By every measure, monorails make the most efficient use of materials, resources, energy, technology and passengers’ time. With significantly less elaborate, and greatly less massive infrastructure than subways or any other elevated or at grade rail system, monorails can be constructed and maintained more efficiently, and at lower cost than any competing rail system. Even buses, when oversized or excessively run over city streets, ruin the surface and roadbed along their routes and accelerate the need for replacement of pavement. In general, monorail infrastructure uses much less material than railway roadbeds or highway construction. The lighter weight vehicles require much less massive infrastructure, greatly reducing the use of construction materials and natural resources. Inherently more resilient, and subject to less destructive loads and forces, this new infrastructure is anticipated to last one hundred years without replacement.
Monorails utilize the highest levels of system safety control, GPS, security and general operations technology available for ground transportation. Manufacturing processes are now capable of producing vehicles of primarily composite materials; while prefabrication and modularization of infrastructure construction is advanced far ahead of any other transportation mode or design. Monorails can transport passengers more efficiently than other technologies due to their ability to operate at much higher speeds within separate right of way corridors, while operating above streets, highways, pedestrian and all other settings, to deliver riders efficiently to their destinations.
The advanced manufacturing, operational and safety technology of monorails permit safe and efficient operation at two-minute headways between trains, leading to capacities over 50,000 passengers per hour, per rail. Such adaptable scheduling and service leads to very efficient and cost effective service. New designs are beginning to advance the potential of highly efficient alternative uses of electrical energy in the operation and propulsion of monorails, while advances in fuel cell production and performance promise complete energy and propulsion independence for monorail operations.
Adaptable and compatible with virtually any urban or natural setting or condition, monorail systems can be built to link and serve environments and populations as diverse as San Francisco’s Financial District and suburban areas from Oakland and the East Bay to San Jose, Palo Alto and Silicon Valley.
Monorail infrastructure, facilities and services can be implemented on 110 miles of freeway medians and the Oakland Bay Bridge to provide direct, uninterrupted passenger services linking bay area communities of San Jose, Palo Alto, the Silicon Valley and the extended East Bay to the heart of San Francisco’s Downtown and Financial District. Express commuter monorails operating at two and one half-minute intervals, traveling at 60-80 miles per hour, can smoothly and reliably transport 3,000 to 50,000 passengers per hour, per rail, in response to passenger demand. San Francisco International Airport can be seamlessly accessed and served by the West Bay monorail system without imposing conflict with any existing airport access or transportation system; while the Giants’ baseball stadium would be directly accessible during any game or scheduled event.
Monorail systems and services can be integrated into and between widely diverse activity settings, environments and urban structures to extend access and linkages among cities, airports, harbors, recreation, commercial and residential areas that can not be effectively connected or served by any other mode of transportation. The most strategic advantage monorails hold over all other modes of transportation is derived from their ability to be constructed and operated on property, and in locations and environments that are unsuitable for any other type of transportation infrastructure development or normal operations. The American Monorail-designed cargo monorail system linking the Port of Long Beach to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad yard is located in the upper bank right of way of the Los Angeles River for its entire 20-mile length. Note the blue line on the opposite bank, which indicates the path of a passenger monorail system between the City of Long Beach and Los Angeles Union Station, and extending along the river to Warner Center in the West San Fernando Valley, a continuous fifty miles from Long Beach.
**Monorail infrastructure, facilities and services can be implemented on 110 miles of freeway medians and the Oakland Bay Bridge to provide direct, uninterrupted passenger services linking bay area communities of San Jose, Palo Alto, the Silicon Valley and the extended East Bay to the heart of San Francisco’s Downtown and Financial District. Express commuter monorails operating at two and one half-minute intervals, traveling at 60-80 miles per hour, can smoothly and reliably transport 3,000 to 50,000 passengers per hour, per rail, in response to passenger demand. San Francisco International Airport can be seamlessly accessed and served by the West Bay monorail system without imposing conflict with any existing airport access or transportation system; while the Giants’ baseball stadium would be directly accessible during any game or scheduled event.
**Monorail systems and services can be integrated into and between widely diverse activity settings, environments and urban structures to extend access and linkages among cities, airports, harbors, recreation, commercial and residential areas that can not be effectively connected or served by any other mode of transportation. The most strategic advantage monorails hold over all other modes of transportation is derived from their ability to be constructed and operated on property, and in locations and environments that are unsuitable for any other type of transportation infrastructure development or normal operations. The American Monorail-designed cargo monorail system linking the Port of Long Beach to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad yard is located in the upper bank right of way of the Los Angeles River for its entire 20-mile length. Note the blue line on the opposite bank, which indicates the path of a passenger monorail system between the City of Long Beach and Los Angeles Union Station, and extending along the river to Warner Center in the West San Fernando Valley, a continuous fifty miles from Long Beach.
