How Seattle Rejected the Monorail 

They (city) seemed to just like taking/having “info gathering/ vacations” to Japan, Vegas 2x, San Francisco, etc…😅 To come to conclusions like…”they seem to take passengers from place to place” Wow….i think my dead for 30 yrs dog named Milo knew tht fact❤

Thank you for coming!

I hear that the Link light rail folks are learning from their failures on the original line and improving the design, which is definitely good. Paying subway / metro prices for slow light rail service sure was rough. Here's hoping the at-grade crossings can be upgraded, and speed / frequency increased! Yay for mass transit, let's make it awesome!

You are not mentioning the opening day for crossing from Seattle to Mercer Island? Oh yeah, right.

@@cr-pol next year

The storry of missmanaging project that have a really good potential to be semi revolutionary is way to common. its almost as its sabotage every single time.

Agreed. But the critical flaw was the original funding scheme. They should have gone with an increase to the sales tax. Had they done that, it would have prevented most, if not all, of the worse issues later on with this project. It would have been built.

Any system is good, on RU-vid you get hits with monorail ! light rail fanboys won ?

The leadership's poor communication wasn't the only issue. They made some very poor decisions with their planning as well. Single-tracking instead of reusing the existing monorail alignment or shortening the route is probably the one that stands out most, but also trying to force monorail into being a metro substitute connecting parts of the city to downtown, which is not what it's good at. Look at what Tokyo did with theirs: the monorails largely serve the dense inner city, where space for regular railways isn't available, and the heavier rail systems feed it. Had Seattle followed the Japanese example more closely, or even just had Sound Transit and ETC/SMP actually come together and developed a single master plan, things could've been much better, and both projects would've been all the more likely to survive for it. Had the leadership communicated better, the project might've been saved, sure. But that would just mean a poorly-planned system actually got built, at greater overall cost to the taxpayer, especially after 2003 when parts of the line were going to be single-track and they started cutting stations.

No, what killed it was the funding scheme. It should have been an increase to the sales tax and not the vehicle registration fee. The irony is that the more public transit is built, the less vehicle registration fee funding there would be. I can't believe no one saw the irony in the funding scheme. Had they used an increase in the sales tax, it would have been built because most of the mismanagement and secrecy were due to the lack of projected funding and the need for the high interest bonds.

A "what-if:" had the initial proposal been a shorter, less costly "starter system," might it have succeeded?

It was an unfortunate conundrum where sincere and decent citizens were advocating together to try and fix the long running problem with Seattle's lack of a high capacity transit system. While this was the case unfortunately transit advocates had been blind sighted by a more or less impracticable transit technology just as problematic as the solution to fix the problem was. Like Australian and NZ cities - Seattle was desperately playing catch up due to decades of under investment. Ironic as economically Seattle is considered a desirable US metropolitan area. As cities in the US grow the transit problem will only get worse due to the detrimental polarization of society (thanks to Trump), lack of funding (thanks to US style capitalism) and high costs of construction these days (a global phenomenon). Importantly Seattle over the past decade has been attempting to deal with this problem of public transit deficiency - this said the cost of construction is mind mindbogglingly expensive. Monorail networks are not the answer when dealing with a large metropolitan area's transport solutions. Their capacity is just way behind what heavy rail rapid transit can deliver. This said the original monorail system built in the early 1960s is indeed an historic relic worth preserving.

Basically me

I didn't realize it was so long until nearly 40 minutes in 😂

Or even Dibble...

@@carlgemlich1657 it was dribble to me, I live in NYC

Pittsburgh would really benefit from a Chongqing style system, both share similar terrain challenges

YOU'RE HERE TOO?

Sad that Graham's revolving resturaunt in Hawaii was welded in place in the 90's.

No problem, our new metro system is much better than Forward Thrust was going to be

@@harlander-harpy no it is not the line one is already overcrowded in the downtown area. The tunnel cannot support any more trains per hour, and length of consist and on top of that they’re thinking on convert it to heavy rail but that’ll become too costly because it’s tunnel is only for low floor vehicles so the clearance won’t add up this is the problem with light rail. Once you build it, you cannot get rid of it. Like the highway only if you had subways in mind when building a light rails, which Seattle did not, they just built them because it was something to keep the pressure off the highways. without no critical, thinking that it was gonna grow in the upcoming years.people don’t understand when you built subway or heavy dense transit people moved to those areas because it’s easier to move around especially when you get to an old age that’s why a lot of people don’t like living out here and just sprawled empty space because it’s nothing especially young people who are the backbones of the city’s when people see you light rail they see Shanky dinky town they don’t see big metropolitan areas like New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, DC Philadelphia I didn’t see Las Vegas, which I’m living in right now as a big sprawl until I got here and I seen the entire skyline of just lights The light rail was built to basically keep people from building other really well good mode to transportation all because of cost and they don’t have to use it now look I’m a person who lives completely in a different area and knows that sound transit is going through chaos right now with its line one they took something that was supposed to become a part of Seattle only and that would’ve been the light rail system and expensive fleet of cars built in the 70s would’ve looked amazing. Now it’s sprawled with light rails that can’t even do their job right? It’s in the light rail. Subways are called heavy rail. The reason why I say that is because now in Los Angeles they’re planning on building a monorail through the San Fernando Valley & Hollywood and they have light rails too

@@harlander-harpyit definitely isn’t lol. Don’t delude yourself, the mlk at grade should be evidence of that

Hahaha you’re welcome for the funding but we’ve got it from here 😉 we’re gonna get ya back

@@skydiamond8705 The 1 Line is not overcrowded in downtown unless there’s a sports game going on. The tunnels are nowhere near capacity yet and literally next year the amount of trains going through it will double which is how I already know your comment is going to be total BS but I’m gonna keep going because you don’t deserve the spotlight. There has not been a single proposal to convert any part of Link to heavy rail so please quit making stuff up. Even if they did convert it to heavy rail (which again, nobody ever proposed that because it’s stupid) the tunnels are indeed large enough for typical subway trains because our trains are quite literally bigger than subway trains. The trains in many parts of the line are quicker than cars so I enjoy flipping off the traffic as I speed by it (you should try it, it may help with your anger and supremacy issues). Link is going to be able to handle growth very well, and certain boundaries that exist right now which may limit trains on an individual line to every 6 minutes are frankly going to be obliterated when we destroy everything in the train’s path and make cars deal with the consequences just to speed the trains up, easy peasy. We definitely do consider ridership growing in the coming years which is why we are building so much Transit Oriented Development and Affordable Housing near stations. In terms of perceiving light rail as “shanky dinky town” it’s quite the opposite as we’ve got nice bright trains which constant fresh and clean interiors and spotless stations unlike the literal pipes they call trains running around NYC. Yes, there is plenty of sprawl in the suburbs of many cities including your drunk hobo land, thanks for inviting me to your ted talk that you’re going to forget you had when you wake up with a hangover in a few hours. Sound Transit is NOT in chaos right now, they are VERY stable with extremely modern trains (may more advanced then yours) made by Kinkisharyo and Siemens, and the light rail system is doing its job perfectly. You really don’t know a thing about our system but you’ve come here to pretend we’re every other light rail system when the truth is we’re just a metro with pretty trains and catenary. Anyways, you’re wrong, but this was a fun challenge to try to respond to your incoherent gobbled mess of unwarranted hate for pretty trains. Please for your sake just go back to bed and don’t respond until you actually know what you’re talking about, but you’re gonna be way more late and overbudget on that than Sound Transit’s every been on anything. Don’t drive for a while, peace.

Clearly the system was never gonna be as good as the monorail systems in Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook!

@@AverytheCubanAmericanWell the plans looked pretty good

@@realquadmoo But as good as salesman Lyle Lanley’s systems? Don’t think so! 😂 I was referencing the Simpsons episode with those places, but yes, the plan did actually look good of course, and this was so interesting to watch

@@AverytheCubanAmerican and boy that sure put them on the map!

Now that Las Vegas is contemplating decommissioning its monorail as well, there's a good chance that even if it was built, it may not have lasted. That being said, hands down the Forward Thrust should have been built - the the quality of the MARTA is sadly not appreciated in such a sprawling region.

As time goes on and systems mature the need arises for maintenance and ultimately vehicle replacement. I can think of numerous light transit, heavy transit and heavy rail suppliers (and may have worked for over the years). The same cannot be said for monorail which is more of a niche.

@@grapesurgeonAnd that’s honestly 100% expected. It’s a short line with two stations only; you have to either work or live near either of those stops to find it useful.

Monorails are practical they're just quite niche. If your building an all elevated line it's going to be cheaper than conventional rail and if you buy decent rolling stock it's not gonna have capacity of speed issues. But if a lot of the project can be ground level or it needs to be tunneled conventional rail will still work better. That's largely why Japan and Germany's monorails work, because they understood the limitations, didn't try to force them to do things they couldn't, and bought appropriate monorails for the lines. And Chongqing in china has a massive amount of monorail due to how mountainous the place is. The Mumbai and Bangkok Monorails are also going quite well. Although Bombardier monorails are generally shitty

@@maestromecanico597 CRRC, Alstom and Hitachi are the big 3 monorail vehicle suppliers.

that's actually very inspiring! The World's Fair & the monorail did leave a ever lasting impression on you!

Rail has the advantage of switches that are cheap, fast and reliable. Standard gauge rail has the advantage of cheap rolling stock and cheap delivery of rolling stock and assuming that there are disused or underused train tracks in the area cheap and easy network expansion.

@@hWat-Ever Agree - that’s the reason why many north american new light rail systems started with the german “U2”-type in the 1980ies rolling as an off-the-shelf technology.

JFK Air train is actually a derivative of the system in Vancouver, which Seattle really should have considered much earlier. I remember stories from Seattle news visiting Vancouver’s Skytrain that opened in late 85 and they had put an initiative out to a vote to build something then and it was turned down. Estimates at that time. Mid nineties build out over a large system would have been $10 in Seattle due to the landscape. The fixation on the monorail is is bizarre as there are issues with escape route for the trains. They have only recently got light rail going properly, but they are going to be stymied by many of the level crossing. Calgary has light rail and the grade crossing is a pain. For driver and trains. Should have built “something” much much sooner.

@threeparots1 i'm not remotely fixated on it, but it looks so awesome & dope.

I live in Seattle and everytime I'm reminded of that fact I groan in agony lol

But it's not like MARTA has in any way maximized what the system does. They built a moderate number of extremely expensive stations and then stopped cold, with no expansion for a couple decades now. Voters have repeatedly approved and funded and begged for badly needed in-fill options, like the Clifton Road rail, only to be told it costs too much, have a bus instead. MARTA has made no effort to consider any service options except heavy rail, which they then say is too expensive. They got Clayton County aboard and could have implemented commuter rail as used in many other cities, tied into stations already stubbed out for exactly that purpose decades ago. They refuse. It's their heavy rail or nothing. The streetcar wasn't their idea and they didn't want it. But they had to accept running it or make a lot of stupid people look stupid, and now they dangle it as a carrot because the public thinks it wants light rail everywhere. Don't worry. They know it will end up costing too much and has no risk of actually being built.

This is your brain on RU-vid "urbanism". >A proprietary design with only a few and in most cases just a single manufacturer of infrastructure and rolling stock The video literally mentions a dozen private manufacturers interested in developing SM at 24:50 >This bloats up not just building costs The video literally mentions that the monorail is the cheapest elevated system per mile at 24:18 >And once the infrastructure and rolling stock need to be replaced, there is nobody to produce them at any reasonable price >This makes them much cheaper and future-proof without the risk of a vendor lock-in. Koreans had no problems with domestically building monorail trains with japanese prototype for Daegu Metro Line 3 Chinese had no problems with domestically building monorail trains after japanese-designed first batch for Chongqing

@@user-ie4tt1xp7j > How many of those manufacturers have really developed (and at what cost) vehicles and their infrastructure? How many offer Monorails today? > I doubt the numbers shown at 24:18. Do you have real world data? Even regular "light rail" building cost bloat up and finished systems are often delayed and much more expensive than was thought. Plans are one thing, then there is reality. > How can it be cheaper, if it has to be developed again for a specific system, when the original manufacturer is out of business or does not make the rolling stock anymore and has moved to produce something different? Or simply can ask any price, because there is no competition? There are two monorail systems in South Korea. The third one is just tiny people mover, practically tourist attraction without any real rapid transit capability. While some monorail systems are true rapid mass transit, many are not. Other than various tourist-resort systems, the Optics Valley Sky Rail in China is not a true mass transit system, with its vehicles only 24 meters long and 2,4 meter wide, which is even below usual light rail parameters. Small vehicles are also in Wuppertal in Germany. The monorail there makes sense because of unique local geographical conditions. Certain places around the world do have specific needs that no "off the shelf" solution exists for. I do not claim that developing and building monorail is impossible. It is just more costly in the long term than a more common rail mass transit system. We will see how well the monorail systems, most of which are relatively new (no more than 10 years) will fare in 40 years.

@@erikziak1249 >I doubt the numbers shown at 24:18. Do you have real world data? Even regular "light rail" building cost bloat up and finished systems are often delayed and much more expensive than was thought. Plans are one thing, then there is reality. Lol, buddy. Semper necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui agit. You're the one who should provide the burden of proof. Where is your real world data, that disproves the author's claims? >Other than various tourist-resort systems, the Optics Valley Sky Rail in China is not a true mass transit system, with its vehicles only 24 meters long and 2,4 meter wide, which is even below usual light rail parameters That's just hilarious. The biggest MAN-manufactured city bus is around 18,730 mm/2,550 mm in length/width. Does that mean buses are not mass transit?

@@user-ie4tt1xp7j Since when is a bus a mass transit rail system? If you accept that it is, then it is orders of magnitude cheaper than a monorail or metro.

No monorails are bad and impractical in so many ways, just follow what the rest of the world does and build great railways.

Yes, it’s a shame that ST didn’t build a heavy rail metro like proposed during forward thrust, or at least high floor light rail to give it higher capacity and higher speeds. Light rail should be limited within the city limits, it’s not designed to carry suburban commuters, it’s too slow for that. The only remedy at this point is if ST can figure out a way to buy out the rails for the current south sounder commuter line, electrify it and convert it to regional rail. Kent/Des Moines to downtown Seattle is projected to be a 42 minute ride. Currently Kent to King station on the sounder takes 20 minutes.

The monorail would’ve been even worse than Link. Both in capacity and cost.

I'm curious also!

@bchistory is amazing, it has all kinds of historical footage and docs about infrastructure projects, industry etc.

I know, I kept thinking “OMG THIS IS IT THE MONORAIL IS GONNA GET BUILT” but I’m a Seattleite..