The Monorail Alternative

AlanIde · Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 12:33 pm

After looking at the huge price tag of Sir Rod’s rail subway ($400 Million plus / km) I had another look at monorails as an alternative. Using the Monorail Society (www.monorails.org) cost data as a starting point I estimate that a high-capacity Hitachi commuter monorail system could be rolled out for $50 Million / km.

Based on that I put in my “Monorail Alternative” submission to the Eddington enquiry which is at www.NewAustralia.net. I would be interested to see what the Railpage Australia™ community thinks of it.

In summary my proposal is:
(1) A Highpoint-Ashburton Monorail for $1.4 Billion (via Footscray, SXS, Domain, Caulfield, Chadstone & Holmesglen )
(2) A Dockland – Doncaster Monorail for $1.2 Billion (via Lonsdale St, Albert Rd, Hoddle St, Eastern Freeway & Doncaster Rd)
(3) A Southern Cross – Richmond Rail Subway for $0.8 Billion (2 km rail subway under FSS to alleviate CBD rail bottleneck)
(4) Use the remaining $13 Billion of Sir Rod’s package for other stuff. E.g. 2 express tracks from Footscray to Sunshine, extensions to Rowville & Mornington, rail flyovers between SXS and NMS, Signalling improvements, etc.
(5) Increase rail line capacity by running services in bursts + use of above short rail subway.

Mind you it looks like Brumby decided on the tunnel years ago!

ZH836301 · Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:03 pm

Monorails suck - the ultimate in kitsch novelties, given their meagre capacity per outlay.

AlanIde · Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:40 pm

ZH836301, thank you for your detailed critique of my submission...!

Certainly it is not easy to overcome people’s pre-conceived bias against all monorails. Perhaps take a quick look at some of these working commuter monorails and tell me if the expressions “kitsch novelty” or “meagre capacity” spring to mind:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_monorail 1.5 billion passengers plus.
http://www.monorails.org/tMspages/Kitakyushu2.html 1,100 passengers per train.
http://www.monorails.org/tMspages/Okinawa4.html

I am not talking about the 48-seat Sydney monorail here.

And as for the outlay – the Okinawa monorail was built for $27 Million / km in 2003 compared to $400 Million plus / km for rail subway.

Riccardo · Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:47 pm

Do I count as Railpage Australia™ community? I am one of the stronger critics of the site.

That said, I have blogged on this very topic just recently.

railhobbies.blogspot.com

If you need to get in touch, drop a comment at the Transport Textbook or on my blog.

ZH836301 · Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 7:48 pm

AlanIde, if you're going to attempt to make comparisons, at least make them fair.

One of the most expensive metro projects ever, London's Jubilee Line, did not even reach the $400 million per Km mark.

(And the Okinawa Monorail has a far lower capacity than that.)

trolleybusracer · Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 8:27 pm

alstom_888m · Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 9:19 pm

AlanIde · Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 9:52 pm

Folks, the Eddington plan is to build a 17km rail subway for $7 Billion dollars. See: http://www.theage.com.au/national/city-rail-network-in-meltdown-20080618-2swn.html.

If I put this in my calculator I get $411 / km.

Why would he over-quote on this? There is rock and river-silt down there plus a whole bunch of infrastructure. This is why it will take to 2016 – if it all goes to plan.

Re the Jubilee Line extension it cost 3.5 Billion Pounds for 16km of which 12.4 km is in tunnel and 3.5 km on the surface. Rail subways are expensive! Its true they have a higher capacity than even the big Japanese monorails I am talking about – but you can build many times more km of monorail than you can rail subway for the same $funding.

I am not pushing monorails because I like them - I just want cost-effective public transport in Melbourne.

Somebody in the WWW · Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 10:28 pm

In that case, might as well explain what the point of some of your "proposals", such as the first and third ones in particular, is.

"The trains at Pennant Hills run roughly every half hour. Nobody in their right mind uses a service that shoddy. That so many do just proves how many dumb and/or desperate people there are in Sydney." - MrPC

Transport Textbook - My photos at RailPictures.Net

bramt · Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 11:43 pm

Yup, Siemens/Thyssen put in a submission (as Transrapid) to Eddington for a 100km Maglev monorail, at $34million/km double track. That's less than half the $87m/km for the 4km South Morang extension, and because it is elevated, they won't need to worry about spending $10 million on the detailed design of their gold plated level crossings.

There's a freaking lot you can do for $7 billion other than build a $17km tunnel of steel rails on concrete sleepers.

Probe to Mars: $350m
Water pipeline from Tasmania to Vic: $350m
South Morang 4km extension: $348m
Myki: $1.3bn and rising

mjja · Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 11:47 pm

I'll say the same as I did on Riccardo's blog. Monorails are often sought because they are shiny and new and seem to work well compared to the rattling old suburban trains which haven't seen proper investment for the last 70 years. The question is, will the monorails be better or worse after 70 years of under-investment?

The same question needs to be raised whenever we cast envious looks at, for instance, Queensland's narrow gauge suburban network (does 3'6" mean better investment?), the New York subway (does underground mean better investment?), the European light rail systems (does 300mm platform height mean better investment?), etc. It's the attitude of the people who pay for the system, rather than the technicalities of the mode of transport, which decide whether it's a good system or just an OK one.

That said, each mode has its own strengths and weaknesses, and it is quite possible that some parts of our transport system are doing the wrong job. For instance, transport from the city to Vermont South should not be done with a tram. Trams as we know them belong on short routes where their low top speed isn't a problem. Vermont South should be run with a true light rail system, with stop spacing and vehicle speed more like a metro railway.

Monorails have their niche too - read all about it on Riccardo's blog as he posted above.

Happy Gunzelling and remember, "Go by rail!"

Michael Angelico
President, Smart Passengers Inc
(My opinions are my own unless specifically stated.)

BMTA511 · Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 2:15 am

What about using modern elevated Metro rail instead of complex monorails. The final costs would be similar to that of a monorail. Ie similar to the BTS. Most of Melbourne's roads are wide enough to fit the elevated track and station in without the need to remove any buildings.

For the supports for the track you only need a 2.5 meter wide centre strip of land in the middle of the road for them plus a 1.5 meter wide area at the side to place the access steps and escalators. and about 2 more meters for the footpath. Most of the work can be carried out in a narrow strip in the middle of the road with the traffic still running.

So for a 4 lane road you would need a space for a station of just 12 meters if you use an Island platform if you lay it out in a compact way. ie 6 meter wide island platform with 3 meters each side for the railway tracks and a ticketing hall below the island platform.

Mono rails are really only useful for hard to reach places ie too steep for normal rail or very built up areas with no room for normal rail.

Or as high capacity feeder system to a metro rail system i.e. housing estate monorail linking up to a metro station 5 km away. All though these can also use single car automatic trains on normal tracks.

BMTA 511: Thai Mass Transport Systems http://thaitransit.blogspot.com/ Check it out now.

GeoffreyHansen · Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 2:28 am

ZH836301 · Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 11:43 am

AlanIde · Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 12:28 pm

Re elevated rail I understand it was considered for the North Melbourne – Footscray part of the Eddington rail plan. Not sure why they chose a tunnel instead, you would think elevated rail would be way cheaper.

In the North Melbourne – Domain – Windsor – Caulfield section I think you would have a lot of trouble selling something as chunky as this: [url] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Comeng_new_viaduct.jpg [/url]. The only credible road easement for an elevated system is Kings Way – Queens Way – Dandenong Road. I was going to thread the monorail under the SXS roofline – you can’t do that with elevated rail! The other problem is that the elevated rail uses steel wheels on steel rails which is loud. The Hitachi ALWEG monorails are rubber tyres on concrete so pretty much silent.

Have a look at this instead: [url] http://www.monorails.org/tMspages/TokyoTrees.html [/url]. Imagine this running above the trees down the centre of Dandenong Road. These ALWEG monorails have the smallest footprint of any above-ground transit system. Note that this is not some tourist ride – it carries 127,000 passengers per day at up to 80km/h over 18km and has been operating since 1964. A monorail would be operationally independent of the existing rail & tram networks, which can be an advantage as well.

I am not campaigning to REPLACE heavy rail with monorails. It’s just that adding extra rail capacity under the city is damn expensive. Look at page 3 of my proposal [url] www.newaustralia.net/East-West-Monorail.pdf [/url]. The $Billions saved building monorails instead of subways can be spent fixing up and extending the heavy rail system, the tram network, busses, whatever. The $7 Billion options are (a) rail subway + nothing till after 2016 or (b) monorails + every other public transport improvement you ever wanted.

(BTW the oldest operating monorail opened in 1901 – so they are hardly “shiny and new” technology.)