Monorail connecting Miami and Miami Beach
https://www.local10.com/news/local/2...hAZpZEC0yYLBpY
A monorail connecting Miami and Miami Beach? County agrees to fund planning. |
Can't wait to see how many decades this takes lol.
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Monorails are stupid. Theyre the transit equivalent of flying cars.
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Miami would then have commuter rail, higher speed rail, heavy rail, people mover, and a monorail. Hyperloop or Maglev is next!
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https://nofilmschool.com/sites/defau...?itok=NKfsPP8m |
Sigh, people always trot out the Simpsons meme.
This may in fact be a good use for monorail. Most of the route is over water, so it's gonna be elevated on structure regardless of what technology is used (and monorail is the least visually imposing kind of guideway and quietest). It is not, nor does it need to be, part of a larger metropolitan system so the usual concerns about switching, branching, etc are moot. I really don't see how this is different than the way Japan uses monorails, as a medium capacity solution where an expensive metro line isn't warranted, *or where waterfronts make underground construction difficult*. And the Miami line would be tourist oriented to boot. The only question is on the Miami Beach end - the tourist area (and employment area) is spread out and likely requires several stations to serve it effectively. Are Miami Beach residents willing to accept an elevated guideway running along major streets on their island, Alton Road or Washington Ave? If not, then a monorail is a poor solution as it will never be extended past Alton Road. This kind of stub terminal is a horrible idea unless there are firm and realistic plans for further extension, because with the monorail technology the future extensions cannot run at grade. |
Well said, Ardecila. Monorails are a perfectly legitimate choice for transit depending on the location and the need. People love to use the Las Vegas monorail to dunk on the ineffectiveness of monorails, but the facts are that even though the monorail is super short and was built on a sub-optimal ROW (behind the strip instead of on it), it is still one of the very, very few transit systems in the world that is *occasionally* profitable. Profitable! Imagine that!
Connecting an island to the transit system on the mainland seems perfectly reasonable to me. (Also, I too am very tired of the Simpsons monorail memes. I can't understand how people still think they funny.) That said, there are some potential problems I see.
That's it, actually. I was expecting to be upset by the poor frequency, but 12 departures per hour means a train every 5 minutes, which I like. 300-person capacity every 5 minutes means 3,600 people per hour per direction, which is about as good as many light rail lines get. It also only takes two trains to run the line, meaning they can avoid the classic problem of monorails: switching. Each train can stay on its own track throughout the day, and the switches only need to operate when trains enter or exit service. So I think a monorail is a very good choice for this route, with the caveat that they make the line about 1 mile longer to make better connections on either end. If they don't, then they'll have another Las Vegas monorail situation - a monorail to nowhere that people will hold up as an example of poor public transit infrastructure for many years to come. The stats (from the article):
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Pretty awful idea. A person taking the short trip from Airport to South Beach would have to take the airport train to the metrorail station, take the metrorail to the metromover station, take the metromover to this monorail station which then just lets them across the bay to South Beach to get off at a single stop in South Beach (they would need some other transportation once there..uber, bus...etc). All while carrying luggage. A single integrated transit system is just too much to ask. Thats the problem with all these private/public partnership things. Each line ends up being a totally different mode of transit with no transfers between them.
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^ After reviewing the "Preferred Alternative" in the City's study, I'm against the monorail as proposed.
https://www.miamidade.gov/transit/li...rtp-report.pdf There is no direct monorail connection to Brightline, Metrorail or Tri-Rail. The downtown end terminates at Genting's waterfront property, which is good for them but bad for Miami. The existence of a Metromover connection doesn't mean anyone will use this complicated, convoluted system. On the Miami Beach end the study DOES call for the line to extend down 5th to Washington, but basically rules out any further extension up Washington because the corridor is protected by National Register designation (not a dealbreaker necessarily but opens the project up to legal challenges). The private proposal for the monorail doesn't include the section down 5th Ave though. So yeah, kill it. Do a light rail system that has better connections in Miami and better coverage in Miami Beach. The cost estimate is only slightly higher than the monorail but the upside is huge. |
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Monorails *are* valid tools in the transportation toolbox under certain conditions, they offer the speed of a metro but less capacity at a lower cost. They are great for one-off transit lines to serve a single destination or neighborhood, and poor for whole city-wide networks. They do not offer the flexibility to run at grade, and running them in tunnels is possible but very expensive. They are not a panacea, clearly despite what some folks think. And they have to be planned with the bigger picture in mind, with strong connections to other modes and stations in good locations. US monorails are usually sponsored by corporations so they serve certain private property very well, and serve the broader city poorly. That isn't because the technology is bad, it's because corporate sponsorship is bad. |
Monorails are Exhibit A, well maybe Exhibit B after Hyperloop, of our societies "always pregnant with the future" mentality.
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Nah, Monorails are cool. There are several monorail systems that have been operating successfully for over 50 years now. Overeager futurism? Bah!
As I said before, so long as the monorail extends to MiamiCentral, I don't think it's a bad idea. The issue of transferring between modes is a non-issue, really, because even on fully integrated transit systems (ie, any vehicle can go on any route), service is very rarely arranged in a way that gives direct service. There will always be transfers between, say, a 'blue line' and a 'green line,' and it makes little difference if one line has one rail while the other has two. There are many, many transit networks where different Metro lines use completely different systems between modes. |
What bothers me about this is the following:
They come from the Miami Beach Monorail Consortium, the main investor of which is Meridiam, the development firm that also managed the PortMiami tunnel project. Miami-Dade County commissioners decided Tuesday to enter into a $14 million interim agreement with the consortium to fund a year and a half of engineering and design planning work. Not all community stakeholders were on board, but the item ultimately passed by a 10-2 vote. Why does a private company need Government funding for this? As for the "engineering and design planning work" they could just dust off the more than a dozen studies done on the same route that the County has funded. Hell just hand over the plans for Baylink which we were promised back in 2002 when we passed the local Transit tax and have done NOTHING since then. |
well if they are going this far and mb does not like it, they could always bury the monorail for a few stops along meridian or alton in miami beach.
so add subway to the miami transit tick it off list! |
Sure, build an extra-large tunnel to fit monorail inside, just feet from the beach on a low-lying barrier island that will only face more and more challenges with flooding in the future. What could go wrong?
I don't think underground is necessary in Miami Beach but if they're gonna do that they may as well just use regular metro technology rather than a monorail. Putting monorail underground defeats the entire purpose, there are no cost savings and you can't reap the noise/aesthetic benefits of elevated monorail structures. |
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or, you know, sure, build a monorail out there. |
https://www.thenextmiami.com/dade-co...R8LTCKC4Ljy_pQ
Commissioners Approve Funding For Beach Corridor Engineering, Including Metromover Extension To Design District & Monorail |
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