No irony in its name today.

Beware the many errors in this post about the Seattle monorail at Two, Many Blowhards.

The Seattle monorail (existing and erstwhile) is a worthy topic; it illuminates a host of urban planning issues and problems; there is much to learn from the mistakes made in our local Seattle effort and plenty of blame to go around for what has turned out to be a fiasco. But the author (above) freely admits that he really doesn't know much about the subject -- yet he has firm opinions about it. (Of course isn't that a decent definition of a blowhard? One who has scant knowledge but nevertheless has a firm opinion?)

Comments

[AP]

What are the errors?

[David Sucher]

Nope, you'll have to find them yourself. :)
I am too busy to play truth squad for a dead project.
But they are there.

To be rigorous some might be interpreted as matters of pure judgment and opinion about which there is no clear "right" or "wrong." But others are simply inaccurate.

Beyond that, research away! :)

[Chip Morningstar]

David, this raises a question that has bugged this long-time railfan for quite a while, that perhaps you (who have advocated the Seattle monorail) may have some thoughts on: what can trains/trolleys/light-rail/monorails do that busses can't? What's so magical about wheels on tracks that isn't so magical about wheels on roads? (Aside from the romance of trains, of course.)

Is the carrying capacity of a rail line that much greater? Certainly a train can carry more people than a bus, but a train is also a lot more expensive than a bus and the traffic control challenges on rail lines mean that you can run a lot more busses than trains on a given right-of-way. Even the local commuter line near where I live in the SF Bay Area, Caltrain, which sees very heavily traffic by rail standards, runs fewer than 50 trains a day in a given direction. At rush hour, trains run 15 minutes apart, but at other times it can be an hour or more between trains. Yet we pay the capital costs to have those tracks there all the time. Contrast this to the roads, which are in nearly continuous use.

Is there a labor cost advantage to trains? For a given passenger volume, you need a lot fewer locomotive engineers than bus drivers, but when you add back in all the dedicated maintainence of way and traffic control people that trains need, it's not immediately obvious that rail wins.

Busses are cheap and flexible. Relocating a bus line to accomodate changes in demand is mainly an administrative action, as opposed to a multi-million dollar construction project. Is there an economic signalling function that the capital intensive infrastructure of rail provides? In other words, does the fact that you can't relocate a train station without years of planning and millions of dollars of capital investement make it a safer bet for developers to plan around rail lines than around bus lines?

Obviously there's a traffic flow advantage to dedicated rights-of-way, but you could build dedicated busways in the same places you put steel tracks, probably at lower cost, and get that advantage for busses too, with the added advantage that busses can leave the mainline for feeder routes whenever needed.

As an aesthetic matter, I quite prefer rail travel to bus travel, but as a hard-headed economic calculation it's not obvious to me that passenger rail systems make any kind of sense much of the time.

[Benjamin Hemric]

Although I personally prefer travel by rail (i.e., subway or commuter rail), more and more I see buses as a surprisingly underappreciated public transit resource. So, I've also wondered about the issues that Chip Morningstar raises. While most of the pros and cons that I've seen discussed have already been mentioned (at least in an abbreviated form) in Chip's post, here are a few more additional pros and cons that come to mind:

SOME ADDITIONAL PROS

1) Cleaner air (i.e., no diesel exhaust).

2) Higher durability (e.g., longer life for the rolling stock) and thus lower maintenance and replacement costs.

3) Greater speed (which also makes such systems more practical for longer distances).

3) And I think I've also run across people making the argument that light rail/rail is inherently more comforable (e.g., lower floors, more space, less bumpy ride, etc.) and thus more likely to attract riders away from their automobiles.

4) One group of proponents, like "Auto-Free New York" which a group that is promoting the idea of a light rail line along 42nd St., has also touted the fact that light rail interferes with auto traffic, so is a natural "traffic calming" device.

5) As a somewhat minor variation on the "economic signalling" function that Chip Morningstar mentions, I have heard people praise trolleys and trolley buses on NYC nostalgia websites because in the outlying areas of a big city (e.g., Brooklyn, Queens, etc.), trolley wires (which are ugly though) and trolley rails (not unattractive) constituted built-in "signage" that very clearly announced to those unfamiliar with the area that a particular street had a trolley or trolley/bus service. (Plus you could tell by the sound eminating [sp?] from the wires when a trolley was about to arrive.)

SOME ADDITIONAL CONS:

1) The blighting effect of ugly trolley wires.

2) Unless on a dedicated right of way, the inflexibility of a trolley line interferes with auto traffic. Buses, and even trolley buses, in contrast, can negotiate auto traffic. (This is apparently, one of the originally reasons that trolley systems were abandoned, or switched to trolley buses, to begin with).

3) Unless on a separate, dedicated right of way, trolleys are difficult to get on and off of -- passengers have to cross the street to get to the trolley -- which is another of the original reaons that trolley systems were abandoned.

4) Although I haven't seen this discussed, it's something I wonder about: in northern climates, do trolley tracks interfere with snow plows, etc.? (In the old days, strets were were probably cleared by men with shovels rather than snow plows.)

5) Buses and commuter/airport vans, most particularly those owned by small companies, are more likely to be better managed than a large rail, monorail or trolley system -- especially since these generally are monopolies. (In other words, with buses and commuter vans there's likely to be a smaller bureaucracy and thus a higher likelihood of the newest and best in terms of equipment, routing and service.)

I think the Monorail Society website (easily found with the Yahoo search engine) that I mentioned in the original 2 Blowhards post on this topic, tries to address some of the issues that Chip raises, at least as they apply to monorails vs. trolleys and buses. (At least, the captions to the photos of various monorail systems around the world -- photo tours put together by various society members from trips they made to visit these systems -- contain brief comments along these lines.)

- - - - - -

Of course new developments and technologies may eventually change the very nature of the existing "pro" and "con" arguments.

In a way, monorails themselves are such a development as they have eliminated or greatly reduced some of the negatives of earlier forms of "elevated" rail -- e.g., the noise and ugliness of "els." Dedicated busways, making buses more like rail, are a similar development. The development of articulated buses is also somewhat along these lines (making buses more train like.) And perhaps new forms of roadways (with buses, or trains of buses, guided by hidden signals coming from the roadway) will eventually further blur some of the current distinctions between bus and rail.

Another interesting development that might be considered to be something along these lines is those tubular bustops in Curitiba (sp?) Brazil. These clear plastic "tubes" have, apparently, inclined floors that ramp up people (including those in wheelchairs?) from the street to the floor level of the bus -- allowing for easier entry and quicker stops. I think these bustops also have a fare collection device (and a gate to keep out those who haven't paid their fare) that further speeds up bus travel time.

[Clarence Yung]

Morningstar: Your sketch of the argument on rail as an economic signal for real estate investors is correct. Additionally, rail is a signal for real estate consumers.

As you note, buses are flexible -- routes can be rerouted, headways can become tighter/wider based on demand, etc. In that sense, flexibility is extremely beneficial. However, flexibility can also be a negative. It's hard for transit-dependent (by choice or by economic situation) consumers to make housing decisions based on a flexible transit system. (If a transit-dependent person moves to a neighborhood that has its bus route taken away, or cut back, the time and convenience cost is significant.) As you also state, it's hard for investors to plan developments based around flexible transit systems.

Rail, as an inherently non-flexible system (tearing up tracks takes a lot of political will), allows transit-dependent consumers to make housing choices with more confidence. It also allows investors to make decisions about long-term capital investment with confidence.

A number of cities are pursuing planning agendas that encourage non-economic-based transit dependency (choice-based transit depenendecy), otherwise known as "transit oriented development." They need to attract investors and (choice-based) transit dependent consumers to this planning agenda. As a non-flexible system, rail seems to be the only transit choice that would attract both.

Dedicated busways are new (in this country -- yes, Brazil has them). Two things need to be studied on the new busway routes. First, we need to analyze the costs of busways (capital costs and operating costs) to see if they are cheaper than light rail systems. I assume that they are much cheaper, but due diligence is needed before major investment in such systems can proceed. Second, we need to see if they work as well as rail does as economic signals to investors and consumers.

There's a lot of hyperbole coming from rail enthusiasts regarding light rail. (I loathe hearing that any sort of transit system will stop sprawl, cure obesity, make people love again, bring people world peace, etc.) I'm glad to see that there are other individuals who are skeptical of such claims, and have the time and energy to understand a broad range of issues regarding transit.

[Benjamin Hemric]

Rereading my post, I see that I should have mentioned that "SOME ADDITIONAL PROS" meant "pros" in favor of rail-based transit and that "SOME ADDTIONALS CONS" meant "cons" against rail-based transit.

Here are some additional pro/con arguments that come to mind:

SOME ADDITIONAL PROs (in favor of rail-ed transit)

1) Rail-ed road have reduced drag (and therefore perhaps use less energy?).

Perhaps the original feature of rail-ed road transportation that made it such a wonderful innovation in the first place was the fact that metal wheels on metal rails produces very little drag. (I'm not sure if this is, technically speaking, the correct way to say this.) Thus, for instance, a single horse was able to pull many more people in a street car traveling on rails than in an omnibus wagon on a paved road.

However, perhaps this reduced energy comsumption might be eaten up these days by the need to illuminate stations, maintain signals, etc. twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week etc.? (I suspect this reduced energy consumption, though, is still a factor in terms of shipping freight by rail vs. trucks -- especially for certain kinds of heavy cargo.)

(And I suppose rubber wheeled rail transit [e.g., rubber-wheeled subways and monorails] does not have this same advantage.)

2) For those systems having their own right of way, rail-ed ways (including monorails) provides a region with a welcome redundancy of travel options / routes. (And this is in addition to providing for increased speed and increased overall capacity.) Thus if a highway or major street is blocked, people can use the railed system instead of highways, etc. (And, of course, vice versa.) In New York City, for instance, people can take subways and commuter trains during snowstorms or big events. (And, as mentioned, it works the other way around too. During the blackout -- when most railed service was knocked out -- autos and buses on streets and bridges were useful while most (all?) railed travel, above or below ground, was not.)

Although busways can have separate right of ways, from the little I've read about them, these seem to be mostly short stretches here and there (essentially bypasses) and not entire separate systems.

3) In any case, rail-ed travel seems to be more suitable for extensive dedicated rights of way above or below street level. For instance, from the limited reading I've done on busways, it doesn't seem that any busway systems involve an extensive underground right of way similar to that of a subway system.

SOME ADDITIONAL CONS (against rail-ed travel)

1) Rail travel seems more vulnerable to labor problems and strikes (and high labor costs?), since bus transit (e.g., private bus lines, commuter and airport vans) lends itself more to small companies and individual entrepreneurs.

2) Rail-ed transit seem more vulnerable to disruption from terrorism than bus transit (e.g., buses have a greater choice of alternate routes).

[Roger]

One thing to keep in mind, also, is that rail is hugely efficient from a fuel-use perspective for moving freight, but that it's actually less fuel efficient than busses for passengers. This assumes traditional locomotives, rail cars, etc.

I'm a railfan from the time I was a wee lad, but I just don't think the infrastructure costs make any sense.

The only real solution to transportation problems is to reduce or eliminate the need to move people vast distances. In our not too distant past, travelling the distance people do today to work and for errands was unheard of. If you want to live in a suburb 30 miles from your job, it SHOULD be difficult to get there.

Likewise, if your job consists of sitting in cubicle and hitting keys all day long, is there any reason you can't do that from home? Perhaps what needs a re-think is how we're employed and how we go about doing our jobs, what our homes are like and how we live there. Perhaps working from home in a traditional structure is difficult--a spare bedroom isn't always the best place to work--but if you design and build spaces with work as well as living in mind, many objections could be overcome.

Another solution might be "decentralized offices." Perhaps rather than one huge central location, a company could rent space in a variety of smaller offices around town, and assign employees to them based on where they live. The Microsoft campus, with its tens of buildings, many of which are never entered by people in the building next door, is a perfect example. 30 buildings scattered around the greater Seattle area would reduce congestion and increase employee productivity immensely. You could even run a shuttle service if you really need to get people from one location to another for the occasional meeting.