Saturday, August 10, 2019

Vision of the Future from 1962


Seattle built a monorail for the 1962 World's Fair, it was touted as the future of mass transit.  It rides quietly on a rail, above the street, moving easily from Macy's to the Space Needle.  Plans included extending the line to the airport and beyond.  Sadly the system never grew beyond the original rail, in fact one of the stations was modified making it much less practical.  

 Disney uses a monorail at both us Parks and I understand there is one at a University that was built with federal dollars as a demonstration project.  

 Why no more monorails? 
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5 comments:

  1. anne marie in philly8/10/2019

    expense, above ground not underground, "not in my backyard" - just some guesses on my part. I did ride the monorail on my seattle visit.

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    Replies
    1. Travel8/10/2019

      Maybe I should have asked, "have you ridden?" Public transit in this country is dominated by cussed busses.

      Delete
    2. anne marie in philly8/10/2019

      we have trolleys, subways, rail, busses for public transportation. plus amtrak in/out of the city.

      Delete
  2. Ur-spo8/11/2019

    This is an easy one: lobbyist from the auto industry blighted most attempts at public transport.

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  3. Moving with Mitchell8/11/2019

    I rode Seattle's monorail my first time in Seattle in 1982. I liked it, but was disappointed in how limited the service was. I learned then that unless you have elevated lines without a lot of switches, they become expensive and difficult to build. But it was so clean and quiet!

    ReplyDelete