A big difference between elevated rail corridors and elevated highways is that elevated rail corridors provide accessible rail travel to all and are much quieter and more environmentally friendly compared to elevated highways which provide a means of transportation which is inaccessible unless you have a car or a bus service uses sections of this highway and the elevated highway will be noisy and polluting so overall an elevated rail corridor has much greater benefits than an elevated highway.
San Diego mayor Todd Gloria is as YIMBY as any mayor, but even he believes the proposed APM between the airport and Downtown should be underground along the waterfront.
While I agree that a Phoenix Skytrain-like APM is superior to an infrequent Trolley branch to the airport, an elevated alignment deserves consideration.
Could you write about how to locate operations and maintenance facilities within a system? San Diego Trolley has only one OMF, and it's located in Downtown.
Car infrastructure is clearly far more disruptive and noisier than transit infrastructure. Unfortunately North American architects tend to know car infrastructure and even use it for rail infrastructure which leads to overbuilding.
SkyTrain guideways are fairly small in comparison to light rail guideways. In Seattle overhead power, noise panels and evacuation rails are added which becomes much more visually imposing making it difficult to integrate in tight urban routes. Construction typically requires clearing an 80ft wide corridor making it very disruptive to serve existing neighborhoods. Often the easy way out is building lines along freeways which usually doesn't serve people directly, riders have to take a bus to the station.
I would love to see more innovative guideway construction.
Bangkok is building a monorail to reduce the visual impact. Dual track maglev systems have a low profile, too. Should we consider switching from rails to any of those?
I generally still think that two steel rails is the answer, however there is a great design document from Edmonton which goes on about the best way to design a guideway. Talking about the overall form and aesthetics, it’s quite nice to see that degree of thought going into it!
The Vancouver Skytrain still looks like an ugly two lane elevated roadway. I don't know how much more it would cost to make the underside curved and cover it it silvery metal?
Monorails get a lot of stick around here, and rightly so as they are low capacity due to their large and slow switches and low speed due to their rubber tires, but one area they do trounce regular elevated rail on is aesthetics of the track. That's why I'm actually hopeful about hanging maglev trains (Gadget- bahn I know) but they do solve the problems of aesthetics almost completely, as well as stopping Nimbys from complaining about noise. They might also solve the problem of the slow switches that monorails suffer. A track that casts as much shade as trees could be put down a lot more urban streets than one that is like a two lane road. They could also possibly be double stacked with a metro rail on the bottom tracks and a regional rail on top.
You'd also probably have to stick airliner inflating slides on the ends of that Chinese hanging maglev train to get people out quickly in emergencies, which could drive up the costs. Also if the maglev is over a busy could these slides hit cars when inflating?
A big difference between elevated rail corridors and elevated highways is that elevated rail corridors provide accessible rail travel to all and are much quieter and more environmentally friendly compared to elevated highways which provide a means of transportation which is inaccessible unless you have a car or a bus service uses sections of this highway and the elevated highway will be noisy and polluting so overall an elevated rail corridor has much greater benefits than an elevated highway.
Absolutely, greater benefits with far less negative externalities!
There's a few people in Toronto's Wallace-Emmerson nabe that need to read this.
San Diego mayor Todd Gloria is as YIMBY as any mayor, but even he believes the proposed APM between the airport and Downtown should be underground along the waterfront.
While I agree that a Phoenix Skytrain-like APM is superior to an infrequent Trolley branch to the airport, an elevated alignment deserves consideration.
Could you write about how to locate operations and maintenance facilities within a system? San Diego Trolley has only one OMF, and it's located in Downtown.
That’s a good idea!
Car infrastructure is clearly far more disruptive and noisier than transit infrastructure. Unfortunately North American architects tend to know car infrastructure and even use it for rail infrastructure which leads to overbuilding.
SkyTrain guideways are fairly small in comparison to light rail guideways. In Seattle overhead power, noise panels and evacuation rails are added which becomes much more visually imposing making it difficult to integrate in tight urban routes. Construction typically requires clearing an 80ft wide corridor making it very disruptive to serve existing neighborhoods. Often the easy way out is building lines along freeways which usually doesn't serve people directly, riders have to take a bus to the station.
I would love to see more innovative guideway construction.
Bangkok is building a monorail to reduce the visual impact. Dual track maglev systems have a low profile, too. Should we consider switching from rails to any of those?
I generally still think that two steel rails is the answer, however there is a great design document from Edmonton which goes on about the best way to design a guideway. Talking about the overall form and aesthetics, it’s quite nice to see that degree of thought going into it!
Can you share a link from Edmonton?
Quite annoying but, cannot find right now! If I do I will share it!
The Vancouver Skytrain still looks like an ugly two lane elevated roadway. I don't know how much more it would cost to make the underside curved and cover it it silvery metal?
Monorails get a lot of stick around here, and rightly so as they are low capacity due to their large and slow switches and low speed due to their rubber tires, but one area they do trounce regular elevated rail on is aesthetics of the track. That's why I'm actually hopeful about hanging maglev trains (Gadget- bahn I know) but they do solve the problems of aesthetics almost completely, as well as stopping Nimbys from complaining about noise. They might also solve the problem of the slow switches that monorails suffer. A track that casts as much shade as trees could be put down a lot more urban streets than one that is like a two lane road. They could also possibly be double stacked with a metro rail on the bottom tracks and a regional rail on top.
https://newatlas.com/urban-transport/china-sky-train-permanent-magnets/
You'd also probably have to stick airliner inflating slides on the ends of that Chinese hanging maglev train to get people out quickly in emergencies, which could drive up the costs. Also if the maglev is over a busy could these slides hit cars when inflating?
https://www.edmonton.ca/sites/default/files/public-files/assets/RoadsTraffic/Project%20Agreement%20Valley%20Line%20LRT%20Schedule%205%20-%20Part%202%20Sustainable%20Urban%20Integration.pdf has nice details. Sound Transit used to do box girders, but is now using the same T-beams as it is commonly used for highway construction, much bulkier.
This seems to have a lot of it in it, but the other presentation I was referring to was quite visual, so they had visual references for everything
would love to see that, let me know if you can find it!