The Monorail

Last night we had a few drinks in the Red Sky bar on this hotel's 55th floor. More floors than any building in New Zealand, but not as tall as Auckland's Sky Tower.

From here you get a good view of Bangkok. Until it rains, of course. For a while we could barely see past the glass, but rain doesn't last long here. Just like the other day, it rains hard, but not for long.

Looking down, it was clear that the monorail was overlaid as an afterthought to the city design. Sarah doesn't think there is a design here. Land becomes available, so somebody builds a hotel. Or a mall. Or both.

Anyway, the monorail is just such a cool idea. The one on our street is on two levels, one above the other, with the skywalk creating a third. All this, running down the middle of the street, held up by concrete pillars that straddle the street. Simple stuff.

I wonder why we don't have monorails in NZ. People always say that they are too expensive, but that is just bullshit. How can it be? Just look at the alternatives.

• Drill under the city to make a subway. Take years, cost squillions. Needs huge population to justify the cost.
• Rail on the surface. Buy up and bowl a heap of buildings to lay tracks. Expensive and disruptive in the suburbs, unmanageable in the city. Absurd.

Any of these may be practical solutions when planning a city, but not as a retrofit.

But a monorail? Straddle the streets, clip onto buildings, and create stations and access to buildings wherever you want. It's GOT to be cheaper. They put one into central Sydney, and it is about to get ripped out soon. It only ever went around in circles, so not as practical as a 'real' one. It's done it's job for the tourists, though. Actually, the Sydney monorail was second-hand. It was originally built for the 1988 Expo in Brisbane. In those days it must have looked very "Jetsons" to the retired Aussies and unemployed Kiwis of Brisbane. After the expo closed, Sydney City bought the monorail and had it installed to go around Darling Harbour. 

At the moment in Auckland, the government and local council is signing off an expansion to the current  inner city train service, much of it underground. Millions to be spent to add tracks to the downtown station. Why not just add trains, to increase the frequency? That would just cost the price of any new rolling stock required.

In Christchurch, we definitely need something post-apocolypse. Those who are as old as I am, will remember that many moons ago, there was a tourism proposal. Either build a monorail from city to airport, or a gondola up the port hills. History tells us that the gondola won. The dumbest decision ever.

But in our new, post-apocolypse Christchurch, wouldn't it be a great idea?

• From airport to City, down the middle of Memorial Avenue, and then around or through the park, to where hotels will be again.
• From City to the North, down the middle of Papanui Rd and Main North Rd. Put some big-arsed carparks on the outskirts, and let the commuters commute.

Just a thought.

But I've probably bleated on about this in the past.