[ale] OT: Maglev funding?

[ale at sixit.com (Robert Reese~)]

> My next question is does people movers that require large capital
> expenditures make sense. The existing/sucessful mass transit
> systems I've been on (NY, London, Washington DC) were built before
> the automobile.

People Movers are fantastic for certain applications.  However, those 
applications typically are micro environments; an airport is a perfect example 
as is an amusement park.  Las Vegas could use one, probably, as well as a few 
other places where there is a high concentration of people in a localized space.

It isn't really feasible for the longer commutes, not even from the airport to 
another destination.  That's where the monorail's purpose lies inside the city.

The other problem is that the maintenance cost on a People Mover are quite 
high... imagine the thousands of bearings, electric motors, switches, and so 
forth that have to be maintained just at WDW alone.  Sure, the usefulness there 
warrants the high maintenance, but as a replacement for MARTA it just wouldn't 
make sense financially.

Cheers,
Robert~
(a former backstage employee at the real Disneyland)