Why The Monorail Keeps Failing - Cheddar Explains
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 ส.ค. 2020
- The monorail was a staple of the futuristic depiction of modern transit. But it never truly got off the ground. Today, most can be found in Asian megacities like Chongqing, Shanghai, Tokyo and Mumbai or at airports and Disneyworld.
(1) Rail System - www.railsystem.net/monorail/
(2) City Metric - www.citymetric.com/transport/...
(3) Train History - www.trainhistory.net/railway-h...
(4) Monorails.org - www.monorails.org/index.html
(5) Popular Science - books.google.com/books?id=xSg...
(6) Disney History Institute - www.disneyhistoryinstitute.com...
(7) Popular Mechanics - books.google.com/books?id=tts...
(8) The Orange County Register - www.ocregister.com/2019/06/11...
(9) Walt Disney World - www.wdwmagic.com/transportati...
(10) Tokyo Monorail - www.tokyo-monorail.co.jp/compa...
(11) CRI Online - web.archive.org/web/201412050...
(12) The Print - theprint.in/india/governance/...
(13) Vice - www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3...
(14) Free Malaysia Today - www.freemalaysiatoday.com/cat...
(15) GGWash - ggwash.org/view/67201/why-cit...
(16) Las Vegas Monorail - www.lvmonorail.com/operations/
(17) LVCVA - www.lvcva.com/research/visito...
(18) Reuters - www.reuters.com/article/us-la...
(19) Vox - www.vox.com/2015/8/10/9118199...
(20) Medium - / why-are-there-no-monor...
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The “expert” says monorails remove the passengers from a city’s street life - like subways don’t?
By this logic, only walking remains.
“Expert” kinda dumb tbj
But he THINKS he SOUNDS smart with “analysis” like that.
Too many wrong with this video
Electric scooters are the solution
Street level LRT (light rail transit) also remains and is working well in some cities.
So, then, "mono" means "one." And "rail" means "rail." And that concludes our intensive three-week course.
Which one of us gets to be conductor?
There is a 2nd one for the reverse trip, sort of mono-a-mono?
I call the big one "bitey".
But it doesn’t ride on a rail, it rides on a beam (at least the non-suspended ones don’t.)
30framespersecond this guy (points at Homer Simpson)
The argument that the monorail is “disruptive” because it “puts people high above away from where the action is” makes no sense. Monorail or train, you have to get on and off, which means you’d be “away” from everyone else either way until you got off. A trolley running down the middle of the road and cars and pedestrians having to stop for it is “disruptive.” What utter BS.
Exactly. If it is disruptive, it doesn't matter whether you have one rail or two; and it's hard to see how being isolated in a metal pod called a train is any worse than being isolated in a metal pod called a car.
A trolley running down the middle of the road is less disruptive, because it makes more room for additional cars...because the 50 people on the trolley would otherwise be driving 50 cars in the same space instead of one trolley car.
Right, you can put elevated rail line with traditional rail too. Monorail is just unstable and cannot change tracks, so they have to go slower and end up not very useful.
@@maggiejetson7904 They actually can, though it's not easy
It's not even an argument, it's a dumb excuse. I live in a city with elevated rail. It's awesome, both for the train rider and for car traffic. It's the total opposite of disruptive. Better views of the city, it can move at higher speeds, and it doesn't block traffic.
Well the US can't even build high speed trains so I'd say let's judge monorails by how they're doing in other countries.
They don't do well in other countries either. And if you haven't noticed trains of any kinds do not work well in countries that were laid out after the invention of the wheel.
@@kdrapertrucker Tell that to Europe, tell that to China, and especially tell that to Japan - they don't seem to know, that their train systems aren't supposed to work...
@@kdrapertrucker So you think the US is the only place in the world? Go travel, or you know, get educated, since my nation doesn’t include anything outside of North America
@@tacticalfall4505 That's the typical America-centric mentality.
Monorails don't do well anywhere. They basically have no real advantage over ordinary two-rail systems, and a big pile of disadvantages. The difficulty of switching tracks really is a huge problem: it essentially limits your "network" to a single loop or straight line, which is fine for an airport but little use for a city that's big enough to have hundreds of millions of currency units to invest in a public transport project.
Well São Paulo's monorail works pretty fine, exactly as it should as a massive transportation line integrated with the metro and train system.
Which makes me think that monorails keep failing when they are not conceived as a part of a public transportation network, but as a cute alternative just because it's a monorail.
Yep . I guess the integration with the central lines is very difficult because the design of the tracks are different
The Seattle and Las Vegas ones are a good example.
The entry cost is too high. Here in Moscow, the only monorail line is being dismantled after 15 years of service. It was designed to show off the technology, but in fact it is too slow, breaks too often and too expensive to fix. As a consequence it has nothing to boast over subway except for the view. Maybe it could succeed eventually if Moscow did not have an already developed subway system, but it would cost billions.
That is what happened to Mumbai monorail. Mumbai monorail can't match with Mumbai local trains and is not connected with other systems and on other hand it doesn't go anywhere.
except when it is broken and it takes more than a month to fix it, right? I do wish very hard that monorail works, but I wouldn't call São Paulo's case a success yet.
You kept mentioning Disney World while showing 1960's footage of Disneyland's monorail. In Disney World, the monorail is not a ride, it is purely for transportation.
That bothered me too... but other points stand: Disney hasn't expanded the WDW monorail since they built the long spur out to Epcot, and the reason is expense--since then, they've relied on buses and boats for expanded internal transit, and, very recently, cable gondolas.
+1 for pendantry!
It also bothers me when she says "Disney World" rather than "Walt Disney World," the full name.
@@ceustis2004 weird flex but ok
It isn't purely for transportation. It is an exhibition and thus IS a ride. Yes it also functions as transportation but it wasn't intended to be effective transportation. It was built from the getgo to be like a ride.
Malaysian here. In Malaysia we have 2-3 Monorail type in city centre. The one been shown was in melaka (not city centre) which build more for tourism factor
Make it 4 monorail types.
@@emperorfaiz There is only one monorail in KL. The others are light rail (duo rail) more akin to elevated trams/streetcars which have a higher service speed.
@@harri2626 The duo rail is Medium Capacity Rapid Transit, which is a lower capacity Subway System, but known as Light Rail Transit to distinguish from Mass Rapid Transit.
@@harri2626 Thanks for the info.
Waiting for the revival of putrajaya monorail
I live near Wuppertal in Germany, and the monorail there is invaluable.
Wuppertal had trams too… the monorail runs along the river Wupper, but there’s more city than just along the river…
@@peterudbjorg hardly. Wuppertal was built along the river, which is the reason why it’s so successful. The Wuppertal monorail is invaluable to the city, because of the special circumstances it is in.
@@CosmicSmoocher exactly, the urban structure make the wuppertal monorail very useful, because it's just one long line, without the needs for a switch.
@@bjornschmidt480 Why would a swich be a problem. They have tons of monroailssytem in Japan with 100 of swiches, there never been a problem
the only difference to normal "subway" or "metro" is that it uses a different track design. Otherwise it is the same. So what is the strange obsession with monorails in particular. And the dude arguing that you take the people from the streets away as a bad thing doesn't understand the purpose of public transport at all.
yeah i found this video horrendous because of what u mentioned. it's really such a stupid argument from that "Assistant Professor at Urban Design".
I would say that the main difference is that it's a continuous bridge rather than a continuous tunnel. The track design just allows it to be a much smaller bridge than a normal rail.
If you're going overhead, the monorail blocks much less light than traditional tracked elevated trains. It's really less obtrusive. While underground trains are the least obtrusive they are very expensive to build.
Monorails are much quieter to run than any subway system, and the building of them less disruptive than digging under a city in any of the methods currently used. They also take up less space and have a smaller footprint than traditional rail. Also they're much safer, as they cannot derail.
prede89 You obviously haven’t heard a monorail running past your office. Underground heavy rail and street level tramways in place of buses linking stations works really well.
They are basically unpopular because they are built wrong. Wrong routes, wrong city and probably difficult to access stations. If they were built as you would do with elevated train tracks they'd have no difference with two tracked trains
If more countries actively invested in light rail/underground/tram systems to work alongside road and rail networks, there’d be more desire to use monorail systems down the line. For example, look at how London has integrated an underground system along with cycle lanes, bus services, river boat services, national rail services and actively encouraged people to use public transport over cars and it’s a success generally (yes, they needed a major bailout from the UK government this year but that’s due to COVID destroying passenger numbers).
Yep. Monorails are picked not because they're a better engineering choice - but because the designer thinks they'll be _SPECIAL!_ If Monorails were to be chosen as "just another choice over a dual-rail train" replacing what would have otherwise been a normal train (elevated, grade, or subway) without trying to make it "an experience to draw people!" but just another transportation option, then we might actually see more of them.
But we're in the same boat as described in the video - monorails are expensive because so few people ride them, so few people ride them because they're expensive. Because there are so few monorails there isn't infrastructure to build/maintain them cheaply, because there's no infrastructure to build/maintain them cheaply, there are few of them.
Untergrundmaschine the new trains are the issues. The old trains worked perfectly fine. They are also usually cheaper
The switchtrack issue is a substantial technical hurdle, probably the main thing that differentiates a monorail from traditional rail. It makes it harder to build complex systems that share tracks in places, but then diverge.
@@The2wanderers Tokyo has completely compensated for that. I think it comes down to logistics. They could easily make this with demand but since the demand isn't there the cost isn't worth it. Also high speed rail is now dominating the market where it would have been most effective. The way to make it effective would be to install it with affordable prices, offering higher speeds and more accessible then bus or trolly, and be in it for the long haul profit as something like that is literally going to take years to build a base. They would have to swallow the costs and work toward a long-term profit. Most companies wouldn't go for that.
The Seattle Monorail was built in 1962 for their futuristic themed World’s Fair for $3.5 million. It paid for itself with 8 million riders in six months of the Fair, then was sold to the city for $600,000. It gets 2 million riders per year now, taking tourists the short distance from downtown to The Seattle Center where you find the remnants of the Fair: the Space Needle, which just got a major upgrade with glass floors, and other attractions. Seattle tried to build a much larger system about ten years ago, but ultimately, it was subjected to something laughingly called “The Seattle Process” where everyone endlessly debates the issue to death.
The Seattle transit department actually found a clever way to get around the Seattle process. They were approved to connect the SeaTac airport to the city, and then just kept expanding that system until it's current rather robust route that will connect Tacoma to Everrett in a few years.
@@theotherjared9824 I grew up around Seattle, this started when I was around twelve or thirteen. I’m almost thirty and it’s still not gone anywhere. Id like it to work, but one of the things no one talks about is how often you shut down traffic to build the rail. Idk much about it, but the rail just never seems to gain ground, but maybe it’s just because I grew up around it and never saw it do much.
It’s amazing how it paid itself off so fast, passenger rail rarely turns a profit but this system was paid off rapidly. It still gets enough riders to pay for a copy of itself in 4 years, with the tiny route it’s currently got. If it weren’t for the Seattle process (the same process tragically ruins every construction process in my home country) they definitely could’ve expanded the route and turned a profit in the process. All of its revenue should’ve been fed right into expansion.
The Link Light Rail in Seattle has been a big success and one of the fastest growing systems in the Americas. But imagine if they had built the system wide Monorail that had been agreed upon with voters. It would have made it to every point in Puget Sound.
And who knows, the current Link system doesn’t cover the entire region. Maybe the State of Washington could have another look at Monorail for a circle line in Seattle.
@@DDELE7 The light rail is fantastic. I used it all the time, when I lived downtown. I sold my car because I rarely used it.
8:08 “Now you've taken the inhabitants of a city and put them above where the activity is.”
Really no different from taking the inhabitants of a city and putting them in a tunnel beneath it. And they've got a better view, fresher air, and sunlight.
I love how Cheddar keeps coming up with these subjects I didn't even know I was so interested about
Social distancing has made many things interesting until I think about what the hell I just watched. Not this one, of course.
True videos like this are weirdly interesting
I still think Vox does it better
Exactly
I like eggs
It comes down to the same thing a lot of US problems do: zoning and a nation designed around cars.
That doesn't explain why Monorail is a very rare sight also in countries where cities are built around large and efficient PT systems.
Sag Ichnicht most of the worlds cities were already built before the car came along. Those cities might have adapted for the car, but their cities weren’t designed for it.
In America, a lot of our cities were developed with the car in mind. We have minimum parking spaces that make cities more spread out. It’s better that way for people with cars but worse for people without. We also have zoning laws that cause a lot more spread and prevent businesses and residential areas from mixing, making it more necessary to have a car.
Public transport is pretty weak because we’ve designed a nation where cars are necessary and public transport tend to be underused because so many people already have cars and our sprawling cities don’t allow many people to live within walking distance of public transportation.
Although even with better PT, I guess we might not necessarily have monorails, but monorails would be much tougher to implement in a nation that isn’t conducive to PT in the first place.
Cars are only about 100 years old, American cities were built around other means of transit (horse cars, cable cars, electric streetcars, the omnibus), and long distance travel was built around the railroads.
Joe R M Before cars, we built for what we had, but our nation’s population grew a ton within the last 100 years and we became more urbanized, and we moved west, so that’s when a lot of our cities developed.
We might have still ended up with good PT systems, but our government enacted zoning laws, parking minimums, freeway projects and designed cities around cars.
Older cities like New York have better public transport because they were developed before the care and resemble European cities. Newer cities like Los Angeles were designed for cars.
@@joermnyc That answer is as popular as it is falling seriously short. A large number of US cities was solidly established by the 1930s even if somewhat smaller. Most of them had large and efficient mass transit systems, just like any major cities in Europe. You'd be surprised around what large parts of Los Angeles were built around for example. I'll give you a hint, I am not talking about highways.
So the starting point for both was not all that different. The US is in the sorry state it is today not because of long gone history but the deliberate decision of destroying mass transit in most places, actively, not passively. in the second half of the 20th century.
Monorail is an excellent adjunct to other transportation.
They also can be useful when crossing environments that are sensitive to heavy construction.
Monorail must be updated/augmented/improved to meet the needs prescribed in this video.
They shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand for bad planning by past situations that used them incorrectly.
4:36 Damn, those 20 passengers were stranded for 7 whole years
are you sure? I didn't hear that news
She said they were stranded in 2010 and finally released 2017
Did she really say that monorail “never really got of the ground”. There’s a pun in there somewhere, there has to be.
GET IT!?!!!?
Cheddar im disappointed
Yes, the pun was somewhat cheesy...
nekomatafuyu no not a another pun
But the Shanghai Monorail is a maglev... So it does got off the ground then...regardless the intended pun
Yep, in conclusion: they fail Because of locations, they're built where they're not needed, but the successful ones are the ones on high density cities in Asia, the engineering concept of the monorail is still solid
I think it could work in Chicago, as the rail of a monorail is much thinner than an entire track. It would also be quieter and less obstructive.
There are plenty of overhead conventional rail systems. A monorail is less energy-efficient than steel wheels on steel rails, plus each monorail builder has it's own design which only run on their own track design. You can run any number of train designs on a typical railway. Plus there's the pain of switching tracks with a monorail as mentioned. Altogether, you could say monorails are really just a gimmick.
Still traditional rail on elevated paths are still faster and more stable, and easier to maintain as you can change tracks.
"Why trains to nowhere fail"
It failed in mumbai either one of most densely populated city in the world
There are two monorails (Lines 13 and 15) here in São Paulo(Brasil) and one in construction (Line 17), one links to the Guarulhos airport and ontem to other parts from East Zone, and as known, there are one of the most useful transport resources from the place. The line 15, during the middle of the weeks are mostly full and in 2020 lauched that there're, close to 21.000 people per hour loading the train.
Looking at this, the concept of useless of the monorails achieve more in North America, seeing datas from the video.
edit: The price of the subtrain/train's pass are cheap, with it you can go around among every places in Grande São Paulo.
But a conventional Subway on this lines would made much more sense in Sao Paulo, especially in regard to Guarulhos.
How much maintenance does these monorails require , how reliable are they.
observation: the line 13 is a conventional rail operated by cptm
@@bjornschmidt480 Guarulhos will be cptm or subway but on Line 15 the monorail would be better than the subway for a few motives, land value and subterranean rivers at the avenue.
@@gaiofattos2 Precisely. Subterranean work in São Paulo is an engineering nightmare, because the city's geographic characteristics.
I lived in Chongqing, and the city uses both normal trains and monorail. They both operate above ground and below, and new routes are being added as we speak. I honestly never noticed a difference other than monorail is quieter.
Malaysia: provides a successful monorail transit line in Kuala Lumpur
Cheddar: *let's show viewers the Melaka monorail that's intended as a tourist attraction instead.*
Burn! 🔥
I always use the monorail in KL. It connects to everything takes you to the city centre is cheap and is really efficient.
KL monorail also kinda sucks though
@@weldon29 how?
@@weldon29 I've been using monorail for years and you're wrong. It ain't perfect but it nails the overall performance and efficiency.
As a proud citizen of North Haverbrook, I fully support the monorail.
I'm from Ogdenville and I concur as well!
We’re twice as smart as the people of Shelbyville
Haverbrook ???
Where??
@@HimanshuSharma-vs3zh it's on the map
That's odd because the proprietor of the Monorail Cafe in North Haverbrook told a tourist to "Go away! There ain't no Monorail, and there never was!"
Love monorails, especially the suspended one in Wuppertal where it’s still serving a great purpose and is the main transportation for the city😀
Yepp, and it saves a lot of space by being built over the river in the narrow valley, instead over most of the crowded streets.
Ah yes, the famous Wuppertal monorail in Cologne, which is totally not in Wuppertal which is 40km away from Cologne.
Am I reading the WP entry for it incorrectly then?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuppertal_Schwebebahn#:~:text=The%20Wuppertaler%20Schwebebahn%20(Wuppertal%20Suspension,Langen%20Monorail%20Overhead%20Conveyor%20System).
@@jameswyatt1304 No, but I was being sarcastic, as it is in fact in Wuppertal and not Cologne
@@PapaMike23 LOL - I was wondering if it was a troll to see how many folks would "like" w/o checking. Between a good TH-cam maker there and my strong desire to visit Germany again someday, both cities have my interest when mentioned. Thank you for the courtesy of the reply, btw.
The vegas monorail is flawed in where it goes and what it connects to. It starts at the mgm grand and goes down to the sahara hotel. It doesn't connect to the airport, freemont street, and alot of the main hotels. If I could take the monorail from the strip to the airport I totally would, but that's not an option in vegas. Plus the monorail doesn't connect to the 3 most southern hotels, (Mandalay bay, Luxor, Excalibur) despite these three having their own monorail. Also the airport is only like a 2 miles from Mandalay bay. If the monorail went from the air port to Mandalay bay, from Mandalay bay to it's current end point, and from there to freemont street. I would get used way more.
The LV Monorail is a great way to get around the strip. It was originally going to go to the Airport and downtown. But, as usual, they built the part in the middle and "chickened out" on the two ends that would have made it profitable. So...
@@michaelsullivan3581 "Chickened out" = the taxi and limo businesses protested.
The Mandalay Bay to Excalibur line is a people mover (Cable liner) not a monorail. Politics gets in the way for any expansion plans.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_Liner?wprov=sfti1
Replies confirmed what I was going to say - it was probably taxi and limo companies that torpedoed it going to the airport.
This is the problem when people think the economy exists to provide jobs, rather than provide people with goods and services. You get politicians "providing jobs" rather than goods and services that people actually want.
Free market requires competition, this is just corporate welfare
This video keeps focusing on America, especially why public transportation in general is not popular over there. And the parts where the video does address monorails specifically are not convincing. Like that guy talking about monorails being elevated and that takes people away from the streets, the life blood of the economy and so on. That's bullshit. Elevated rail works great in Asia, especially Japan, HK, SG, Kuala Lumpur and Bagkok, and these are places especially known for vibrant street stores, street food and roads bustling with pedestrians.
I wish this video explained why monorails did not work in the US but did in Asia by comparing what Asia did right that US isn't doing. Because really, in the end this issue of monorails not working is a US problem.
Interested maintenance costs. Not every system has that kind of money.
Cheddar tends to have a very east coast, U.S. view of...well...EVERYTHING. Even in the west and midwest, they constantly miss the mark on how "the rest of us" live or are trying to progress. It's embarassing.
yeah well the lady who made it LIVES in the US... I'm not going to go on a french guys youtube page and say "Well why didn't you focus your videos on Australia hmm...? are you saying Australia does not exist?!
@@angrynoodletwentyfive6463 actually a US-centric video is fine too. I love watching videos on city planning and transport around the world. But what pains me in this video is its presentation of monorail as an ineffective theme park attraction. It could have still been US-centric if it rather answered the question of why monorail doesn't work in the US rather than present monorail as ineffective period.
Thats somewhat usual on the English speaking part of net. They tend to exist like it all would be existing only in the US, and as such, they mostly focusing on US ideology/subjects. Sometimes it feels really annoyin and hard to escape from the USA in this regard. (Like on twitter. Im reading way more US political news/tweets (practically to the point id wanna vote against Trump in November), compared to the Dutch or even to the Hungarian news, and im a Hungarian Living in the Netherlands, so they would be more relevant. (And at the same time, those countries are usually speaking in Hungarian or in Dutch, respectively, so there is less presence of them in english news...))
So nice to see the Sydney Monorail which I rode on many times included here! It ran for 25 fun years though never managed to silence its critics and was eventually removed in favour of easily extendable light rail.
Sydney Monorail is almost always featured in monorail educational videos. It's one of the most iconic if useless systems in the world.
I used to live in Pyrmont and I used it all the time.
@@dosaussiethai2127 ''one of the most iconic if useless systems in the world" haha! True phrase, I guess. Nevertheless, I liked what Premier Bob Carr said to the advocates of pulling down its track ahead of the Olympics in 2000: that "we are not about to remove a major piece of public transport infrastructure ahead of the biggest peacetime operation this city's ever seen." And it sure was busy then, at what you might argue was Peak Sydney.
I only used it to show visiting friends around but that amounted to scores of times across the years. I'm glad to hear you truly used it as public transport living in Pyrmont.
Used to live in Kuala Lumpur almost all my life and the monorails were almost always packed especially with tourists since it takes you around the important landmarks of the city even though it ran through only 7 stations
It was the Alweg Monorail prototype near Cologne that Walt Disney saw which inspired the Disneyland Monorail and not the much older (1901) Wuppertal hanging monorail.
Agreed, There are many things she said that where wrong, they should fire the researchers and script writers on the story. Not to mention the editor doesn't know what a monorail really is as they kept showing things that were not monorails when they were talking about monorails. Come on Cheddar. get your act together
Vegas monorail was also very inconvenient. From the street, you had to walk through a maze-like casino to reach the monorail station, a feat that could take upwards of ten to twenty minutes.
That was my experience with it, too. No surprise considering casino companies like MGM and Bally's were behind its construction. The Vegas system is a private nonprofit that stands to benefit the casinos. The cheaper, public Deuce bus runs right on the strip and charges a similar fare.
Chris Colon we preferred the Deuce when we were there last, also.
Interesting
@@dbackscott I'd have liked it better if the monorail went to the airport, but the taxi companies had been obstructing that for years.
You're right it can be a super hassle to find out of the back of the casinos, and It's pretty much only useful for getting to the convention center!
I feel like the Monorail in Wuppertal Germany is a great example of a monorail done right. You can access it with your standard train tickets, which makes it a great and neat looking add on to public transportation
That's really only there because it fits the specific needs of the city though. That's why despite Germany having great public transport, the Wuppertal system is unique. In that part of Europe you do sometimes get unusual transport systems integrated into the normal network due to geographic needs. Funiculars and rack railways are most common, where gradients mean conventional railways wouldn't work (Stuttgart is a great example as it's got one of each as parts of its normal transport system).
I recall my home city Bangalore having a year-long Metro (elevated subway) vs Monorail debate. We finally settled for the metro for the higher capacity & proven success in other parts of the country. however, I feel monorail could have helped as Bangalore has narrow streets that are now overfull with wide metro pillars. The monorail is extremely space-efficient.
But I still feel that any space savings that could come with a monorail would be less valuable compared to the insane overprice of the monorail system. Cities have fixed budgets, and so would prefer to save costs.
That separation idea seems wrong. Subways are also disconnected from the city but are much more popular.
The key here is that they are much faster than any monorail in the US and are a high priority long distance municipal transportation system. Long distance modes can afford longer access ways. The Monorail as built in the US is a failure by design for the same reason why many underground tram networks were no lasting success stories either (I am not talking about tram lines with a few underground stations and the cramped centre but longer underground tram lines). They lack capacity and length to justify the not on ground stations.
@@sagichnicht6748 Most rail system is disconnected from walkers and several of their 'experts' were saying they were somehow more separated. They usually fail for the reasons you state and the track switching problem which IMHO seems the most damming.
@@kevinconrad6156 You are overgeneralising. Tram services, proper European ones, even more so than light rail style ones, have much more local scope and shorter station spacing. The more lolcal the scope and the smaller that spacing, the shorter the acceptable access way. That is why those trams ideally have stations on street level, with immediate access and shortest possible access ways. For the same reasons subways can afford a few 100 m access ways. It is still in proportion to the travelled route.
Monorail US style usually combines the local scope, short station distances with relatively long access ways, often including stairs or lift rides. That combination is a clear downside to the system. It is also the reason why tram networks can florish in the underground usually only in central downtown hub stations where a lot of lines converge and going on street level would bring severe challenges.
Another main issue why US systems failed is because their corridors are useless and on top of that, most systems are one way loops. It seems it hasn't dawned on many US city planers yet that those loops are almost always a guaranteed failure. For a usable network you need a proper two way line or at the worst, a two way line with single tracks separated by a single narrow block.
Subways generally go faster than a monorail.
@@stuarthirsch That's just a matter of design.If you stop every mile, acceleration is the key. For high acceleration friction is good, for high speed, it is bad.
So subways are faster on a one-miles-distance.
Should change the title into *"Why Monorails Fail in The US."*
To be fair for most cities metro is a much better option. It cost about as much but it doesn't disturb the traffic, it's easier to maintain, faster and generally more reliable. If you want to stay on street level trams are significantly cheaper and also can change tracks so if some part of the network gets damaged you can route them elsewhere instead of halting the whole system
No, monorails still fail pretty much everywhere. This video cites a *couple* of monorail lines that pass as real commuter transport but they're rare exceptions to the rule. All around the world, monorail lines are usually a tourist curiosity and very short and slow.
If you're building real public transit, you can build literally anything else with the same money and it will be faster and higher capacity than a monorail.
Nah, they pretty much fail in Europe, too. There are a couple of them in Germany, but they are slow. The one exception, and the one that is consistently brought up, is the Wuppertal Schwebebahn. But that one is a success purely because they had absolutely nowhere to build a mass transit system, except over the river. Wuppertal - which means Wupper (the river) Valley (Tal) - has a pretty unique geography, with a narrow valley with steep slopes, which was already pretty much built up at the turn of the 19th/20th century.
You should be used to this with Cheddar by now lmao, they keep talking about flops and scams and failures like these systems are inferior, when in actuality they just do not fit with the US way of life (aka the US doesnt want to adapt to new systems)
@@blanco7726 - Well, actually, the U.S. adapted to the newest system of all - the automobile. Who wants to sit in a train car filled with loud, rude, smelly, annoying people, some begging for money and acting like a nuisance, before having to walk blocks upon blocks to your destination after a ride when you can simply get into your comfortable car, sink into your nice leather seats, put on whatever music you like, and drive right up to the front door of your destination?
Title: why monorail Keeps on failing
Seattle monorail: am I a joke to you
Yes
Is not a joke, it's a whole circus fare
It goes between only two stops that aren't even that far apart.
Of all the things you dig into, the one that sticks out is the expense of branching. This would support purpose-built monorails such as airports and theme parks over commuter transit networks.
There's so many bad citations. There are monorails built as mass transit and there are monorails built as recreational. Melaka Monorail is an example of recreational use. But had been quoted here as failure in mass transit. There's not enough funding in the development of systems to make it more robust in comparison of other type such as subway metro cars.
That and putting the transrapid ie the Shanghai Maglev in the same category really misses the point too. It's a very different technology and in no way is targeting the metro market it's competitors are more high-speed rail and short-haul air ie routes that can benefit from it's 400-600 km/h speed range. It's ok for connecting a distant airport as that one does but the place it would really shine is intercity transport as it can do double the speed of high-speed rail and is only around 200 km/h slower than air travel which makes it able to beat the door to door travel times of air travel up to around 3000 km or so.
They could've been. But the engineers and city planners who built these "transit lines" focused more on being futuristic instead of being practical.
My thoughts exactly.
- Make it functional/practical for the most people.
- Make it convenient and cost effective for the riders to attract riders.
- Think about the riders 'final mile' at each end. Driving to a depot for costly parking, or having to walk miles in lousy weather after the nearest stop would keeps me off mass transit.
@@captbiptoe With a decent rail system, you wouldn't need to walk more than half a mile. That's just ten minutes of walking which really isn't a problem unless you're in an area that suffers from severe thunderstorms or blizzards. (And, hey, Chicago has plenty of blizzards but a very effective passenger rail system.)
@@beeble2003 I agree. But we're not even close where I live.
The thing is when you are being practical you just build metro lines or a tram, building one centuries of experience and existing infrastructure. Noone being practical is going to build a monorail.
Monorails are more of a "Shelbyville" idea.
I've ridden the SEAttle's Alweg monorail el(evated), and it's delightful to glide above the streets swiftly, but it's only just over a mile long, stopping at its inner & outer terminals only, so that wonderful experience is short-lived in that it doesn't go a sufficient distance to anywhere else where it could doubtlessly prove its utility. Its structure is indeed less imposing that a conventional (duo-rail) el, and it's no doubt cheaper to construct. Alweg trains (which is the design of most monorail trains) are rubber-tyred, so they're quiet, and where necessary, they can climb steeper grades than conventional trains. If routed past & through passenger traffic generators correctly, any type of train will work well, and monorail trains are no exception. Yes, monorail switches are more cumbersome, but I've seen the interlockings (arrangements of switches & signals) of the Las Vegas monorail system work, and they're not too slow, so that isn't really a valid argument against their practicality.
Having said that I believe that monorail trains can work well, I have but one MAJOR concern: the ability to evacuate passengers in an emergency whilst on elevated sections, which is what most monorailways are. (Do remember that monorail trains can be placed at grade level or in tunnels where emergency evacuation can be simplified.) SEA's monorail trains have NO on-board provision for emergency evacuation between its Seattle Centre & Westlake Mall stations in that there's no catwalk between the rails, and the trains don't have emergency evacuation chutes--which permit people to jump into them, but keeps their descent slow enough to prevent injury when they reach the ground. It must be noted that emergency chutes are likely only useable at pre-determined heights, and monorailways over gulleys and other variable & great heights and water will absolutely require emergency catwalks in the event evacuation of a train is necessary.
The neglect of emergency catwalks is also illustrated by the Chonquing (Chunking) monorailway; you can see videos of that gorgeously scenic railway (on TH-cam) on steep, forested hillsdes with no access or roads nearby--and NO CATWALK between the rails. An on-board emergency such as a fire brought about by an electrical fault or otherwise (and the resultant smoke) will result in catastrophic loss of life--all because there's no emergency catwalk on the elevated structure in case a train may be immobilized between stations. Fires--which may be caused by on-board electrical faults--can and do immobilize (and sometimes consume) trains. Passengers must have a means of evacuating any type of train.
Tractive power failures, while rare, can and do occur, and occasionally last for quite a long time. What to do when crowded trains are stranded between between stations in very hot (and even worse, humid) weather? You may rest assured that it won't be long before the interior of an el train (monorail or otherwise) will become akin to an oven within a short time in hot, sunny weather, and even on a mildly warm day, they can become stifling, esp. if they're crowded. They can also become gas chambers if & when they fill with smoke, so the ability to evacuate trains is absolutely essential to system safety--period.
So, aside from the above-stated concerns, I can't think of any other reason that a well-designed and routed monorailway can work as well as any other type of rapid transit railway.
finally someone smart on the subject. you have many good points as well, so thank you for being one of the seemingly few educated people in the world. Safety is indeed important for any system, although many of those systems, even without catwalks, especially suspended monorails (ones that hang below the guideway) do have emergency plans in place. its all about how good the transport authority co-operates with the local emergency services in those cases, although Fires are still definitely a concern, some of those lines also have the capability of Train to Train evacuation procedures, whether it's to the one behind or a train on the parallel track, in the even that a train breaks down. fires are a lot harder to work with, however.
It is funny that multiple clips are from the Monorail in Sydney but not mentioned! Probably for the reason it got removed ;)
Rene Schneider Why'd it get removed?
@@PiroKUSS
www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/end-of-the-circle-as-last-ride-nears-for-monorail-20130627-2p01l.html
Or in short, it was useless. It was just a tourist attraction and I had one loop. Didn't go anywhere really either
"Guys, the monorails aren't selling. But what if, and hear me out, we build the same type of track but... Witha guided bus on it."
"BRILLIANT!"
"MAGNIFICENT!"
"CAR GOOD! TRAIN BAD!"
"But won't that be expensive and run like shit?"
"...Get out!"
Here in Sapporo, Japan the metro is rubber tired and the wheels run on two roll ways with a single rail in the center. So technically it's an underground electric monorail bus.
Are you from Australia?
Many people movers (e.g. FRA, ORD) on airports do that. But those are not monorails but elevated trains running on rubber wheels. Like some lines of the Paris Metro. Which vcan be compared to the NY El and the Chicago "L". Elevated trackage passing down city streets. A concept that replaced trolleys which competed with cars and carts on the streets. Miami has also one. But these are essentially purpose-built rail lines just not using steel rails on ties and ballast or even embedded in concrete.
@@user-sm3xq5ob5d We drown in gadgetbahns while everyone is terrified of just building a regular ass trolley or train or light rail.
Worth pursuing. The argument that it doesn't operate at street level is stupid. As a transit rider I would hope to not be in (or contributing to) the congestion. I want to get from A to B with as few stops as possible.
This is one of the reasons I love Chicago, most of the city has the L train raised above the ground and you can travel to any part of the city. Though it isn't a monorail per say, it is super convenient and WAY faster during rush hour when all the streets are congested with cars.
Yeah the L gets a ton of use. People take it to work, to both baseball stadiums, to both airports, and much more. When its rush hour, a cubs or socks game is on, or lollapaloza (or riot fest) is going on the trains are packed. Monorails can work too if they 1) go to places people want to go, 2) have frequent service, and 3) aren't ridiculous expensive to ride.
The L isn't a monorail at all, it's a traditional elevated train, which is precisely what cities should be building instead of monorails.
The best thing about the Sydney monorail was that when the city finally decided to get rid of it, no one missed it.
When I arrived in 2012 I was so amazed by it and was sad that it was gone when I came back 4 years later 😢
I'm from Detroit and we have a monorail called the People mover that has been around since 1987 and is a staple for getting around downtown, especially in the winter months. It lends access to sports arenas and local shops in downtown. I think it's worth it.
I heard it's not great because it only goes in one direction round a loop. The tickets sound cheap though. I'd definitely ride it if I was in town
Ah, Hizzoner's final legacy. It sure wasn't popular when it first opened, but it's nice to hear it's still finding use. Where I'm at, the bus system is even worse than Windsor's ever was, and that was horrible for decades.
The DPM is not technically a monorail - it's a technology called an Intermediate Capacity Transit System (ICTS), developed in Ontario in the early 1980s. It's a magnetic but otherwise normal two-railed system that sits somewhere between a subway and light rail (hence the name). We use the exact same system on one subway line in Toronto, and most of Vancouver's Skytrain system uses it as well (both opening in 1985), but it never took off like UTDC had hoped, and they were privatized and are now part of Bombardier. Quite a bit of the airport train systems Cheddar was talking about use ICTS as well, including the JFK AirTrain.
It definitely has the aesthetic of a monorail, though.
Sydney Australia tried monorails - they have scrapped it and gone back to street level trams/streetcars.
To be frank: had the mass transit system that was supposed to feed into the People Moved been created, Detroit and it’s metro area would be completely different today. I also think it would have been been to expand the People Mover up and down Woodward instead of the poorly designed Qline.
The Mumbai monorail is a joke, monorails come just twice an hour , and always is out of order, and most importantly goes to nowhere, it's more like a joyride an expensive joyride
Wow
agreed, plus who needs a monorail when there is a sprawling and massive railway system
I guess you haven't used the local train system which transports people at less than half the price of the monorail and connects every part of Mumbai. The metro project is still under development and probably the best time to judge it's efficacy would be once it's finished
@@cheddar Wuppertal isnt a part of Cologne, why would you say something like this, i thought we can trust you with everything you say.. ITS LITERRALY NEAR TO DÜSSELDORF THAN TO COLONGE
@@cheddar And also, Walt was inspired by the Alweg Monorail in Cologne, wich doesnt even exist anymore.
I love how most of the B-roll monorail footage is from Sydney, Australia, but they didn't even talk about the interesting story about it being torn down mostly because of politics rather than ridership or cost
Please explain - I doubt a monorail with record ridership and huge cost savings for Sydney was doomed by evil politicians.
@@beretaniastreet6384 the ridership numbers were about half as anticipated, because it was a unidirectional loop which didn't really take you anywhere you wanted to go and didn't connect to other public transit hubs. It was bought by the government and light rail goes through the city now, which is what they should have built in the first place, instead of a monorail.
@@lachlanp4198 wrong, a well-engineered monorail system that went where passengers needed it to go in the first place would have also worked. instead, they built a system that was really for tourists instead of actual people who live in the city. that was its big downfall and why it failed to get what was expected of it.
@@whitelionstudios1786 building monorail instead of trams left no room for expansion and rose the cost of construction, when a tram would have been more accessible for the disabled and performed the same task as the monorail, but better
*"I GIVE YOU, THE SPRINGFIELD HYPERLOOP !!!"*
Frequency of transit is critical to public transportation systems. This is another reason why it is hard to build public transit, as the frequency of the transit directly correlates with cost.
The hard part about building public transport are: 1. Where are all the peoples? 2. Where do they want and or need to go? 3. Where do they come from?
@@swededude1992 4. How much are they willing to pay?
Hiddenkeymaster3 Agreed. I grew up in NYC and always used mass transit because it could take me anywhere in the city I wanted to go relatively quickly 24/7. I went to college in the suburbs and freshman year without a car was absolute hell. Miss a public bus an you’ll wait 45 - 90 minutes before the next one comes by and they didn’t run after 10 pm or on Sunday. I spent the next summer learning to drive and buying my first car. Cars will have to cease existing before suburbanites would ever use mass transit. We’re just too far gone.
Public transport in many place symbolised lower income people. This image is more visible in the west, and less in the east.
Someday we should take the old style of train back, like people have their own luxurious room and the train is faster than everything else.
I hope one day we have public transport with ample space for each person, clean and modern look, much faster than driving.
Like flying with first class
The issue is culture. The U.S. hates public transit. Even when people want it, they can't get it.
Everywhere else it works. It wad a bit disingenuous to even bring up the ones that fail due to not going anywhere.
If you build it, they will come. But I think the automobile lobby is still too strong.
Ah yes, Wupperral is defentivly part of Colongne
especially since its closer to Dusseldorf
yea if a train flies over you in cologne it is not planned and you should inform the authorities :D
@@NaahLand hahahahahahahaha!
You made my day!
It's probably the closest city Americans might actually know
@@SebastianD334 Wuppertal doesn't belong to Köln or Düsseldorf. It's just a plain old really ugly town in the Ruhrgebiet, just like Bochum, Hagen, Essen, Dortmund
I love the monorail & you can’t tell me nothin! I love the Contemporary Tower Hotel where the monorail goes right thru the middle.
"I've sold monorails to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook, and by gum it put them on the map!"
Me: Monorails are bad?
Me after
going to Japan: Monorails are THE BEST!
O Outro Cleber Bombardier is known for bad quality by many cities
I used live in Chongqing, China. The monorail was extremely quiet and efficient!
@Enmity the Kindhearted Red China is as communist as the DPRK is a democratic republic
Take your obnoxious comment and go watch Lachlan
Bullet trains are WAY BETTER
Cheddar: "We need an excuse to show even more Simpsons' footage."
Simpsons: "I'm about to ruin this channel's whole career."
There used to be a monorail train at Butlins in Skegness in England in the 60s and 70s. I loved it and went on it everyday around the holiday camp. I was only 11 at the time, but have loved the concept ever since.
You guys have the most interesting subjects on YT !
3:35 the Shanghai Maglev is probably the most contrasting monorail considering it goes 400km/h or 250mph in comparison to the 60km/h or 40mph monorails usually go.
Fun Fact: The short period of time the monorail was functional at the Philadelphia Zoo were the years my dad was one of the Chief Electricians at the zoo.😎
So you're saying if your dad remained the Chief Electrician at the zoo the monorail would still be there
@@michdem100 Yes, he's the only one that could fix it. :)
That's kewl
In the segment about Melaka monorail (4:35): "...originally opened in 2010. But hours after opening the monorail ground to a halt stranding 20 passengers inside. When it reopened in December 2017..."
Wow. Imagine being stranded 7 years in a monorail train.
Well, that explains it all. Great, Cheddar. Thanks.
An interesting benefit of monorails in dense cities is how close they can go to buildings (silently) where they can have stations on higher floor directly inside malls and other population centers.This is done on a few of the Tokyo monorail lines.
Regarding *metros* they're simply super expensive when doing tunneling, but otherwise very efficient.
*Monorails* are similar in efficiency but still have to avoid buildings (when not going along main roads) whereas metro lines can have more direct routes.
*Trams* ... well, I love them for some reason but they are not very useful. They are very expensive, the roads have to be completely remade to integrate them and when the track is standalone (not shared with traffic) they still divide geographical areas. They are also very heavy to be able to take collisions with cars and trucks.
In the long run, *maglev* monorails (like german transrapid or the new chinese copy) is a great mode of transport for intercity communications where they can come right up to the city centers and they are extremely energy efficient because of low friction and lighter weigh, but best o all, use few moving parts. Maglev lobby groups could learn something from their tram counterparts...
this is done on the vancouver skytrain too
@@sbubbt2318 cool, which station? I'm going to Vancouver in a few days
@@patrikwihlke4170 actually, the only one i can remember is the canada line’s aberdeen station. at metrotown station, you can see the remains of what used to be a pedestrian overpass leading from metrotown to the station platform, but it was closed when the station was renovated in hopes that having more pedestrians on the ground would “animate the city”. we really could be doing it more
@@sbubbt2318 ok, thanks. I'll definitely go on that line :)
@@sbubbt2318the SkyTrain is considered a light metro system that uses traditional railway technology but in a smaller form.
Replace them all with RMC Raptors (technically a monorail)
Underrated comment
seems reasonable
Theme park: boring.
Commuting to work: still mildly exiting, even though getting used to it.
"Why did you bring butter? I told you to buy cream!"
"Well, it *was* cream before I rode home on the monorail..."
Yes please
The Seattle monorail is actually now decently integrated into the rest of the city’s transit system as its southern terminus at Westlake Center is right next to the lightrail station there. So now it’s not merely a seldom used novelty relic of yesteryear.
I live in Chongqing and the monorail is the best part of the city i really like to take it and just set there
I think the Shanghai Monorail does not exactly fit as an example. It is a maglev train system developed in Germany as Transrapid. It can go more than 400km/h and is therefore not really suited for inner city transport (with track crossovers), but more as a fast shuttle service between bigger hubs (airports, conference centers, city centers, central stations, ...)
It's true nobody calls it monorail... But it's also true it has only mono-rail...
No it doesn't have a rail. It levitates above a trackbed with magnets on either side.
When you ehm... in 10 minutes ehm ... you embark the central station ehm... you basically start your flight at the train station ehm... 10 minutes ehm ... it's the lighthouse of bavaria ehm... think of all the great airports Heathrow in London, Charles de Gault in Paris ehm... 10 minutes ehm... it will bring the munich airport closer to bavaria
Hach Transrapid, all the good memories you spark
@@SebastianHaban what is ehm?
@@SebastianHaban and switching tracks is a big factor as well
Complaint: how is it that most of your stock footage was of the Sydney monorail and you didn’t directly mention it once?😂
Like the Light Rail is any better :(
It just made me miss the Sydney monorail 🥺🥺
They probably didn't even know it existed and just took that stock footage, assuming it was from some eastern Asian city.
There was a lot of Seattle's too, I was thinking the same thing haha
@@Sad_nuggie Me too.
For a second I thought the title said “why monorails keep falling”
There's some lovely footage of the Wuppertal monorail in the early Wim Wenders film "Alice in the Cities," which is well worth a watch anyway.
Imagine spending 1.9 BILLION dollars on monorail in a city that doesn't need it and NEVER actually finish building it. Well it happened in Kazakhstan, Simpsons did it again
O Outro Cleber at least you didn’t spend $4.5 billion on 3 subway stations over 3 miles
A little surprised Sydney wasn't mentioned considering how much of it was shown. But the Sydney monorail was idiotically and deliberately built to not integrate with the existing rail system. And it was more of a tourist attraction rather than a serving much commuter purpose. In the end, it was losing money and has now been demolished (apart from a couple of station shells).
I lived in Sydney about 2010 to 2012. The monorail was very expensive, you often had to queue for quite a while to get on, and it was very limited in where it took you. I rode it a couple of times and decided it was only useful as a tourist ride.
@@michaelwoodhams7866 I've lived in Sydney all my life and worked in the city for a substantial part. The monorail was always seen by most Sydney-siders as a tourist ride.
Yeah like I've been on it as a kid whenever I used to visit the CBD and at 5:10 you can see it on the darling harbour bridge where I believe there is still the support beams
Agreed, the video should have mentioned Sydney when the film maker showed it to us so often. But I did find it useful. When I worked near the Powerhouse Museum, I bought a bulk ticket (which meant $2 per ride) and regularly commuted to Pitt St Mall for shopping and meeting friends.
Regardless of cost the Las Vegas Monorail is also a pain to get to. You have to hike to the back of the Casinos to get to it. I used it a number of times in my mid 20's when I was trying to lower Vegas trip costs. It's unlikely I'll ever use it again though. It's just so much easier to take a taxi or Uber/Lyft that I can't see making the trek to the Monorail again.
I thought you were going to mention the Honolulu rail that opens next year. The track runs off my street and goes to the airport, into the city center and near places like waikiki beach. I actually have faith in this one because the bus system is pretty good here and public transportation isn’t as heavily stigmatized as the mainland.
Next video Topic .
“Why Public Transoprtion keep Failing in USA”
It goes back to the implementation of the interstate system
Because it never goes anywhere you need to go, nor goes places when you need to go there. Just buy a car.
Because people are obsessed with "muh freedom" and equate private automobiles and trucks with that idea.
@@scott-mercer America: Having a car is a freedom!!!
Rest of the world: Not needing to have a car is a freedom, duh.
@@MeepChangeling That's unsustainable. Our over-reliance on cars leads to more traffic and more pollution. Plus, buying and owning a car can get expensive.
Hope someone sees this. I appreciate how much time you spent scouring through b-roll shots of monorails for this video. Your commitment has not gone unrecognized.
It's really simple why monorails never took off:
1) Unlike the tiny switches on railroads, monorails tracks are large and can't switch as easily, requiring large, expensive mechanisms to move the entire track.
2) It's a vehicle that uses rubber tires on concrete, so it's got high rolling resistance and therefore less efficiency.
So basically it combines all the disadvantages of a train (locked to a track) with all the disadvantages of a bus (rubber tires and high rolling resistance).
Monorails are the future of transportation and they always will be.
Japan has multiple monorails used as transportation. Tokyo Monorail connecting Haneda Airport to Hamamatsucho in the Yamanote loop, Tama in the west suburbs, Disney Resort, Osaka, northern Kyushu, and Okinawa. Even hanging monorails like in Wuppertal in Ueno Zoo, Chiba, and Shonan.
The las Vegas Monorail should have gone to airport... it stops short by less than 1/2 mile
Have ridden the Vegas monorail. It would have done well if it was accessible from public area. Or from street level. I found it quite inconvenient having to go through a casino to get to it. That and it is fairly slow. Track switching system is kinda nuts on monorails as well. Regular rail is quite a bit cheaper in that respect and is safer from an egress point of view.
Caesar's Legion blew it up
Here in Toronto, the issue has been decided. We are implementing Light Rail Transit (LRT) it's at street level has the ability the adjust capacity easily and can change track
in an inexpensive stand fashion
Whenever the Eglington Crosstown LRT enters service that's ideally what'll happen. It should've been finished by now but now it's latest in service date is 2022. It's worth mentioning, not all of it will be at street level. A good chunk of it, from Mount Denis to Laird, will be underground.
@@kutter_ttl6786 I think given that traffic is not going to decrease in the core of the city anytime this generation having the Eglington crosstown underground makes sense. It's hard to say what usage patterns for the crosstown will be for the next 25 years and growth and development patterns are also as unclear. I could eventually see this becoming a full-blown subway that way it was proposed in the '80s if usage patterns and development warrant it.
We still have a monorail system in Kuala Lumpur, and I think it is widely used and integrated into the metro transportation lines, alongside LRT and MRT. The Malacca ones stopped operating a few years ago iirc.
In his 1970 book Future Shock, futurist Alvin Toffler pointed out that as the future sped up, people needed something old to keep them grounded. I think the old rails 4’8.5” apart is one of these things. Notice that fancy China usually has a scene depicting 19th century inns and guests being welcomed. I’ve never seen one with George Jetson.
So it should be “Why monorail keeps failing IN AMERICA”
Mass transit fails in the US except for where the city cannot survive without it. The cost and 'final mile' don't seem to be thought out. I'm not going to spend big money to park my car at a depot, take mass transit that is substantially more than the cost of driving and parking, and then walk miles in bad weather, from the nearest stop, to my destination.
Did the video not state that there are only 75 monorails in operation in the world? compared to traditional trains they are a monumental failure in Europe and Asia as well. There are hundreds of traditional train lines in operation for every monorail system so they are not really a smashing success anywhere probably for some of the reasons listed in the video like, they can't change tracks quickly or easily and parts cost more because they are less common.
@Blue Number Media I agree. When I talked to the state department of transportation they had never heard it before. It shouldn't be news to those in charge of making a system that works.
@@loganjones5766 åp
Not really, it failed almost everywhere. Just look at the deployment statistic and compare it to conventional rails. Monorail probably not even 5% of total transit deployment. Where I live, they abandons monorail in favor of conventional LRT.
Calls a maglev train a monorail and even labels it as a maglev
I think it is a development of the transrapid maglev monorail system. So kinda technically correct but not a grippy wheels on concrete type.
@@markwhickman351 Yes but also doesn't really fit when they are talking about urban transit which isn't really the segment maglevs target at all. You need a fairly long route with infrequent stops to make the upper-end speeds of 400-600 km/h viable so in that regard, it's more in the market segment competing against high-speed rail and short-haul aviation. The Shanghai example arguably pushes the limits of being just barely long enough to make it worth it, in fact, this is probably why it's capped significantly bellow max speed at 430 km/h it's only going out to an airport not to another city.
This video came out on my birthday. And I love monorails. Just thought I put it out.
I’m surprised the Sydney Monorail wasn’t mentioned even though their was footage. It was too expensive to use on a daily basis and very rare went to where you needed to go. Was mainly a tourist attraction. After many years it was pulled down and now Sydney has reinstalled light rail, trams, after an absence of decades.
They sold monorails to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook, and by gum, it put them on the map!
Well, sir, there's nothing on earth like a genuine, bona fide, electrified, six-car monorail!
i think a monorail is more of a gimmick.. the real change bringing, cost saving, fast and efficient mode of public transit is the tramway, which increases the standard of living enormously in european cities.. sadly, america abolished this way of transport in the 1910s and 20s
car industry hate tramway so much, impossible to tolerate monorail
That and throwing all this car traffic in the way effectively renders tramways useless unless they're grade-separated, and engenders NIMBY mentality and opposition.
The US had lots of streetcars (trams) until after WWII, at which time the automobile and oil industries bought them up and replaced them with diesel buses.
US streetcars died out because they had to share their lanes with cars; if they'd been given dedicated lanes, they'd still be thriving today!
I'm just glad I live in Toronto, one North American city that kept its trams!
Up until 1950s The Greater Vancouver had an electrified streetcar system. If it was in existence now, the ridership would be huge wth updated streetcars, and probably upgraded switches, tracks etc. The excuses of "Well people who drive can't share the road with them, or what about pedestrians?" Toronto has a streetcar system, it shares traffic. And smartly they built it in the middle of the road(s). All because Detroit automakers wanted to kill public transportation.
I think that the question you really didn't answer very well is why people don't choose to ride monorails, but do choose to ride other forms of transit.
You guys showed a fair bit of footage of the monorail system in Sydney Australia which has been shut down and removed since a few years ago. Honestly, myself I quite liked it. It go you to where you needed to be quite easily and the cost of transportation was cheap. However, I don't live in Sydney and only came by for short visits mainly as a tourist basically. The monorail for people who live there was most likely seen as useless as it was only a small circuit and didn't go to other places where people would work.
Oh man, seeing all the footage of the old Sydney monorail brings me back! but yea.. like in other places, it was expensive, and went places that one could easily walk to!
Kai Adin Cooper it also managed to be as slow as a bus in peak hour and a jerky as a speeding bus all while having a dedicated rail system.
It should have gone from central to dh...and the quay.
andgate2000 it was part of a park and ride system. They built those giant car parks behind darling harbour. People were supposed to drive into them and then catch the monorail into town. Of course once you cost it out it’s never going to cost less then about $50 a day for parking and the monorail ride so in the end even the liberal government started building new public transport to the suburbs and demolishing some of the car parks for new housing.
You used it to try to escape Pando.
I think they can be fine in really specific situations: point-to-point transit with no need for switching. Singapore has a monorail that runs between the main island and the resort island of Sentosa; it costs a few bucks and when I rode it, it was packed with people (there are also suspended cable cars, but they are much more expensive and function more as a tourist attraction in themselves). The one odd thing about it is that to even get on it, you've got to find your way up to the roof of a shopping mall, but getting everywhere through shopping malls is the kind of situation Singaporeans are used to.
I also ride monorail once on jakarta, just like you said in order to get to it, you need to go to shopping mall, lol
I agree. Adding to that, the Tokyo Monorail only really goes from one of the airports to the centre.
As monorail users are charged only when boarding from the mainland but not from any station within Sentosa, one hack adopted by some to ride for free is to enter Sentosa on foot via a pedestrian bridge (10min walk) & then continue one's journey within Sentosa (as well as back to the mainland later) via monorail
The monorail is a specialist tool with regards public transport similar to the cable car or sky lift, they can provide a very good public utility when 1 they go point to point - such as an airport terminal to terminal. 2 they are free to use or costs are covered by the state in return for congestion and pollution reduction and 3 the distance and stops are minimal.
2:17 Wuppertal, Germany!! That's where my great-grandmother came from in 1900. 🇩🇪
They said it‘s in cologne, lol 😂😂
Says Disney world
Shows Disneyland
They're both Disney btw
@@ALEX-fq7hh yes but different Monorails
"They're not, like, pumping out monorail cars, you know?"
Cool, I feel, like, smarter now
I remember always taking the Sydney monorail, just found out it hadn't been in use since 2013 :( was always exciting to ride in the monorail
Designers forget the one thing integral in any service being used. Convenience.
Monorails are usually associated with " oh we the panoramic vistas, the gorgeous view from up here"
I read one of the comments from a dude who lives in las vegas and he pointed out that the monorail was only connected to a couple of hotels. Nothing that led to airports or near residential areas.
Pretty obvious why so many of these monorails failed really.
I live a couple hundred metres from a Monorail station in Mumbai. The issue with it has been that the route available in the first phase wasn't really needed as much by many people, most of the stops on the route don't even see any passengers get on or off. However, if they do end up finishing the Lines to where it was initially projected, it could be very popular.
5:23 Pretty sure that is the Light Rail Transit (LRT) in Kuala Lumpur, and it has more than 1 rail.
As a former resident of the Seattle area, I'm surprised you didn't say more about that......
I actually loved the Las Vegas monorail system, especially after they extended it to the Convention Center and toward Freemont Street. Cheaper by far than Taxi/Lyft/Uber, unlimited riding (with the right ticket), and actually some good views along the way. The only drawback was the stations mostly were located toward the back of the casinos, which are literally behemoths. But at least you're not standing in line in the 115 degree heat waiting for the next taxi or at the overcrowded bus stops that don't have the shaded pickup areas that the casinos do. We loved grabbing a nice cold drink/snacks and getting on board and riding in the air conditioning to the next place.