Stylish Transit with a View | Green Energy News

July 11, 2004 – Vol.9 No.16

STYLISH TRANSIT WITH A VIEW.

The automakers do everything they can to keep consumers returning to the showroom. Oversized engines, power-this-power-that gadgets, pretty paint jobs and seats more comfortable than a living room sofa. All for the sake of marketing.

In the quest to entice more people to use energy-efficient mass transit , operators of those systems should take a lesson from the car makers: Make the experience as appealing, pleasant, even exciting, as possible.

Here’s one thing that transit operators can do that car makers can’t. Build transportation systems that operate above the madding crowd. Build an elevated monorail.

Open this week for revenue-paying passengers is the brand-new Robert N. Broadbent Las Vegas Monorail. Stylish and reasonably swift (up to 50 miles per hour) the 4-mile system travels between Las Vegas hotels and casinos on pillars above stopped, congested traffic. But unlike all city transit systems, this $650 million system was built without tax dollars. For this aspect, it is unique in the world.

Though riding the length of the system takes only 15 minutes, the owner of the system, the non-profit Las Vegas Monorail Corporation, says plans are already in the works to extend the monorail as far as the city’s airport. Trips are $3 each way; all day passes $10.

Bombardier Transportation, the main contractor for LVMonorail, is also providing operational services.

Las Vegas is not alone in monorail enthusiasm. The Seattle Monorail Project, a group working towards a major addition to the city’s existing monorail, achieved a milestone this week when the city approved a transit-way agreement to allow the construction of the system above city streets. The 14-mile appropriately-named Green Line could partially open in 2007, fully by 2009.

The Green line, which could begin construction by this fall would be the first of five, new, above-the-traffic monorail lines.

The original and still operating Seattle Center Monorail was built in conjunction with the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. It was built by Alweg Rapid Transit Systems (who also owned and operated the system at the time) for $3.5 million.

It took less than a year to build.

During the six months that the Fair was open the monorail carried more than 8 million guests. The full capital cost of the system was recovered and a profit realized before the end of the fair.

Visit the Las Vegas Monorail at http://www.lvmonorail.com/ , the Seattle Monorail Project at http://www.elevated.org/ , the existing Seattle Monorail at http://www.seattlemonorail.com/ and Bombardier Transportation at http://www.transportation.bombardier.com/ .