are cheaper in comparisons. Light rail is favorable when you need to run at ground level, underground, and/or elevated. This is why monorail's are usually passed over. (ie. I would never suggest monorail as a line from Midtown to Kennesaw when large parts of the route would be more efficiently built at grade, below grade, and above grade.)

When it remains a small system that doesn't need to be a part of regional expansions and will pretty much entirely be elevated with no worried about ground level/underground expansion, monorail becomes a APM good option. It makes the elevated structure cheaper and takes up less visual space. The rubber tire based approach many monorails have, similar to the 2 "rail" APM systems are also convenient for limiting noise in a circulator in a business district.

The thing to watch out for... I'm not sure how true this is, but I have heard there are additional long-term maintenance costs/issues on the vehicles themselves. The way they interact with the single "rail" is a bit more complicated.

I still suspect the most likely way forward is the creation of shuttle/transit only ground lanes on key stretches. It is also the more likely to be in reach of costs/funding. You can bypass some of the worse traffic when you're not traveling to a freeway, but there are parts of the traffic you can't avoid. A mile or two of cautiously situated shuttle/transit lanes can go a long way.... and they don't necessarily have to be on the busiest road. I also like empowering 3rd party shuttles to have a way around traffic. I mention this, because there are some large office developments in peripheral areas of Perimeter Center that will never make it on some type of circulator route.

Don't get me wrong... I loved that Simpson's episode!! That was a classic!!!

[JoeTarheel]

Isn't a people mover on a single track too? I can't figure out the difference between the two, but there obviously is one.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by JoeTarheel

Isn't a people mover on a single track too? I can't figure out the difference between the two, but there obviously is one.

A PRT is a single vehicle and can operate in an on-demand mode, where a rider 'calls' the vehicle and once boarded the vehicle only makes 1 stop, the riders requested destination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan...s_of_operation

[primaltech]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_mover

People movers can be either mono track vehicles or two.

Basically a people mover means it only covers a small area, but in some cases (like Vancouver), it covers a whole city, and is mainly called a "people mover" instead of a light rail, because it is fully automated.

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by fourthwarden

So, is this a clever joke on there not being a plan, or did your image just mess up?

I'm guessing you are not a Simpsons fan.

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by waronxmas

I'm guessing you are not a Simpsons fan.

I am very much a Simpsons fan, but the image was not showing up when I tried to look at it. It was just a broken image link.

[cqholt]

Sydney removed their downtown monorail system, that ran in a loop, in 2013.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Monorail

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by cqholt

Sydney removed their downtown monorail system, that ran in a loop, in 2013.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Monorail

Wonder why they took it down?

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Wonder why they took it down?

Wikipedia cites quotes that basically amounted to three main reasons:

1. It would be too costly to pay for the needed upgrades and repairs as the trains and system approached its economic lifetime.
   
2. It was never really used much, nor was it embraced by the community at large.
   
3. It was not well integrated into the transit network at large. It was treated as an independent entity instead of an extension of a bigger system. This hurt its usefulness.