[ale] OT: Maglev funding?

[Jeff Hubbs]

Atlanta Geek wrote:
> So I see how monorail helps a metro area but the original writer was
> discussing longer distance trains. Atlanta to Chattanooga trains. It
> sounds like Monorail does not make sense for this type of ride.
>   
Why does it not make sense?
> My next question is does people movers that require large capital
> expenditures make sense. 
Yes, given that you want to move a lot of people. 
> The existing/sucessful mass transit systems
> I've been on (NY, London, Washington DC) were built before the
> automobile.
>   
Not unless they were powered by steam or horse.  What you were on was 
actually rebuilt and rebuilt again to their present state.
> Could you not have the same affect with buses that run on HOV or bus
> only lanes today.
>   
No; HOV lanes are nicely clogged in Atlanta, as recongestion and 
rearrangement effects negated their value soon after they opened.  
Bus-only lanes require their own right-of-way; have you noticed how 
Metro Atlanta highway construction tends to pave over the medians in 
favor of Jersey barriers and next to no emergency lane?  And how on Hwy 
78 through Stone Mountain and Lilburn, they've sacrificed the suicide 
and left turn lanes so they can pave the whole expanse with driving 
lanes and separate the eastbound and westbound sides with a high curb 
(or low wall, depending on what you want to call it). 

A bus full of people stuck in traffic is still people stuck in traffic.
> Do you think a business class bus running between Atlanta and
> Chattanooga would be successful.  If a bus market does not exist how
> could you argue that a market exists for the more expensive trains.
>   
Because trains (especially grade-crossing-less monorails) aren't subject 
to the same vagaries as buses.  Predictability is a key feature of 
business travel that bus, passenger vehicle, and now air transportation 
have lost.  If you control the right-of-way, as trains do, you can set 
and keep a schedule.