01-26-2016, 07:09 AM
(01-25-2016, 11:34 PM)DKsan Wrote: I think monorail could work -- if you're willing to invest your city's (or region's) network to include a significant number of monorail lines and you don't mind the intrusion. But A) it's expensive but not as expensive as tunneling B) it's ideally suited for high riderships. I think that's why we're seeing a bunch of them in non-Western nations like in Mumbai and Sao Paolo. Up and coming cities with a need for infrastructure and want bang for buck.
Then again, India is weird and should be the *essential* argument against elevated transit because of all the ancient structures and heritage, but a lot of the new Indian systems are elevated from traditional heavy rail to BRT to PRT.
I’m not sure what heritage has to do with elevation. I mean sure, one should always be careful with placement so as to avoid aesthetic problems, but the idea that elevated systems are automatically ugly seems weird to me. Even when the surroundings are historical, I think a carefully-placed elevated system can become part of the mix perfectly effectively.
I always assumed the reason for elevating lines in some of these places is because the cities are already extremely crowded. In particular, this may be where the low impact at ground level of monorail (both construction and continued existence) is a really big benefit. This is by contrast with K-W. Here, admittedly grade separation in Uptown and Downtown and maybe a few other places would be good, but the benefit of grade separation along the Waterloo Spur, for example, would be very little and unlikely to be worth the expense. The same argument applies to future extensions. So it seems likely that a monorail system in a very large and crowded city will deserve extension as monorail, for the same reason as the initial phase; whereas here, any future lines are even less likely to merit full grade separation.
Also, I wonder about the driving culture. My impression of driving in some of these places is that drivers will take every possible advantage. Would it work to have a lane reserved for LRT? I think in some places it would get filled up with regular traffic no matter how many signs were installed. There are solutions for this but it may be one more factor in the decision to go with a completely grade-separated system.