Las Vegas' monorail troubles raise fears here
Maybe they sabotaged the trains.
The nation's first long-distance transit monorail has been closed for the past three weeks, since a doughnut-shaped part of a drive assembly fell off. Before that, a black-and-green "Star Trek Experience" train lost a wheel. The trains are now being retested, while separate safety investigations are under way by monorail operators and the train supplier, Bombardier of Canada.
Even before the stoppage, the number of passengers was lower than expected.
The troubles in Las Vegas are being watched closely in Seattle, where voters on Nov. 2 will consider a proposal to ban construction permits for a 14-mile elevated train through Ballard, downtown and West Seattle. Campaigners for anti-monorail Initiative 83 cite Las Vegas as an example of why the proposed Green Line monorail here is ripe for trouble.
However, there are significant differences between the two systems.
Seattle's monorail cars would come from a different vendor, Hitachi, whose trains carry nearly a half-million riders a day on eight lines in Japan and have had few reported safety problems.
Bombardier, which built and maintains the Las Vegas trains, dropped out of the running in Seattle in August, mainly because its team couldn't reach agreement with the Seattle Monorail Project on financial liability.
On opening day in Vegas, the four-mile line behind The Strip was dubbed "the most technologically advanced public-transportation system of its kind in the world" by its operators. The route begins at the MGM Grand resort, stops at seven stations and terminates at the Sahara Hotel and Casino.
Montreal-based Bombardier manufactures trains for a range of uses worldwide, including the Vancouver SkyTrain, the London Underground, Disney World monorail in Florida, Sounder commuter lines in greater Seattle, and people-movers such as the shuttle subway at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
"From such a reputable supplier, the problems we're having shouldn't be happening at all," said Todd Walker, spokesman for the Las Vegas Monorail Co.
Each day that the trains don't roll, Bombardier and its partners lose money, because the construction agreement also includes operations and maintenance. That's an arrangement the Seattle Monorail Project (SMP) also plans to use as an incentive for quality design.
Bombardier spokeswoman Kathryn Nickerson says the firm has a reputation to keep, penalties or not.
"We're confident in our capabilities to get this fix under way, and to deliver, in the end, a safe and reliable system," she said. "We've never walked away from a problem before, and we're not going to walk away from an issue now."
If the breakdowns continue, they would hamper plans to break ground next year on a two-mile monorail extension reaching downtown Las Vegas. The federal government is considering a $160 million grant for the $454 million line but won't approve it before operators prove they can sustain the first line and attract high ridership for six consecutive months.
"They're going to have to get the system up and running, get the quirks out of their system, and we'll take a look at it at that time," Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said last month during a stop in Seattle.
Monorails aren't perfect
Do pedestrians in Seattle need to worry about falling monorail parts?
"No," said Jeff Fielder, an executive with the Cascadia Monorail Co., which offered Hitachi trains for the 14-mile Green Line.
Team executives say there's never been a personal injury or evacuation in four decades of Japanese operations, though independent confirmation was unavailable.
Kim Pedersen, president of The Monorail Society, said his contacts within Hitachi report only one case of a train in Tokyo dropping a part, in its early years.
Seattle's bid requirements include tough maintenance standards. Train vendors would earn less money if reliability dropped below 99.5 percent, and would earn zero if the trains functioned less than 80 percent of the time.
A maintenance glitch led to the dropped wheel in Vegas, when operators missed a signal that would have detected a problem, Walker said. To prevent a repeat, a control-room employee has been added.
On the one-mile Seattle Center Monorail line, a sheared drive shaft led to a train fire May 31. Previously, drive shafts failed five times from 2000-04 without incident, a post-blaze investigation found. An engineering review and renovations are planned before the line reopens.
A spatter of grease
Even assuming Hitachi's quality control is strong, opponent Richard Borkowski argues that all mechanical systems pose inherent risks of dropping small components, or at least a spatter of grease.
"Putting elevated transit over people's heads is just crazy, and I'd hate to see Seattle in the same situation as Las Vegas, where they have to shut down a brand-new system," he said.
The SMP in January proposed running trains 6 feet from high-rise buildings, but the City Council increased the separation to 13 feet in nearly all neighborhoods. Cascadia probably would build in a lane of Second Avenue rather than in the sidewalks, but the route still goes over the grounds of Seattle Center.
Asian monorails travel mainly above boulevards or landscaped highway medians, though Hitachi's new line in Chongqing, China, passes over a pedestrian square.
Peter Sherwin, a leader in the pro-monorail campaign, said monorails are safer than surface rail.
In 2002, the most recent year for which national figures are available, light-rail trains killed 13 people and injured 557 people.
"I don't think there has been a fatality on a straddle monorail, ever," Sherwin said.
But monorails aren't perfect. Monorail Malaysia lost a wheel during tests two years ago, injuring a journalist and delaying the grand opening. Trains on Seattle's historic one-mile Seattle Center monorail have hit concrete abutments four times, the worst a 1971 accident injuring 27 people.
"Excellent karma"
Ever since Bombardier's team left the Seattle competition, the SMP has taken heat for failing to attract competitive bids. Bombardier's start-up pains in Las Vegas add a new plot twist.
SMP board member Cindi Laws said those problems have tempered her concerns about Bombardier's decision to drop out.
"I think the [Seattle] project has had excellent karma," commented fellow board member Kristina Hill. She said she always has preferred to buy train models tested by years of service, like Hitachi's system, rather than use Seattle as a proving ground.
However, the agency has never previously insisted on buying an established train type, said Dick McNamara, a Seattle representative for Bombardier's team. In fact, Bombardier would have proposed an all-new model with final assembly in Seattle by union machinists.
The team had also impressed downtown landowners with designs for stations to fit into tight spots near the financial core and Westlake Center, as well as 4-foot columns that are leaner than Seattle's old monorail posts.
Bombardier's departure was a major reason the Downtown Seattle Association came out against the monorail Sept. 28.
Board member Paul Toliver said he wishes Bombardier could have bid, giving the agency more choices. Toliver said the SMP would have demanded high performance from either company.
"I don't think we got lucky," he said. "I would still have liked to have gotten both proposals in."
Mike Lindblom: 206-515-5631
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