Watching the news lately I’ve noticed a lot of talk on auto traffic getting worse. When are the city fathers going to look into rail traffic. Commuter rail over highway mediums. Elevated with no traffic lights to worry about, A two rail system with one rain inbound and one rail outbound. Guarded, out of city parking. And while im on the subject, why not a elevated monorail system all around the country. Again, a two rail system, one going and one comming. If we had a passenger system like this, I believe more people would ride trains. They would be safer, quiet and much faster than surface travel, and more reliable than air traffic.
As soon as the rail lobby is more powerful than the highway lobby.
I agree with Larry,they’ve been studying it for over ten years
here in Louisville,and it looks like it will be that long again,
or longer before we see ‘anything’.
And believe me,we could use it;if it ever happens!
Ya,raise gas Prices like to $25 a Gallon then just mabe People will stop driving.
In my opinion monorail is a poor substitute for light rail, which can be built above, on, and below the ground…Monorail cars have very few seats, whereas light rail cars have a lot more seating… Commuter rail cars have even more seating capacity…
But for long distance runs, comfort must have priority… No one will stand on a monorail car for much more than 30 minutes… Therefore, the real topic concerning long distance is high speed rail…preferrably TGV-ICE versions…
As for the highway lobby, its about to come to an end… American manufacturers of automobiles are losing money as quickly as the American airlines are… It won’t be long before the American highway lobby dies, much like American airlines dying…
So there is some hope for HSR in the long run…
We won’t see much except political pork barrel boondoggles until more of us start asking if there’s some constitutional or moral obligation for government to provide pavement for every auto the manufacturers can sell. We keep pouring tax dollars into efforts to revitalize the urban areas that have been hard hit by highway-generated flight to the suburbs, yet do nothing to amend state planning codes that continue to allow new urban and suburban development “for motorists only.”
Will rail and public transit advocates who also drive cars support a civil rights movement for people who don’t drive cars – not just minorities and poor people, but everybody who claims that they’re forced to depend on cars. This is supposed to be a free country. Driving is a privilege, not a right. Our right to life is being violated when government planners allow development that forces us to depend on modes of transportation so dangerous that it requires seat belts, air bags or crash helmets.
It’s those people who don’t drive who are the key to any kind of equitable transportation and land use policy reforms. But I guess those of us who drive are too elitist to worry about them.