@@kickinghorse2405 Yes, it was deeply problematic that we had to keep voting on these matters until an acceptable result was reached. I do think that it was a mistake to not include more monorails as part of the overall transit system. Yes, there are issues, for example it's one of the hardest types of transit to change routes on, but it's also above the ground, looks cool and is relatively quiet. It's also a great option as they can climb up and down things that other options really can't handle without a great deal of problems. Also, a short monorail through downtown could help a lot with the problem of being largely maxed out under ground.
Speaking as one who was deeply involved in the monorail effort from 1998 to 2004 (and seen waving signs at 36:42 in the video), this is a well-produced and quite accurate documentary. Well done. Bittersweet...though I admit, I'm still mostly just bitter. But thank you, Peter, for producing this story.
LVT might've solved this, if it really came down to the funding. Otherwise, it's a prime example of how the people we elect can actively work against what we have decided and overtly expressed on multiple occassions should be done. Many of those shenanigans should've been illegal, yet a lot of those characters moved onward and upward in the system -- to be even better empowered to sabatoge the project.
@@janningc The whole thing was rather frustrating. I voted for the monorail during the elections where I was allowed to vote. But, I don't remember the people in opposition having an alternative for grade separated transit to help deal with the massive traffic problems that were already a common occurrence at that time. Let alone the ones that were expected to come due to population growth.
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❤
Monorails are somewhat problematic in some ways, hence why they haven't really caught on. However, I do think there's a case for having them in a few strategic locations where it's hard to run other transit options, or like along the water front where it's just cool.
Great informative video and very well produced. Thanks. The fatal flaw was the original funding. It should have been an increase to the sales tax, not an increase in the vehicle registration fee. Why? Because the more public transit that gets built going forward, the less number of cars you would have and therefore less funding in the future. I can't believe no one saw the irony in that funding scheme. Had they gone with a sales tax increase, they would be enjoying a comprehensive monorail system today instead of the 1 mile tourist attraction.
The idea is sound, if you can finish a project fast enough that people don't vote to lower registration fees. Cars more expensive, rail gets built, rail cheaper than car, fewer cars, then rail sustains itself. Generally, you only get one election cycle to get all of that done, unless you start drafting laws to compel later Administrations to progress your own projects.
No. The fatal flaw is public transportation. City bureaucrats who drive BMWs love to dream up multibillion dollar projects (boondoggles) for the "little people" to stand outside in the rain/snow/blazing heat/ freezing cold waiting for the transit to come along which almost never on time. What is up with monorail? My city has an elevated train line (it's actually both an elevated train and a subway) which is commonly called "the el" or the M-F (Market Frankford line) which runs from Northeast Philadelphia to West Philadelphia via center city. It was built a 120 years ago and was rebuilt about 25 years ago. Despite how old it is, it isn't profitable. How is a monorail any better?
Lived here 30 years. Still can't get from Kirkland to West Seattle on any kind of mass transit, short of a very slow sequence of very slow busses.... c'est la vie.
I was born in 95 in Seattle so I never got to have adult thoughts and feelings about it when it was still relevant, but I remember as a child how people talked about it. It was about hope at the end of the day. It’s one of the reasons I love Seattle still. It’s a very special place and I never want to leave. It’s people like Falkenbury that make me love living here.
I was a huge supporter of the Monorail Project, and kept voting for it over and over. I began to have doubts when I read about the single-tracking. What made me finally vote No was that 50-year bond. I still think it was a good idea, but planned out terribly.
I think the mistake more than anything else was that it was too focused on monorails when there should have been light rail and other grade separated components as well. There definitely are locations where alternative modes of transportation would be appropriate. There needs to be a better way of getting up and down Queen Anne Hill, especially during snow. I've thought for quite some time that having a Gondola option for just getting from the top to a small transit station would add so much to the area, and solve the problem of access during snow storms.
Probably the most frustrating part of seeing these chains of events end in failure is that oftentimes, preventing only a few of the bad decisions might have changed the fate of the project. Seems like that was especially the case here, given the fairly strong public support for the project until the hidden costs came out.
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.
Thank you for collating and presenting this. As someone whose interest in a Seattle came from a syndicated TV show to Australia, to finally being able to visit in 2018, learning more and more about the trouble past and history has been incredible. I sincerely appreciate it.
I went to the opening of the 2 Line ("Short line") a couple weeks ago, it was an excellent event. Every time I learn more about the history of Seattle public transit it's disappointing; we should be so much further along with more connectivity. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't stop trying, and the energy behind the movement is stronger than ever. Our governor and both senators were at the opening, and it was so crowded I had to wait for the third train despite being there an hour and a half before the first departure. Wonderful video once again, I'm glad to see one featuring an area I know so intimately now!
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!
The Disneyland Monorail actually opened with a funny story....Walt abducted then Vice President Nixon without Nixon's security! The monorail was designed by famed Imagineer Bob Gurr (who designed most of Disneyland's ride vehicles like Haunted Mansion and Autopia). Up until opening day, the monorail would not cooperate with them. Gurr and a German engineer worked tirelessly each night on sketching replacement parts and rushing them to Burbank so they could be built. The day before on June 13, 1959, the monorail ran as intended for the first time, but they were still worried for opening day on the 14th. Gurr was in the pilot's seat, with Nixon's family and Walt on board, but the secret service agents didn't get on board as Gurr left the moment Walt told him to. He was worried, with Walt staring at him, that the monorail would break down and he accidentally kidnapped Nixon. Thankfully, it ran as intended. More on the Space Needle: At one point in time, the Space Needle was the tallest structure west of the Mississippi River! It was built to withstand up to 200 mph (320 km per hour) winds and earthquakes up to a magnitude of 9! It took 400 days to build it, 74,000 bolts to hold it together, and 5,600 tons of concrete poured into the Needle’s foundation! It was designed by John Graham & Company. The idea for a tower with a restaurant at the top came from Edward E. Carlson, chairman of the exposition, after he visited the Fernsehturm Stuttgart. After local John Graham designed the Northgate Mall in 1950, he got involved. Graham altered the restaurant to be a revolving one, based off another he was designing in Honolulu around the same time. Graham patented a gearing system that allowed you to turn the entire restaurant of 250 people with a one-horsepower motor for the original turntable. The new turntable uses 12 motors. Graham wanted a flying saucer design for the fair's Space Age theme. Architect Victor Steinbrueck was a consultant to John Graham's firm, and Victor came up with the wasp-waisted tower shape based on an abstract wooden sculpture in his home of a dancer by David Lemon called "The Feminine One", a sculpture inspired by Syvilla Fort. Syvilla Fort was a pioneer in dancing from Seattle, and she knew Lemon and Steinbrueck while at the Cornish School of Allied Arts in the 1930s. There is a bronze replica of this sculpture right outside the Space Needle.
A big thank you to Peter from the members of The Monorail Society for producing this documentary! It seems to me that the mismanagement and secrecy by directors is what killed it. The board and all of its supporters were enthusiastic for monorail, but not the leadership who were poor communicators. How utterly heartbreaking, a loss for Seattle and American history.
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.
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.
"Easier to build over challenging terrain" at 15:52, exactly, that's a big factor you can justify building an elevated system like a monorail system for, because using monorails leverages the ability to negotiate steep grades and tight curves and rapid transit capacity, like Chongqing's Lines 2 and 3! Chongqing, China is a huge densely populated but mountainous city, with multiple river valleys, so using monorail or an elevated metro is the best option, and Chongqing's monorails are capable of transporting 32,000 passengers per hour per direction! A cool fact about Chongqing's monorail is Liziba station on Line 2 where the monorail goes through a 19-story residential building, the station and the building were constructed together, so it's transit-oriented development to the max! The station uses specialized noise reduction equipment to isolate station noise from the surrounding residences! You can't plan a system without considering geography (whether it's rivers, mountains, soil, etc), transit isn't a one size fits all, and so in mountainous cities or mountainous neighborhoods of cities, or using cable cars, funiculars, elevated metro, or a monorail may be the best option! And geography aside, building elevated transit in general like Vancouver's SkyTrain, Miami Metrorail, Medellín Metro, or the Chicago L is great for grade-separation and thus great frequencies without having to build a whole underground system. Geography is the reason why the iconic Wuppertal Schwebebahn or Wuppertal Suspension Railway in Germany is the way it is! They ended up building a suspended monorail because Wuppertal is located in a river valley (that's what Wuppertal means; Wupper Valley), and because of steep slopes, the original towns that now makes up Wuppertal expanded lengthwise (resulting in the thin shape of Wuppertal today). It wasn't suitable to build a tram nor a subway, so as a way to both unify the valley and find a place for transit to solve congestion, they built a suspended monorail that followed the Wupper River. It is the oldest electric elevated railway with hanging cars in the world as it opened in 1901!
A failure to collaborate literally killed the Seattle monorail. The ungenerous temperaments of Tom Weeks and Joel Horn should be remembered as the kind of leadership that is to be strenuously avoided.
@@tarstarkusz Took me a bit to figure out EL is shorthand for elevated railway. My guess is that an elevator rail would have required more construction, and look less flashy than the "futuristic" monorail. But, yeah, something like the Chicago L would have been way better and probably been more successful. Hopefully the Seattle Link Light Rail will succeed where the Monorail failed.
@@Jian13 Philadelphia and NYC both also have an el and I'm pretty sure there are others in the US. In my mind, there is really nothing futuristic about a monorail.
@@tarstarkuszthey have a subway system. Some of the track Is above ground, some below, some Elevated. Most cities don't call their light rail system an “EL”
I've always been kinda split on the monorail. On one hand, if we did build it, it would've resulted in Seattle getting a good transit system a lot earlier. But on the other hand, traditional rail transit is so much more practical and flexible than monorail transit.
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.
@@stereomachineAnd 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
An hour long documentary made on my favorite method of transportation around the downtown Seattle area is not what I expected to see but damnit I’m glad I have
There’s a lesson we transportation planner follow: don’t start with a solution and look for a problem. Identify the need for transit improvement and then evaluate when modes and options would address them.
Uh, don't see why they couldn't extend the EXISTING MONORAIL incrementally station-by-new-station, like a Heritage Streetcar line, they failed in part trying to be too ambitious, if they had just done a modest extension, they would have gained experience in planning, building, and financing that could have lead to a longer line.
The PATCO Speedline between South Jersey and Philadelphia was the first in the US to use Automatic Train Operation/ATO as it opened in 1969 before BART did in 1972, though of course BART took it to another level by building a bigger system from the ground up! The Transbay Tube that opened in 1974 is an engineering feat! Something to mention regarding the Link light-rail is that after the rapid transit plan was rejected in 1970, they still wanted to build a sort of subway, so they opted to build a downtown bus tunnel that could be converted to light-rail, and this was proposed as the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel in 1974, approved in 1983, construction began in 1987, and opened in 1990. When the bus tunnel was opened in 1990, they already installed light-rail tracks in anticipation, however they had to be replaced when the tracks were later found to be poorly insulated and unusable. And there was a scandal during the tunnel's construction when it was discovered in 1989 that the granite was quarried in South Africa (but was cut and finished in Italy) despite a boycott of South African goods by the King County Metro Council at the time. For several years, service in the tunnel was provided exclusively by dual-mode buses, which ran as trolleybuses in the tunnel and diesel buses on city streets. Putting buses in the tunnel meant less traffic on city streets! The dual-mode trolleybuses were replaced by hybrid electric buses to prepare for the light-rail as the overhead wire was replaced for light-rail. And when the light-rail opened in 2009, the tunnel had unique operations where buses and the light-rail shared it, just like Pittsburgh's Mount Washington Transit Tunnel! That is until 2019 when Convention Place station was sold to the Washington State Convention Center for redevelopment, closing the tunnel to buses two years earlier than the scheduled closure of 2021 (which was meant to coincide with the Northgate Link expansion). Making the tunnel light-rail only.
Yes! This was a big part of transit history for Seattle. Not only was it great for the buses (at the time) but it influenced Sound Transit and their light rail. Without it, they would have been in deep trouble. They would have either had to pay for a downtown tunnel (which is really expensive) or run on the surface. Running on the surface is fine (Portland does it) but this would have greatly reduced the value of their initial line, especially compared to the monorail. The people in charge could have easily given up and just put it into bus service (and they almost did anyway). That likely would have opened the door wide open for the monorail. It is ironic that the monorail couldn't use the existing monorail tracks, while the light rail owes its existence in large part to leveraging the existing transit tunnel (that only carried buses when it was built).
Great info! As a MAX/Trimet rider, I can tell you that there is downfalls of the system but it is much more efficient than when I was having to ride the bus downtown.
I look forward to every documentary you post, Peter. (I can't call them 'videos,' they're so much better than that!) They're so well researched, the footage and images you use are beautiful, and the stories you tell are so interesting and historic. I love them. I'm already looking forward to the next one!
@@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
@@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.
Love the video. For the time being your channel is a hidden gem. As someone who lived in the Seattle area for 7 years, going downtown fairly often, I love learning the history. Fun fact, My first time riding a monorail was in Las Vegas as a kid to see Star Trek the Experience at the Hilton, as pictured in the video at 31:43.
These documentaries are great! Thank-you. If you want to find plenty of arrogance and incompetence, but no vision, look no further than politics. To paraphrase Thoreau, the only way government furthers an enterprise is by quickly getting out of the way.
I have lived in Seattle almost 30 years, having moved here in January 1995. The light rail system opened in July of 2009- 15 years ago. Really, for the cost of the thing, it should be more extensive by now. Southbound, the line ends at Angle Lake, in the city of SeaTac. Northbound, it ends at Northgate but will be extended to Lynnwood August 30th. By contrast, San Diego,where I grew up, opened their light rail system in 1981, and they didn't get any federal money. I lived there again, briefly, in 1993. In the ensuing 12 years, it went all around the city and the county,at least 30 miles of track. It has expanded even more in the last few years. People from Seattle love to put down California- a woman once said to me that she couldn't believe I was from SD because she had never before met anyone from the city that was intelligent! Seattle just can't seem to do anything right.
It has been about 50 years since I have been on the Monorail. I found it to be a very enjoyable ride. The area around the World's Fair is very impressive. Taking a trip up the Space Needle was a breath taking view of Seattle and the Puget Sound. I have been at assemblies in the Coliseum where the Seattle Supersonics used to play. And have gone through the Science Center Buildings. The Space Needle always reminded me of the Jetsons Residence.
Truly fascinating video. It's a real shame how when it all came together, things began to fall apart to actually make this happen. While we can only wonder what could've been, it's interesting to see that all that chaos and failures at Sound Transit made them not only more successful with building the Link Light Rail system but also making them the model for public transit projects nationwide, especially with their almost accurate estimated time of completion schedules.
I remember watching promo videos for the new monorail as a kid. So happy to finally have an explanation behind it! Also low-key I was going to make this exact video for my channel, but you beat me to it and you probably did it better than I would :) amazing show!
@@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
Wow!- what a great documentary! PBS needs to pick up your documentaries for the interesting subjects and high quality production values. Thank you for your vision and work!!
Ahh the main monorail, takes you from the mall to the space needle. A route I almost never found useful. Heck it's close enough to walk if you are in the mood
Nothing has made me angrier in politics than the death of this project. Anything subjected to 5 votes is going to fail at one point or another. The slightest bit of political will at any point to help overcome the problems they were facing would've saved the project. Sound Transit delivered way less for way more money, and the politicians bent over backwards to prevent the people from killing it. Now we're going to pay upwards of ten times as much for Sound Transit to build something similar and have it open 30 years later. By far the biggest mistake this city has ever made.
@@TimeLemur6 it is the role of government to fund roads. Not the role of government to build a monorail. The taxes we pay on gasoline pays for roads. This is all public information.
Being from the area from back in the 70's, as a kid I would ride sometimes. From where we lived 144 South between Military Way and Old 99 Riverton Heights. From there I would ride the bus to down Seattle to a restaurant named Fransisco's cool place down by the carwash with the pink elephant spraying it's self sign. Seattle was a cool city to grow up near as kid no worries not like today poor city is not be looked after like it should be.Anyway great presentation well put together and informative. The gentleman doing the voice over good you kept interested some people try to do voice over on documentary's and more or fall flat boring the listener to sleep or sound like finger nails on a chalkboard. Over on the Eastside of Washington we don't need light rail just less people moving the Tri-Cities no one from the wet side likes it anyway,I remember as kid how it looked down at. Not as Cultured as the Puget Sound area was the thinking well been here since the summer of 1980 moved her from Kenmore at the end of my Freshman year. Would run in to a couple class mates from my elementary school days at Cascade View Elementary school. We have a little taste of city life that's all we need not too much.
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.
@@LatitudeSky the biggest obstacle the commuter rail is facing is that Norfolk Southern has been reluctant to share their right of way. They would need additional trackage to deal with the increased traffic...
I live about 1.5 hours away from Seattle. They leech the fuck out of everyone in the state and have tax surpluses year after year then ask for even more taxes AND still don't have this shit done. Reduce politician pay
Sometimes during rush hour at the corner of First Street and Trimble Road in San Jose, one can sit for several minutes waiting for light rail to get out of the way. It doesn’t even seem like many people use it. There’s no official figures on cost per ride, but my back of the envelope calculation came up with a cost of more than $10 a ride. Of course, it would get a lot more use if we paid for road use, with higher prices at rush hour. A lot of mass transit would work if the real cost of driving wasn’t hidden. I was a contractor at Apple for many months and took advantage of their bus system to get to work. So much easier than rush hour driving.
For anyone who has taken the Seattle Underground Tour, which highlights the silly mismatch between maintaining lower tidelands as real estate and building a properly graded city (at Pioneer Square), the mindset hasn't changed for Seattle in a hundred years! There is something most peculiar about this municipal financing and development. Anywhere else it happens pretty well as expected, but Seattle has all kinds of bizarre issues. Maybe it is related to Vancouver's weird rejection of being integrated into Portland's light rail system? It needn't have cost that much and would have provided an alternative to the Interstate Bridge congestion which has been going on for fifty years (at congestion hours) at least!
I haven't lived in Washington since 1990. Back in the early 80's I lived in Renton moving from the Yakima Valley. The area needed a rapid transit system into Seattle and connecting to the rest of the cities around the greater Seattle area. The traffic was horrible especially traveling on the 405 loop going into I-5. The Highway Department was trying to widen the 405 loop and it was a nightmare. The Monorail would have been perfect for the area.
My uncle was brought in to repair and modernize the Seattle Monorail following the last accident. I was treated to a tour of the shop while one of them was under repair. Fascinating technology! My uncle is a train buff and told me the history of the Seattle Monorail and it’s operation since the 60’s.
Hats off to you and your team. I watched this last night, and it was an incredible documentary. Great images, videos, quotes, and maps. Some of these RUclips documentaries do not show you the visuals and representation you used. 10/10 keep them up!
I'm not a supporter of monorails in general, but I feel like the city management pulled all stops to hold this back, plus the lack of transparency didn't help. If the board of directors were allowed in on discussion, this would have resolved plenty of issues and maybe delivered a downscaled project.
I voted for the monorail at each opportunity and remember feeling devastated and betrayed when SMP was disbanded. The Link light rail system has some serious capacity limitations and a lot of those issues are due to running at grade with traffic in the Rainier Valley - something that would not have been an issue with the monorail. Also, it should be noted the Tacoma Link system is not true light rail - it's a low-speed streetcar stuck in traffic.
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.
Former Seattle tax payer here. Born and raised Seattle native, moved away in 2012. Yeah I voted for this stupid thing multiple times. And guess what, I'm still waiting for a refund.
Does monorail offer any advantages over elevated light rail? Switching lines is problematic for monorails and there are a few operational headaches. Monorail is easier to put in high places since it is easier to make a monorail than a viaduct with a trail line on it, but I can't really think of a reason why operating a monorail would be any better than an elevated rail platform.
Good video. The real tragedy isn't the loss of the monorail. It really wasn't a great idea--many neighborhoods through which it would have passed would have objected pretty strenuously. Who really wants the elevated line like down Fifth Avenue down the middle of California Avenue SW? The sad tale is the failure of rapid transit to get approved during the first Forward Thrust votes. The person in the video praising highways and cars was, I imagine, taken by surprise when Seattleites rose up against more freeways. Seattle could have avoided a fair bit of agony had it built a sound rapid transit system in the 1970s when land and labor was a lot cheaper.
Would be interesting to know more about the monorail support (or lack there of) from unions and construction firms. Also, who proposed the long-term high yield bonds that inflated the cost? Who on the board were supporting this idea, and did they have a financial incentive to do so? What were the motives behind the myriad of city employees and board members to undo the will of the Seattle voters, repeatedly? Lower taxes? Fear of the spread of crime? So many questions after watching this informative video!
As a Seattle native the Monorail construction debacle will always make me angry. Even before the 90's referendum the city could have done a simple line extension to connect the Space Needle to SoDo when the King Dome was being built but they never did. Another issue with the Monorail was that it was sadly too localized to Seattle. Mayor Nickels and other politicians wanted their grand light rail mega project that would cement their legacies. It is very funny seeing them worry about construction cost and time tables for the Monorail when the light rail system is going to cost 150 billion dollars when it is finished and that is not including future repair and maintenance. I don't want to end on a downer note but here we go. I was a kid in the 90's in Seattle (well north Seattle) and maybe this happens to everybody when you reach a certain age; but man I miss the way things used to be. Between Amazon taking over, real estate speculation, constant construction, and dealing with drug addicts (most of whom are from out of state though) this place just doesn't have character anymore. We're just going to have Mega City's where you are either rich or broke.
Over planning, under developing. It’s too bad. The existing Link Light rail is the lone reason I moved here. After living in NYC and Japan, I realize how the transportation system in the US is very underwhelming. I wish there were more cities that had these systems. I think Seattle will get it right. We definitely do not need anymore pollution promoting suburban decay in this country. And I love how the state of Washington clearly shows this.
So, the original World's Fair Monorail is about a mile long and cost $3M back then. When the SMP was running I think the CPI said that would translate to about $19M. Anyone heard of or remember the famous KL M-Trans letter to the SMP indicating they were building monorail for $8M a-mile USD and that they were interested in the project? Okay, extrapolate and say around $20M a-mile for monorail is a more than fair ballpark figure. In the relatively short time the MVET was collected by the SMP it is reported that $225M came in. $225M / $20M a-mile = 11.25 miles of monorail. I would venture to say that, without graft or need for the financing fiasco, we could have had the full-paid for 14-mile Green Line right then and there.
Hey, I don’t know if you would be interested in making this kind of video but I think a history of the Himalayan Blackberry’s introduction to the Pacific Northwest would be really cool in your style!
It’s funny how Seattle never went through with this, yet now we are putting in light rail which is literally what the monorail would have been, but a lot more cost effective. Such a shame though, the monorail would have been so nice!
Seattle could have had a great system, if it had been expanded on, in the mid 60's, but money or pesky politicians ...for the most part, who don't envision the future. When you mentioned Dick Falkenbury, I remembered Kim Pederson and the Monorail Society, now there was insight. At least we have a few systems now., we just need to expand on them.
I always knew there was a push to go with monorail in Seattle, but I had no idea how far they got. Being on a county's citizens advisory council for transit and development myself, it's amazing how far they got and in how short a time frame.
As an 8 year old kid, I attended the “Worlds Fair”. Rode the monorail, went to the top of the Space Needle, and enjoyed the “wild Mouse” rollercoaster. Thanks for the memories. 10 years later, I started a career in transportation that lasted for 48 years.
Great video! I love that you included Sound Transit information in the video as well. My favorite part, which I was hoping was included, was the information about Seattle losing federal funds and being diverted to Atlanta for their Marta creation. Being a couple of hours away from Atlanta, it's a little bit of history I always love to share.
When I moved to Seattle in 2005 I paid a "Monorail Fee" of $50.00 to register my car. I wonder where the accumulation of those fees ultimately went when the Monorail expansion died?
Oh gawd. While maybe "Monorail" was not the correct technology for Seattle. Light rail sure wasn't. Seattle is basically the same complexity as Vancouver, and some kind of Elevated rail was the right choice. Even a subway has the major drawback of not being able to do steep grades, so a north-to-south subway would have been possible, but a east to west would not. Look where the monorail is presently, a mostly downhill ride from the space needle to downtown. Light rail is awful at everything it proports to be good at except for urban sprawl. If a city is not compact, then yes light rail is an upgrade from a rapid bus. But every light rail project becomes a traffic snarler. All of them. As for the existing monorail. Ride it. It's very bumpy and rattles a lot compared to the Vancouver skytrain. This is because the propulsion method on the cars isn't suitable to how it's being driven. Automatic driving gradually speeds up and slows down, but the way the Seattle monorail is driven is like a conventional rail vehicle with the driver lead-footing it and then braking hard. This is also responsible for several of the accidents.
Excellent documentary. Well explained about a transit system which Seattle fortunately never built. LRT has the potential to transform the metro area, although cost is an issue particulary for Seattle's case. Monorails are really a relic of paleo futurism...
I suspect a lot of this was probably sabotaged by the auto industry behind the scenes. People wanted the monorail for years, and nothing was built. Yet, when the majority of people are rejecting a freeway, which always cost much more, it gets built anyways no matter how many neighborhoods it bulldozes.
The crux of the problem seems to be... this project is too big and expensive to be funded by Seattle city alone. Sound Transit's light rail is essentially a bamboozle scheme that the whole Puget Sound region's 3 million residents pay for a Seattle-central system. That's the only way our region can pay for a project like this. The sad thing seems to be that light rail to Ballard and West Seattle will cost 10x times more than monorail and comes decades later.
It's just so annoying to see potentially a great project completely disbanded. The existing monorail is showing it works; the polls clearly showed people wanted the monorail. How obstinate were local politicians to not want to just extend the existing line?
It's insane. The suggestion of the monorail to go from Kent to Montlake, and also east/west... GUYS, WE ARE STILL TRYING TO GET THAT FUCKING WORKING. The Lightrail system is so inconvenient. Why couldn't this all be done back then?
This just in: voters are short-sighted, easily swayed to the negative, and not best equipped to understand city development and transit. What a collection of missed opportunities.
Hard to imagine living in a time with so much hope & optimism for the future.
thank you for documenting the fight, i remember being so mad that we kept approving mass transit plans and the state and city would just not do it
Like New York City whose traffic abatement plans get shot down by the suburban dominated state govt
Only first-generation Alweg monorail still in operation using its original period equipment. It started out being futuristic and is now historical!
I'm still mad.
I'm still "non-plussed" by this as well.
And for having twice! voted down a new stadium and (in the end) finding 2 new stadiums instead.
#ripkingdom
@@kickinghorse2405 Yes, it was deeply problematic that we had to keep voting on these matters until an acceptable result was reached. I do think that it was a mistake to not include more monorails as part of the overall transit system. Yes, there are issues, for example it's one of the hardest types of transit to change routes on, but it's also above the ground, looks cool and is relatively quiet. It's also a great option as they can climb up and down things that other options really can't handle without a great deal of problems. Also, a short monorail through downtown could help a lot with the problem of being largely maxed out under ground.
You know what? These hyper local histories are so great. I love youtube.
Speaking as one who was deeply involved in the monorail effort from 1998 to 2004 (and seen waving signs at 36:42 in the video), this is a well-produced and quite accurate documentary. Well done. Bittersweet...though I admit, I'm still mostly just bitter. But thank you, Peter, for producing this story.
LVT might've solved this, if it really came down to the funding. Otherwise, it's a prime example of how the people we elect can actively work against what we have decided and overtly expressed on multiple occassions should be done. Many of those shenanigans should've been illegal, yet a lot of those characters moved onward and upward in the system -- to be even better empowered to sabatoge the project.
Sad story of corruption.
@@janningc The whole thing was rather frustrating. I voted for the monorail during the elections where I was allowed to vote. But, I don't remember the people in opposition having an alternative for grade separated transit to help deal with the massive traffic problems that were already a common occurrence at that time. Let alone the ones that were expected to come due to population growth.
I rode the monorail a few years ago, still smells like the 1960s in there, worth the short round trip, only wish the ride was longer
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❤
Form the old world fair site to the city, aka we could opt,ise it more to link to several areas of the city+
Monorails are somewhat problematic in some ways, hence why they haven't really caught on. However, I do think there's a case for having them in a few strategic locations where it's hard to run other transit options, or like along the water front where it's just cool.
Great informative video and very well produced. Thanks.
The fatal flaw was the original funding. It should have been an increase to the sales tax, not an increase in the vehicle registration fee. Why? Because the more public transit that gets built going forward, the less number of cars you would have and therefore less funding in the future. I can't believe no one saw the irony in that funding scheme.
Had they gone with a sales tax increase, they would be enjoying a comprehensive monorail system today instead of the 1 mile tourist attraction.
The idea is sound, if you can finish a project fast enough that people don't vote to lower registration fees.
Cars more expensive, rail gets built, rail cheaper than car, fewer cars, then rail sustains itself.
Generally, you only get one election cycle to get all of that done, unless you start drafting laws to compel later Administrations to progress your own projects.
I'm p
No. The fatal flaw is public transportation. City bureaucrats who drive BMWs love to dream up multibillion dollar projects (boondoggles) for the "little people" to stand outside in the rain/snow/blazing heat/ freezing cold waiting for the transit to come along which almost never on time.
What is up with monorail?
My city has an elevated train line (it's actually both an elevated train and a subway) which is commonly called "the el" or the M-F (Market Frankford line) which runs from Northeast Philadelphia to West Philadelphia via center city. It was built a 120 years ago and was rebuilt about 25 years ago. Despite how old it is, it isn't profitable.
How is a monorail any better?
Sounds completely indicative of the nonsensical liberal mindset, demonstrated time and time again.
We FINALLY have a light rail.. close to 50 years later.. still not finished though..
Lived here 30 years. Still can't get from Kirkland to West Seattle on any kind of mass transit, short of a very slow sequence of very slow busses.... c'est la vie.
I was born in 95 in Seattle so I never got to have adult thoughts and feelings about it when it was still relevant, but I remember as a child how people talked about it. It was about hope at the end of the day. It’s one of the reasons I love Seattle still. It’s a very special place and I never want to leave.
It’s people like Falkenbury that make me love living here.
I was a huge supporter of the Monorail Project, and kept voting for it over and over. I began to have doubts when I read about the single-tracking. What made me finally vote No was that 50-year bond. I still think it was a good idea, but planned out terribly.
I think the mistake more than anything else was that it was too focused on monorails when there should have been light rail and other grade separated components as well. There definitely are locations where alternative modes of transportation would be appropriate. There needs to be a better way of getting up and down Queen Anne Hill, especially during snow. I've thought for quite some time that having a Gondola option for just getting from the top to a small transit station would add so much to the area, and solve the problem of access during snow storms.
Probably the most frustrating part of seeing these chains of events end in failure is that oftentimes, preventing only a few of the bad decisions might have changed the fate of the project. Seems like that was especially the case here, given the fairly strong public support for the project until the hidden costs came out.
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.
Thank you for collating and presenting this. As someone whose interest in a Seattle came from a syndicated TV show to Australia, to finally being able to visit in 2018, learning more and more about the trouble past and history has been incredible. I sincerely appreciate it.
Gray's Anatomy?
@@ct6852Frasier
it’s a beautiful and special city! hello from a seattlite who dreams of visiting aus and nz someday :)
@@mxandrew There's this family on RUclips from NZ that is traveling all over the US as we speak and they said Seattle most reminded them of Auckland.
@@ct6852 ive heard similar things!!!!!!!!!!!! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
3:53 Seeing so much sky in these old pictures of Seattle, like this one, is amazing--nothing but tall buildings, now.
I went to the opening of the 2 Line ("Short line") a couple weeks ago, it was an excellent event. Every time I learn more about the history of Seattle public transit it's disappointing; we should be so much further along with more connectivity. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't stop trying, and the energy behind the movement is stronger than ever. Our governor and both senators were at the opening, and it was so crowded I had to wait for the third train despite being there an hour and a half before the first departure.
Wonderful video once again, I'm glad to see one featuring an area I know so intimately now!
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
@@bjf10the light rail is anything but slow.. north gate to sea-tac in less than 40 minutes
The Disneyland Monorail actually opened with a funny story....Walt abducted then Vice President Nixon without Nixon's security! The monorail was designed by famed Imagineer Bob Gurr (who designed most of Disneyland's ride vehicles like Haunted Mansion and Autopia). Up until opening day, the monorail would not cooperate with them. Gurr and a German engineer worked tirelessly each night on sketching replacement parts and rushing them to Burbank so they could be built. The day before on June 13, 1959, the monorail ran as intended for the first time, but they were still worried for opening day on the 14th. Gurr was in the pilot's seat, with Nixon's family and Walt on board, but the secret service agents didn't get on board as Gurr left the moment Walt told him to. He was worried, with Walt staring at him, that the monorail would break down and he accidentally kidnapped Nixon. Thankfully, it ran as intended.
More on the Space Needle: At one point in time, the Space Needle was the tallest structure west of the Mississippi River! It was built to withstand up to 200 mph (320 km per hour) winds and earthquakes up to a magnitude of 9! It took 400 days to build it, 74,000 bolts to hold it together, and 5,600 tons of concrete poured into the Needle’s foundation! It was designed by John Graham & Company. The idea for a tower with a restaurant at the top came from Edward E. Carlson, chairman of the exposition, after he visited the Fernsehturm Stuttgart. After local John Graham designed the Northgate Mall in 1950, he got involved. Graham altered the restaurant to be a revolving one, based off another he was designing in Honolulu around the same time. Graham patented a gearing system that allowed you to turn the entire restaurant of 250 people with a one-horsepower motor for the original turntable. The new turntable uses 12 motors. Graham wanted a flying saucer design for the fair's Space Age theme. Architect Victor Steinbrueck was a consultant to John Graham's firm, and Victor came up with the wasp-waisted tower shape based on an abstract wooden sculpture in his home of a dancer by David Lemon called "The Feminine One", a sculpture inspired by Syvilla Fort. Syvilla Fort was a pioneer in dancing from Seattle, and she knew Lemon and Steinbrueck while at the Cornish School of Allied Arts in the 1930s. There is a bronze replica of this sculpture right outside the Space Needle.
Sad that Graham's revolving resturaunt in Hawaii was welded in place in the 90's.
The Space Needle is designed to look like a UFO sitting on top of a Champaign glass stem.
These videos are incredibly valuable. Thanks Peter
A big thank you to Peter from the members of The Monorail Society for producing this documentary! It seems to me that the mismanagement and secrecy by directors is what killed it. The board and all of its supporters were enthusiastic for monorail, but not the leadership who were poor communicators. How utterly heartbreaking, a loss for Seattle and American history.
Any system is good, on RUclips 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.
An hour long Peter Dribble video on the Seattle monorail? Well hell I’m dropping what I’m doing for the day and watching this.
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
I only wish the Spruce Goose video was longer. However, it was an exceptional video.
I live in the Seattle area and learned a few things in this video. Thank you!
"Easier to build over challenging terrain" at 15:52, exactly, that's a big factor you can justify building an elevated system like a monorail system for, because using monorails leverages the ability to negotiate steep grades and tight curves and rapid transit capacity, like Chongqing's Lines 2 and 3! Chongqing, China is a huge densely populated but mountainous city, with multiple river valleys, so using monorail or an elevated metro is the best option, and Chongqing's monorails are capable of transporting 32,000 passengers per hour per direction! A cool fact about Chongqing's monorail is Liziba station on Line 2 where the monorail goes through a 19-story residential building, the station and the building were constructed together, so it's transit-oriented development to the max! The station uses specialized noise reduction equipment to isolate station noise from the surrounding residences! You can't plan a system without considering geography (whether it's rivers, mountains, soil, etc), transit isn't a one size fits all, and so in mountainous cities or mountainous neighborhoods of cities, or using cable cars, funiculars, elevated metro, or a monorail may be the best option! And geography aside, building elevated transit in general like Vancouver's SkyTrain, Miami Metrorail, Medellín Metro, or the Chicago L is great for grade-separation and thus great frequencies without having to build a whole underground system.
Geography is the reason why the iconic Wuppertal Schwebebahn or Wuppertal Suspension Railway in Germany is the way it is! They ended up building a suspended monorail because Wuppertal is located in a river valley (that's what Wuppertal means; Wupper Valley), and because of steep slopes, the original towns that now makes up Wuppertal expanded lengthwise (resulting in the thin shape of Wuppertal today). It wasn't suitable to build a tram nor a subway, so as a way to both unify the valley and find a place for transit to solve congestion, they built a suspended monorail that followed the Wupper River. It is the oldest electric elevated railway with hanging cars in the world as it opened in 1901!
Pittsburgh would really benefit from a Chongqing style system, both share similar terrain challenges
YOU'RE HERE TOO?
A failure to collaborate literally killed the Seattle monorail. The ungenerous temperaments of Tom Weeks and Joel Horn should be remembered as the kind of leadership that is to be strenuously avoided.
Nah. It was a bad idea in the first place. For all the pain of making a monorail, why not just make an el?
@@tarstarkusz Took me a bit to figure out EL is shorthand for elevated railway. My guess is that an elevator rail would have required more construction, and look less flashy than the "futuristic" monorail. But, yeah, something like the Chicago L would have been way better and probably been more successful. Hopefully the Seattle Link Light Rail will succeed where the Monorail failed.
@@Jian13 Philadelphia and NYC both also have an el and I'm pretty sure there are others in the US. In my mind, there is really nothing futuristic about a monorail.
@@tarstarkuszthey have a subway system. Some of the track
Is above ground, some below, some
Elevated. Most cities don't call their light rail system an “EL”
@@tarstarkuszi can only assume you're not from here, as lost of
Cities Have light rail public transportation.
I've always been kinda split on the monorail.
On one hand, if we did build it, it would've resulted in Seattle getting a good transit system a lot earlier.
But on the other hand, traditional rail transit is so much more practical and flexible than monorail transit.
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.
@@stereomachineAnd 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.
An hour long documentary made on my favorite method of transportation around the downtown Seattle area is not what I expected to see but damnit I’m glad I have
There’s a lesson we transportation planner follow: don’t start with a solution and look for a problem. Identify the need for transit improvement and then evaluate when modes and options would address them.
Uh, don't see why they couldn't extend the EXISTING MONORAIL incrementally station-by-new-station, like a Heritage Streetcar line, they failed in part trying to be too ambitious, if they had just done a modest extension, they would have gained experience in planning, building, and financing that could have lead to a longer line.
Another great video as always! Thank you for putting these together.
A more accurate title is how Seattle accepted the Monorail 4 times and never built it.
This channel should have millions of subscribers! At least I think so.
The PATCO Speedline between South Jersey and Philadelphia was the first in the US to use Automatic Train Operation/ATO as it opened in 1969 before BART did in 1972, though of course BART took it to another level by building a bigger system from the ground up! The Transbay Tube that opened in 1974 is an engineering feat! Something to mention regarding the Link light-rail is that after the rapid transit plan was rejected in 1970, they still wanted to build a sort of subway, so they opted to build a downtown bus tunnel that could be converted to light-rail, and this was proposed as the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel in 1974, approved in 1983, construction began in 1987, and opened in 1990. When the bus tunnel was opened in 1990, they already installed light-rail tracks in anticipation, however they had to be replaced when the tracks were later found to be poorly insulated and unusable. And there was a scandal during the tunnel's construction when it was discovered in 1989 that the granite was quarried in South Africa (but was cut and finished in Italy) despite a boycott of South African goods by the King County Metro Council at the time.
For several years, service in the tunnel was provided exclusively by dual-mode buses, which ran as trolleybuses in the tunnel and diesel buses on city streets. Putting buses in the tunnel meant less traffic on city streets! The dual-mode trolleybuses were replaced by hybrid electric buses to prepare for the light-rail as the overhead wire was replaced for light-rail. And when the light-rail opened in 2009, the tunnel had unique operations where buses and the light-rail shared it, just like Pittsburgh's Mount Washington Transit Tunnel! That is until 2019 when Convention Place station was sold to the Washington State Convention Center for redevelopment, closing the tunnel to buses two years earlier than the scheduled closure of 2021 (which was meant to coincide with the Northgate Link expansion). Making the tunnel light-rail only.
Yes! This was a big part of transit history for Seattle. Not only was it great for the buses (at the time) but it influenced Sound Transit and their light rail. Without it, they would have been in deep trouble. They would have either had to pay for a downtown tunnel (which is really expensive) or run on the surface. Running on the surface is fine (Portland does it) but this would have greatly reduced the value of their initial line, especially compared to the monorail. The people in charge could have easily given up and just put it into bus service (and they almost did anyway). That likely would have opened the door wide open for the monorail. It is ironic that the monorail couldn't use the existing monorail tracks, while the light rail owes its existence in large part to leveraging the existing transit tunnel (that only carried buses when it was built).
They should have just expanded the old monorail. It was literally right there.
Great info! As a MAX/Trimet rider, I can tell you that there is downfalls of the system but it is much more efficient than when I was having to ride the bus downtown.
I look forward to every documentary you post, Peter. (I can't call them 'videos,' they're so much better than that!) They're so well researched, the footage and images you use are beautiful, and the stories you tell are so interesting and historic. I love them. I'm already looking forward to the next one!
Loved this film Peter! THANKS! ❤❤❤❤
Glad you are back. Your story telling is outstanding! Combined with the great visuals and beautiful music, it's simply stunning
as a frequent rider of Bart, in visitor to Seattle
it said that neither of these have ever been fully completed to stay what was originally promised
1970
Seattle MSA - 1,556,000
Atlanta MSA - 1,182,000
2020
Seattle MSA - 4,018,762
Atlanta MSA - 6,930,423
Thanks for the trains!
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.
Went on the mono rail just recently with my kids and oh it was everything I ever thought it would be!! Wish it was longer
Love the video. For the time being your channel is a hidden gem. As someone who lived in the Seattle area for 7 years, going downtown fairly often, I love learning the history. Fun fact, My first time riding a monorail was in Las Vegas as a kid to see Star Trek the Experience at the Hilton, as pictured in the video at 31:43.
These documentaries are great! Thank-you. If you want to find plenty of arrogance and incompetence, but no vision, look no further than politics. To paraphrase Thoreau, the only way government furthers an enterprise is by quickly getting out of the way.
I have lived in Seattle almost 30 years, having moved here in January 1995.
The light rail system opened in July of 2009- 15 years ago. Really, for the cost of the thing, it should be more extensive by now. Southbound, the line ends at Angle Lake, in the city of SeaTac. Northbound, it ends at Northgate but will be extended to Lynnwood August 30th.
By contrast, San Diego,where I grew up, opened their light rail system in 1981, and they didn't get any federal money. I lived there again, briefly, in 1993. In the ensuing 12 years, it went all around the city and the county,at least 30 miles of track. It has expanded even more in the last few years.
People from Seattle love to put down California- a woman once said to me that she couldn't believe I was from SD because she had never before met anyone from the city that was intelligent!
Seattle just can't seem to do anything right.
Everything is always on point. Can't get enough!
I loved that Alweg monorail as a kid. It was like an amusement park ride.
It has been about 50 years since I have been on the Monorail. I found it to be a very enjoyable ride. The area around the World's Fair is very impressive. Taking a trip up the Space Needle was a breath taking view of Seattle and the Puget Sound. I have been at assemblies in the Coliseum where the Seattle Supersonics used to play. And have gone through the Science Center Buildings. The Space Needle always reminded me of the Jetsons Residence.
Truly fascinating video. It's a real shame how when it all came together, things began to fall apart to actually make this happen. While we can only wonder what could've been, it's interesting to see that all that chaos and failures at Sound Transit made them not only more successful with building the Link Light Rail system but also making them the model for public transit projects nationwide, especially with their almost accurate estimated time of completion schedules.
I love your productions, keep them going!
About 45 years ago I worked down the hill from the fair site. Every now and then I would take the monorail. It was free and comfortable.
I remember watching promo videos for the new monorail as a kid. So happy to finally have an explanation behind it!
Also low-key I was going to make this exact video for my channel, but you beat me to it and you probably did it better than I would :) amazing show!
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!
Wow!- what a great documentary!
PBS needs to pick up your documentaries for the interesting subjects and high quality production values.
Thank you for your vision and work!!
Ahh the main monorail, takes you from the mall to the space needle. A route I almost never found useful. Heck it's close enough to walk if you are in the mood
Nothing has made me angrier in politics than the death of this project. Anything subjected to 5 votes is going to fail at one point or another. The slightest bit of political will at any point to help overcome the problems they were facing would've saved the project. Sound Transit delivered way less for way more money, and the politicians bent over backwards to prevent the people from killing it. Now we're going to pay upwards of ten times as much for Sound Transit to build something similar and have it open 30 years later. By far the biggest mistake this city has ever made.
Not the role of government to build monorail. If it’s such a good idea private industry would build it. See the Brightline in Florida as an example.
To go with all the highways built and maintained by private firms, right? God forbid the government do things for the public good.
@@TimeLemur6 it is the role of government to fund roads. Not the role of government to build a monorail. The taxes we pay on gasoline pays for roads. This is all public information.
@jasoncrandall The taxes we pay on gas doesn't come close to maintaining our roads, let alone building new roads. This is all public information.
I lived through all this. A really well done historical document. Peter is a real gem of the PNW history.
Being from the area from back in the 70's, as a kid I would ride sometimes. From where we lived 144 South between Military Way and Old 99 Riverton Heights. From there I would ride the bus to down Seattle to a restaurant named Fransisco's cool place down by the carwash with the pink elephant spraying it's self sign. Seattle was a cool city to grow up near as kid no worries not like today poor city is not be looked after like it should be.Anyway great presentation well put together and informative. The gentleman doing the voice over good you kept interested some people try to do voice over on documentary's and more or fall flat boring the listener to sleep or sound like finger nails on a chalkboard. Over on the Eastside of Washington we don't need light rail just less people moving the Tri-Cities no one from the wet side likes it anyway,I remember as kid how it looked down at. Not as Cultured as the Puget Sound area was the thinking well been here since the summer of 1980 moved her from Kenmore at the end of my Freshman year. Would run in to a couple class mates from my elementary school days at Cascade View Elementary school. We have a little taste of city life that's all we need not too much.
Seattle, as an Atlanta resident, we thank you.
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.
@@LatitudeSky the biggest obstacle the commuter rail is facing is that Norfolk Southern has been reluctant to share their right of way. They would need additional trackage to deal with the increased traffic...
I live about 1.5 hours away from Seattle. They leech the fuck out of everyone in the state and have tax surpluses year after year then ask for even more taxes AND still don't have this shit done. Reduce politician pay
Sometimes during rush hour at the corner of First Street and Trimble Road in San Jose, one can sit for several minutes waiting for light rail to get out of the way.
It doesn’t even seem like many people use it.
There’s no official figures on cost per ride, but my back of the envelope calculation came up with a cost of more than $10 a ride.
Of course, it would get a lot more use if we paid for road use, with higher prices at rush hour. A lot of mass transit would work if the real cost of driving wasn’t hidden.
I was a contractor at Apple for many months and took advantage of their bus system to get to work. So much easier than rush hour driving.
For anyone who has taken the Seattle Underground Tour, which highlights the silly mismatch between maintaining lower tidelands as real estate and building a properly graded city (at Pioneer Square), the mindset hasn't changed for Seattle in a hundred years!
There is something most peculiar about this municipal financing and development. Anywhere else it happens pretty well as expected, but Seattle has all kinds of bizarre issues. Maybe it is related to Vancouver's weird rejection of being integrated into Portland's light rail system? It needn't have cost that much and would have provided an alternative to the Interstate Bridge congestion which has been going on for fifty years (at congestion hours) at least!
The Northwest is Just Like That I guess.
I haven't lived in Washington since 1990. Back in the early 80's I lived in Renton moving from the Yakima Valley. The area needed a rapid transit system into Seattle and connecting to the rest of the cities around the greater Seattle area. The traffic was horrible especially traveling on the 405 loop going into I-5. The Highway Department was trying to widen the 405 loop and it was a nightmare. The Monorail would have been perfect for the area.
My uncle was brought in to repair and modernize the Seattle Monorail following the last accident. I was treated to a tour of the shop while one of them was under repair. Fascinating technology! My uncle is a train buff and told me the history of the Seattle Monorail and it’s operation since the 60’s.
We all know that the best mass transit concept is the Wedway PeopleMover.
Hats off to you and your team. I watched this last night, and it was an incredible documentary. Great images, videos, quotes, and maps. Some of these RUclips documentaries do not show you the visuals and representation you used. 10/10 keep them up!
Oh yeah, Peter dropped a new documentary, I am looking forward to this evening.
I'm not a supporter of monorails in general, but I feel like the city management pulled all stops to hold this back, plus the lack of transparency didn't help. If the board of directors were allowed in on discussion, this would have resolved plenty of issues and maybe delivered a downscaled project.
I voted for the monorail at each opportunity and remember feeling devastated and betrayed when SMP was disbanded. The Link light rail system has some serious capacity limitations and a lot of those issues are due to running at grade with traffic in the Rainier Valley - something that would not have been an issue with the monorail. Also, it should be noted the Tacoma Link system is not true light rail - it's a low-speed streetcar stuck in traffic.
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.
jesus christ that hit unexpectedly hard
Former Seattle tax payer here. Born and raised Seattle native, moved away in 2012. Yeah I voted for this stupid thing multiple times. And guess what, I'm still waiting for a refund.
Does monorail offer any advantages over elevated light rail? Switching lines is problematic for monorails and there are a few operational headaches. Monorail is easier to put in high places since it is easier to make a monorail than a viaduct with a trail line on it, but I can't really think of a reason why operating a monorail would be any better than an elevated rail platform.
Good video. The real tragedy isn't the loss of the monorail. It really wasn't a great idea--many neighborhoods through which it would have passed would have objected pretty strenuously. Who really wants the elevated line like down Fifth Avenue down the middle of California Avenue SW? The sad tale is the failure of rapid transit to get approved during the first Forward Thrust votes. The person in the video praising highways and cars was, I imagine, taken by surprise when Seattleites rose up against more freeways. Seattle could have avoided a fair bit of agony had it built a sound rapid transit system in the 1970s when land and labor was a lot cheaper.
Another excellent video. And great selection of contemporary video, I had forgotten how much of the city you used to be able to see from the Monorail.
Seattle traffic is outrageous as is Vancouver but I’m glad rapid transit gets us downtown Seattle needs it
Lived in western washington my entire 49 years, and think I only rode the monorail once, back in the 80's, for a school field trip, or something.
Would be interesting to know more about the monorail support (or lack there of) from unions and construction firms.
Also, who proposed the long-term high yield bonds that inflated the cost? Who on the board were supporting this idea, and did they have a financial incentive to do so?
What were the motives behind the myriad of city employees and board members to undo the will of the Seattle voters, repeatedly? Lower taxes? Fear of the spread of crime?
So many questions after watching this informative video!
CHEERS from AUSTRALIA
As a Seattle native the Monorail construction debacle will always make me angry. Even before the 90's referendum the city could have done a simple line extension to connect the Space Needle to SoDo when the King Dome was being built but they never did. Another issue with the Monorail was that it was sadly too localized to Seattle. Mayor Nickels and other politicians wanted their grand light rail mega project that would cement their legacies. It is very funny seeing them worry about construction cost and time tables for the Monorail when the light rail system is going to cost 150 billion dollars when it is finished and that is not including future repair and maintenance. I don't want to end on a downer note but here we go. I was a kid in the 90's in Seattle (well north Seattle) and maybe this happens to everybody when you reach a certain age; but man I miss the way things used to be. Between Amazon taking over, real estate speculation, constant construction, and dealing with drug addicts (most of whom are from out of state though) this place just doesn't have character anymore. We're just going to have Mega City's where you are either rich or broke.
You're greatly overexaggerating.
Monorail was/is far inferior to heavy rail (and light rail) that the current Sound Transit Link is far better off.
Over planning, under developing. It’s too bad. The existing Link Light rail is the lone reason I moved here. After living in NYC and Japan, I realize how the transportation system in the US is very underwhelming. I wish there were more cities that had these systems. I think Seattle will get it right. We definitely do not need anymore pollution promoting suburban decay in this country. And I love how the state of Washington clearly shows this.
Another terrific video! Always excited to see what you come up with bext
Great episode - thanks for your efforts!
Mono=One.
Rail=Rail.
And thus concludes our extensive 6 week training course.
So, the original World's Fair Monorail is about a mile long and cost $3M back then. When the SMP was running I think the CPI said that would translate to about $19M. Anyone heard of or remember the famous KL M-Trans letter to the SMP indicating they were building monorail for $8M a-mile USD and that they were interested in the project? Okay, extrapolate and say around $20M a-mile for monorail is a more than fair ballpark figure. In the relatively short time the MVET was collected by the SMP it is reported that $225M came in. $225M / $20M a-mile = 11.25 miles of monorail. I would venture to say that, without graft or need for the financing fiasco, we could have had the full-paid for 14-mile Green Line right then and there.
Express buses from Ballard work great and are fast, flexible and inexpensive.
Hey, I don’t know if you would be interested in making this kind of video but I think a history of the Himalayan Blackberry’s introduction to the Pacific Northwest would be really cool in your style!
It’s funny how Seattle never went through with this, yet now we are putting in light rail which is literally what the monorail would have been, but a lot more cost effective. Such a shame though, the monorail would have been so nice!
Seattle could have had a great system, if it had been expanded on, in the mid 60's, but money or pesky politicians ...for the most part, who don't envision the future. When you mentioned Dick Falkenbury, I remembered Kim Pederson and the Monorail Society, now there was insight. At least we have a few systems now., we just need to expand on them.
Should have included some Almost Live footage re: monorail -- e.g. Christmas Carol "Hell Yes we want the monorail"!
Great documentary! Loved it. Always high-quality work from Peter on this channel 🙌😎
I always knew there was a push to go with monorail in Seattle, but I had no idea how far they got. Being on a county's citizens advisory council for transit and development myself, it's amazing how far they got and in how short a time frame.
As an 8 year old kid, I attended the “Worlds Fair”. Rode the monorail, went to the top of the Space Needle, and enjoyed the “wild Mouse” rollercoaster. Thanks for the memories.
10 years later, I started a career in transportation that lasted for 48 years.
that's actually very inspiring! The World's Fair & the monorail did leave a ever lasting impression on you!
And that children, is why we can't have nice things!
Great video! I love that you included Sound Transit information in the video as well. My favorite part, which I was hoping was included, was the information about Seattle losing federal funds and being diverted to Atlanta for their Marta creation. Being a couple of hours away from Atlanta, it's a little bit of history I always love to share.
When I moved to Seattle in 2005 I paid a "Monorail Fee" of $50.00 to register my car. I wonder where the accumulation of those fees ultimately went when the Monorail expansion died?
Great video-so well thought out and well referenced.
Oh gawd. While maybe "Monorail" was not the correct technology for Seattle. Light rail sure wasn't. Seattle is basically the same complexity as Vancouver, and some kind of Elevated rail was the right choice. Even a subway has the major drawback of not being able to do steep grades, so a north-to-south subway would have been possible, but a east to west would not. Look where the monorail is presently, a mostly downhill ride from the space needle to downtown. Light rail is awful at everything it proports to be good at except for urban sprawl. If a city is not compact, then yes light rail is an upgrade from a rapid bus. But every light rail project becomes a traffic snarler. All of them.
As for the existing monorail. Ride it. It's very bumpy and rattles a lot compared to the Vancouver skytrain. This is because the propulsion method on the cars isn't suitable to how it's being driven. Automatic driving gradually speeds up and slows down, but the way the Seattle monorail is driven is like a conventional rail vehicle with the driver lead-footing it and then braking hard. This is also responsible for several of the accidents.
This just made me miss Sydney's monorails :(
"Future Foreskin" is what I saw before I clicked and still stayed. This is a compliment. I am working on my compliments.
Excellent documentary. Well explained about a transit system which Seattle fortunately never built. LRT has the potential to transform the metro area, although cost is an issue particulary for Seattle's case. Monorails are really a relic of paleo futurism...
I suspect a lot of this was probably sabotaged by the auto industry behind the scenes. People wanted the monorail for years, and nothing was built. Yet, when the majority of people are rejecting a freeway, which always cost much more, it gets built anyways no matter how many neighborhoods it bulldozes.
Now they are doing their own version of a monorail called the Link Light Rail.
Bruh this is a whole ass documentary! Good job my dude!
The crux of the problem seems to be... this project is too big and expensive to be funded by Seattle city alone.
Sound Transit's light rail is essentially a bamboozle scheme that the whole Puget Sound region's 3 million residents pay for a Seattle-central system. That's the only way our region can pay for a project like this.
The sad thing seems to be that light rail to Ballard and West Seattle will cost 10x times more than monorail and comes decades later.
It's just so annoying to see potentially a great project completely disbanded.
The existing monorail is showing it works; the polls clearly showed people wanted the monorail.
How obstinate were local politicians to not want to just extend the existing line?
It's insane. The suggestion of the monorail to go from Kent to Montlake, and also east/west...
GUYS, WE ARE STILL TRYING TO GET THAT FUCKING WORKING. The Lightrail system is so inconvenient. Why couldn't this all be done back then?
This just in: voters are short-sighted, easily swayed to the negative, and not best equipped to understand city development and transit. What a collection of missed opportunities.
Politicians and bureaucrats don't like competition from the citizens with bright ideas.