Here are the reasons for the high-speed monorail along Colorado's I-70.

For a succinct summary of the entire project, please go to http://192.220.91.173/highspeedmonorail/index.html.

Benefits to Colorado, i.e., reasons FOR:

Preserve Coloradans' access to their mountains. Already, many people no longer go to the high country because of the traffic congestion, and this will steadily get worse. The high-speed monorail will reverse this.
Provide people with a choice on how to travel. Today you drive or drive, no choice, but with the high-speed monorail you will be able to drive or ride. Many people would prefer to ride than drive, and many people want to be able to make that choice on any particular day.
Reduce congestion on I-70 to make driving easier. Many people prefer to drive, and by getting all those other people off the highway and onto the monorail, driving conditions will improve.
Vitalize the recreation industry, Colorado's #2 industry. I-70 is the life-giving artery for much of the recreation industry, and the high-speed monorail will ensure its vitality.
Concentrate growth around stations and reduce sprawl, reduce exhaust emissions in the high alpine country, and preserve Colorado's beauty for future generations. The default solution, widening the highway, does the opposite.
Provide people with improved access to jobs. People in the foothills can commute to metro Denver. People in Denver can work in the mountains, and vise versa, so that people have better employment opportunities.
Improve air travel convenience. People in metro Denver will have easy access to DIA, and visitors to Colorado (DIA and Eagle) will have easy access to metro Denver and to the mountain communities.
Give Colorado the first leg of a statewide, high-speed system connecting the major cities and towns, making it so much easier to move around Colorado.
Give Colorado a stake in the high-speed monorail technology. This technology may be used in other states and other countries.

Please browse our web site for a more complete discussion of the reasons for supporting the high-speed monorail.

Costs to Colorado, i.e., reasons AGAINST:

We go into this in detail. Please refer to our discussions of Concerns & Objections, and opinion pieces by the Asphalt Institute's Stephen Mueller and by the Independence Institute's Jon Caldara.

In a Nutshell.

All the opinion surveys show that the high-speed monorail is very popular with the people.

So who is against?

CDOT, the FHWA, Big Oil, the Asphalt Institute, the Trucking Industry, Highway Contractors, the Highway Llobby, the Bush Administration, 1950 and 1960’s vintage highway engineers, and just about all Conservative Republicans. They ALL want to widen the highway regardless of the environmental consequences or the impacts from increased greenhouse gas emissions and natural resource depletion (peak oil).

The Service.

Here we discuss the proposed service for several of our major markets.

Reports we'd like to see in Year 2010:

Commuter from Genesee.
"Rode the new high-speed monorail today. Biked to the new station, grabbed a Starbucks and a Wall Street Journal, flashed my smart "Monorail Card" and a couple of minutes we were off. So nice to relax - I read my WSJ, Roger plugged his laptop in and downloaded his emails. Arrived at Union terminal in 15 minutes."

Plan: The cabins will be fully equipped with fold-down tables, Internet connections, and reading lights. The smart Monorail Card will allow people to walk past a remote scanner (like driving past a toll booth on E-470) which will automatically charge the rider. Special deal for front-range commuters - $200 per month buys unlimited use to and from their destination station.

Businessman flying out of DIA.
"Left the office at 3:15 PM, Charlie dropped me off at the Arvada station. Collected my boarding pass at the station and checked my overnight bag to Detroit. Ten minutes later was on the high-speed monorail for DIA. Made several stops. Got there in twenty minutes and walked straight to the boarding gate. Cost me $12.50 - cheaper and easier than driving and parking."

Plan: Stations will have curb-side checking for the airlines so that passengers can go straight to the boarding gate. It's expected that the high-speed monorail will take people right to the main terminal.

Denver resident shopping in Silverthorne.
"Took June shopping at the outlet stores in Silverthorne yesterday. We bought her a new wardrobe for college - lots of great deals. I paid $40 for my round-trip ticket, June traveled free on the family plan. Most of the stores were "monorail partners" and gave us a 5% to 10% discount for taking the monorail - ended up with $32 in discounts so the monorail was nearly free for both of us. They dropped us back at the station with all our packages. We had a lovely ride home - the highway traffic was stop-start all the way from Eisenhower Tunnel with highway construction... and we just flew by at 125 MPH. Those people are nuts."

Plan: The family plan will allow one full-fare paying parent to take one dependent child free of charge. Two parents can take all their children free. Stores and restaurants will be invited to be "monorail partners" and the high-speed monorail will promote these stores and restaurants to its passengers in its on-board literature. Partners will give monorail riders a 5% to 10% discount.

Front-range day skier.
We took off at 8:00 AM on the Saturday express and we were in Copper Mountain before 9:00 AM. On the way home we managed to get on the Piano Bar monorail, so we were singing Irish ditties with some crazy students. The other guys got stuck at Vail Pass until it opened at 8:00 PM so they didn't get back until after 11:00. Cost me $40 round trip."

Plan: We expect to have entertainment on some monorails, especially those serving the front-range skiers. The high-speed monorail is immune to bad weather, blizzards, jack-knifed trucks, and mud slides.

Front-range golfers, kayaker, and bikers.
"My parents had a 1:00 PM tee time at Single Tree but I went kayaking. They put my kayak in the baggage hold along with my parents' golf clubs and a lot of bikes. The hostess called in advance and when we arrived, the SingleTree van was waiting for my parents. All the bikers took off for the bike paths and mountain trails. They had a message board at the station with my name on it - said I was to go to lot 9 where a van was waiting to take me and my kayak to the Eagle River put-in along with some other guys."

Plan: Special provisions will be made to let people get around at the other end without a car. Most venues will be within walking distance of the stations, the towns will have frequent buses running to popular locations, vans-on-demand will take people to trailheads, etc., and taxis will provide convenient service from the cab stand. Baggage holds on the high-speed monorail will carry big items like kayaks and bikes.

Out-of-state visitor to winter resorts.
"Had an awesome trip to Vail. What I especially loved was their new monorail - got us there in one hour - like having an extra day added to our vacation. We checked our bags from London all the way to our hotel, and they were there when we arrived. The views are truly spectacular - the mountain peaks around A Basin are unbelievable. One day we jumped on the monorail and came back for some extreme skiing. Don't know what the monorail cost - British Air gave me a fantastic package deal. Whistler has nothing like this."

Plan: Airlines are expected to sell tickets all the way to the destination resorts with a change of flight at DIA or Eagle, the last flight being the high-speed monorail . The monorail will give guests the ability to ski a day here and a day there.

Second Home or Condo Owner.
"Took the family for the long weekend to our condo in Dillon. Johnnie and I drove up at Thursday noon before all the traffic and June and the girls followed after work on the new high-speed monorail. June hates driving in the ice and snow, ever since she slid off the highway. June took Johnnie back to Denver for a hockey game on Saturday afternoon - they zipped down and back on the high-speed monorail while we went ice fishing. We came back early Monday morning but June took the high-speed monorail as she couldn't risk being late for an important meeting. Next time we're all taking the high-speed monorail on their family plan."

Plan: The high-speed monorail will allow people to get the maximum out of short visits. Also, it will be safe - monorails are elevated and the safest form of transportation ever developed. Also they're reliable and not impacted by blizzards or mudslides. With the family plan, if the parents buy a ticket, the kids travel free - so this family could have traveled from metro Denver to Dillon and back for a total of $80.

Mountain resident visiting Denver.
"Took the monorail to Denver. I have a Monorail Card and told them I wanted a car when I got there - they have all my particulars on file. Walked straight to cars and jumped in a lime green VW bug. Went to the dentist - took two hours and the car cost me $20. Then we went to the Rockies game. Slept all the way home."

Plan: Passengers will be able to rent cars by the hour. People with Monorail Cards will have their credit card, driver's license, and insurance information all on file so that they can easily rent a car with virtually no paper work.

Denver resident who works in a resort.
"I catch the 7:30 express every morning and I'm at work before 9:00. The boss gives me a monthly pass, think it costs him $400 per month. But I can use it any time and so I head up into the mountains on my days off. I'm training for a marathon."

Plan: The Commuter Pass will open more job opportunities for people, so they can work in the mountains if they want. An unrestricted pass for $400 per month will purchase unlimited monorail usage from any station, to any station, any number of times per month. Commuters who live in the front-range communities will be able to buy Commuter Passes - the cost will reflect how far they travel each day - a Genesee to metro Denver pass may cost $200 per month, but it would not permit unlimited use of the system.

Questions

Here we answer the most frequently asked questions about the proposed system for I-70.

Will many people ride it?
Some have suggested that not many people will ride the monorail, that it will not be successful in attracting people out of their cars. At first this seems to be a plausible concern. Many transit systems do not attract many people out of their cars - most conventional transit systems attract less than 5% of the traffic in a corridor. This is because conventional rail and light rail systems are slow. However, even though RTD's light rail system south of Denver only averages about 14 MPH, it is attracting a lot of riders because traffic congestion along I-25 is so bad.

People will want to ride the high-speed monorail because it is so fast and it will get people from Denver up to the mountain communities in 1/3rd the time it will take to drive. Even when traveling across metro Denver (DIA, Aurora, Denver, Arvada) where it will stop at several stations, the high-speed monorail will be faster than driving a car. CDOT in its winter 2000 survey tested the attractiveness of the high-speed monorail. This survey suggested that 63% of Coloradans traveling the I-70 corridor would consider riding the high-speed monorail. Please see our page on the CDOT studies. Please also see the ridership page for a more detailed discussion of ridership issues.

Is there much highway traffic that could not be targeted?
It has been suggested that much of the traffic along I-70 is trucks and people passing through (interstate travelers), suggesting that not much of the total traffic could be attracted to the high-speed monorail.

The highway going up over the Continental Divide is only one of several markets that the high-speed monorail will address. The system actually will have four sub-systems: 1) DIA to metro Denver, 2) foothill communities to metro Denver, 3) across the Continental Divide, and 4), connector between all the mountain communities.

A breakdown of the annual traffic along I-70 going over the Continental Divide is:

17% is front range residents going to the high-country for recreation. All of this segment is a target market for the high-speed monorail.
10% is out-of-state visitors going to the high-country for recreation, most arriving into DIA or Eagle. Most of this segment is a target market for the high-speed monorail.
36% is front range residents going to the high-country for some purpose other than recreation - on business, to visit family, etc. All of this segment is a target market for the high-speed monorail.
14% is corridor residents using the I-70 for local travel. Only a small part of this segment may become a target market for the high-speed monorail.
12% is interstate travelers who are just pasing through. None of this segment is a target market for the high-speed monorail.
11% is slow moving traffic such as trucks, RVs and buses. Interstate trucks are not a target market, some of the freight carried by local delivery trucks could become a target market, none of the RVs is a target market, and most of the passengers on buses could become a target market.

The net result is that about 2/3rds of the existing traffic along the highway going over the Continental Divide could be target markets for the high-speed monorail.

Two other sources of passengers going over the Continental Divide who are not currently in the traffic counts are the people who want to visit the high country but who have given up because the traffic is so bad. This disillusioned market could be large. Second, people who take the monorail because it is an attraction in its own right - a wonderful way to see the spectacular scenery. This induced ridership could be large also.

Will it cause unwanted development in the high country?
The high country of Colorado is a spectacular place and a lot of people want to visit and live there. However, a few of the present residents would prefer that people stay away. Several points to consider:

People like the vitality and opportunities that development bring. What they object to is the traffic congestion and sprawl that usually accompany it.
For every monorail that arrives in the high country with 400 passengers, say, 230 cars are taken off the highway and do not need to be parked. The high-speed monorail will reduce traffic congestion on the highways and in our communities.
Sprawl is development that takes place in new areas away from existing development and infrastructure. With the high-speed monorail, development will tend to concentrate within walking distance of the stations, reducing sprawl.
The decision to develop the I-70 corridor was really made forty years ago when it was decided to build I-70. The decision now is not really whether there will be development or not, it's whether the development will be good or bad.

Will it hurt the environment?
The high country of Colorado is a beautiful place with a fragile alpine environment. Some might wonder if the high-speed monorail itself, or the increased numbers of visitors, could damage this environment. Several points to consider:

The high-speed monorail will stay within the highway right-of-way for most of its length, leaving virgin country unspoiled.
Compared to widening the highway, there will be minimal rock cuts and earth works. The high-speed monorail is elevated, like a continuous, slender bridge, and therefore has minimal impact on the corridor.
The monorail is quiet. Its motor has no moving parts, its wheels are shrouded, its rails are embedded in sound-absorbing material, its power pickups are inside the body of the monorail, and its wheels are free-running which means there is no squealing as it goes around curves.
As mentioned in the discussion on development, a monorail carrying 400 passengers will take 230 cars off the highway, reducing exhaust emissions in the high country.
The high-speed monorail's motor is highly efficient (nearly 80%) and the rolling friction is low due to the steel wheels on steel rails and due to the magnetic lift that the motor generates which can reduce the weight on the wheels by up to 80%. Thus the high-speed monorail sips energy and the energy consumption per monorail passenger is much less than it is when people are traveling in cars.
The guideway beams for the high-speed monorail will be cast offsite, at plants, and then trucked in and erected during early morning hours. This will minimize disruption during construction along the highway.
The high-speed monorail will improve Coloradan's access to their mountains and high country, and, by improving access, more people will probably visit the mountains. However, each person will produce far less impact: there will be fewer cars emitting exhaust gases, and fewer parked cars clogging mountain communities.
Colorado is a "lifestyle" state and it is important for many people that they can easily reach our high country. It is important to the project to have the support of these individuals. Coloradans' consciousness of, and support for, environmental issues will most likely increase.

Will it mainly serve the ski resorts?
Some have suggested that the high-speed monorail system proposed for I-70 would mainly serve the ski resorts (Keystone, Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, Vail, Beaver Creek). The implication is that this project is just for wealthy skiers and not for all of Colorado.

With the proposed high-speed monorail project, Colorado obtains much more than a high-speed connection between metro Denver and the ski resorts. Colorado obtains four systems: 1) a high-speed link from DIA to Denver, 2) a high-speed transit system across metro Denver to the foothill communities, 3) a high-speed artery from metro Denver to the many mountain communities and on to western Colorado (not just resorts), and 4), a transit system connecting the mountain and western Colorado communities.

Focusing on the high-speed artery aspect, only 7% of the annual traffic along I-70 has anything to do with skiing, and this is expected to shrink to less than 5% as recreational travelers are squeezed off the highway by the relentless growth of commercial traffic. Coloradans visiting the mountains in summer greatly out-number skiers in winter, and many Coloradans also travel to the mountains for business and non-recreational reasons.

Does it use unproven technology?
Some have suggested that the high-speed monorail is unproven is that the high-speed monorail uses revolutionary new technology and that this will take decades and megabucks to develop. This is not an accurate description. In actual fact, the high-speed monorail uses well-understood technologies - it uses conventional wheels, its suspension with two rows of wheels has been used on many transit systems, its body is made of materials that have been used for years in aircraft manufacture, linear induction motors (LIMs) have been in operation for decades, tilting suspensions have been used in many trains, there is nothing unusual about the construction of the guideway beams and piers, and it will use an off-the-shelf control package, etc.

The design and development of the high-speed monorail is a relatively straight forward engineering process. It is not much more risky to develop than the Ford Taurus year 2010 model - that Taurus is not yet on the drawing boards and has certainly not been driven yet. But does anyone doubt that Ford will succeed in introducing this new model?

But there is a difference. The high-speed monorail does push the envelope and there are engineering challenges.

The high-speed monorail, when fully developed to go at speeds above 125 MPH, will require more power to be transferred to the vehicle from the rigid, beam-mounted catenaries (aluminum bars on the sides of the guideway beam that carry the power) and at higher speeds than have been achieved before. However, initially, the high-speed monorail will travel at 125 MPH or slightly higher and transferring power from beam-mounted catenaries at these speeds is not a new situation - it is done routinely in other systems. The PTACV experimental train with linear induction motor tested at the Transportation Test Center in the late 1970s routinely drew power from a rigid catenary at speeds in excess of 200 MPH.
The Seraphim motor is a new version of the well known LIM. Instead of using a continuous reaction rail, it uses one which is broken into segments, and these segments are shorted coils which makes the motor more efficient. While the Seraphim motor was originally developed to accelerate a satellite to 17,000 MPH, sufficient to launch it into low Earth orbit, it is not "space science". The electromagnetic principle underlying the Seraphim motor (like poles repulse) is the stuff of high school science. The motor is much simpler than the internal combustion engine.
The more interesting issue is having the high-speed monorail share the I-70 corridor with the highway. The high-speed monorail is much larger than a car and it will run at much higher speeds than cars, and just 16' above ground level. What impact will it have on drivers? The guideway will be positioned at one side of the right-of-way (ROW) so that motorists can see the high-speed monorail coming, and are not startled. The ROW is about 300' wide along most of its length, giving about 100' on each side of the highway where the high-speed monorail's guideway can be located.

There will be many similar engineering issues, but the key points are that the high-speed monorail is not revolutionary, rather it is evolutionary, and its design is a straight forward engineering process.

Is it merely a Disneyland ride?
Several people have said, "It's just a Disneyland ride", suggesting that the Disney monorail system is not a real-world transportation system, and neither will the high-speed monorail.

The Disney monorail systems are probably the most successful transportation systems ever developed. They have moved over two billion people, without a single fatality, and with very high levels of rider satisfaction. These systems are not a "ride" in that people get on them to go around in a circle and immediately get off where they got on. They move people significant distances - Disney World to Epcot center is about five miles, longer than any "ride" and comparable with many transit systems. Let us hope that the high-speed monorail is as successful as the Disney monorail systems.

However, there are real differences. The Disney monorails are rubber tired with one line of wheels that run on top of the guideway beam, and horizontal guidance wheels at the bottom. The motors are above the top of the beam, and so the Disney monorails are like an upside down pendulum and balance on top of the guideway beam. Thus they are not very fast - 55 MPH is the maximum speed. The high-speed monorail on the other hand wraps around its beam and it is carried on two lines of steel wheels at the bottom of the beam with two sets of guidance wheels at the top of the beam. This is a very stable arrangement and the high-speed monorail can operate at much higher speeds than the Disney monorails.

Will it actually cost $8 billion, not $4 billion?
One person stated that CDOT, in an earlier study, estimated that the high-speed monorail project for I-70 would cost closer to $8 billion, not $4 billion.

CDOT has never made a careful estimate of the cost of the high-speed monorail project for I-70. This comment was probably alluding to cost estimates for a high-speed conventional train, such as the French TGV, from metro Denver to Vail. This estimate was prepared as a part of the Major Investment Study (MIS) done for the I-70 corridor several years ago. Because conventional trains cannot climb steep grades, this train would require 40 miles of tunnels - a very expensive proposition.

The planned route for the high-speed monorail actually requires less than 1.5 miles of tunnel (under Loveland Pass). This is because the high-speed monorail is capable of climbing steep grades and can run alongside the highway. A detailed but preliminary cost estimate for the entire 168 mile project came in at $3.9 billion (in year 1998 dollars).

Will there be big cost overruns?
Colorado's experience with large capital projects suggest that there are certain to be cost overruns. DIA is an example. Consider the following:

The initial cost estimates, everything included, were $3.9 billion (in 1998 dollars). This did not include interest payments on bonds needed to finance the project. It included contingencies of $1 billion, reflecting that the estimate was made early in the project, before there was a lot of detailed information.

Is it too expensive to build?
The capital cost of the 168 mile system proposed for Colorado was estimated at $3.9 billion (in 1998 dollars). This is a massive project and some consider it too expensive. Consider the following:

Colorado obtains four systems: 1) a high-speed link from DIA to Denver, 2) a high-speed transit system across metro Denver and the foothill communities, 3) a high-speed artery connecting metro Denver to the mountain communities and western Colorado, and 4), a transit system connecting the mountain and western Colorado communities.
The capital cost of this system works out to $23 million per mile (in year 1998 dollars). The capacity of the system is equivalent to six dry highway lanes, nine tunnel lanes, and ten snow-packed lanes.
This cost is 2/3 the cost per mile of expanding the highway by just two lanes (one in each direction), a fraction of the extra capacity that the proposed system will provide. This cost of expanding the highway by two lanes was estimated by CDOT at $32 million per mile (in year 1998 dollars).

Will it use an inordinate amount of power and require a mega power plant to be built?
The system when it first begins operation (in 2010?) will have an estimated 25 monorails and will draw up to 57 MW. After ten years of operation (in 2020), the system is expected to expand to 40 monorials drawing up to 91 MW of power, and after twenty years of operation it is expected to draw 156 MW. In terms of energy usage, this is much less than the energy that would have been used by automobiles carrying the same number of people, i.e., overall energy usage will fall as a result of people switching from driving cars to riding the monorail.

There are several ways being studied as to how this power will be provided. One is to put in small gas-fired generators along the corridor. Another is to put in pumped storage where a large tank is placed near the guideway and another is placed high above it. At night, power is purchased from the grid (when it is readily available and inexpensive) to pump the water up to the top tank, and during the day when power is needed, water is drained back into the bottom tank, generating hydroelectricity to power the monorails. Another possible solution would be to use fuel cells. If you would like more information on the power issue, please go to our page on power.

Will it take money from highways?
Some have suggested that the high-speed monorail project will take money from the highway budget, and would be equivalent to spending four years worth of new roads and road repairs. The high-speed monorail will largely be paid for with federal funds for high-speed transit and maglev systems, together with private sector bonds. These federal appropriations are separate from highway and light rail funds. Fare revenues are projected to pay for the operating costs of the project and to support several billion in private sector debt financing.

Will it need an operating subsidy?
Many transit systems require operating subsidies as they do not attract sufficient riders. Some people may think that the high-speed monorail will require an operating subsidy. Consider the following:

There are many profitable rail transit systems, even those using conventional trains. The Japanese broke up its national railway system in order to privatized it. These private rail systems are profitable. The British broke up its rail system and privatized. Now many of these privatized systems have become profitable. The proposed system for Colorado will be operated by the private sector.
Initial projections showed that the proposed system would cover all its operating costs and would have sufficient cash flow to pay interest and principal on the bonds to the private sector needed to build the system, if it could attract just 1/3rd of the projected growth in traffic (1/6th the total) along I-70. We expect it to do better than that.

How bad is traffic along I-70 going to get?
Unless something major is done, it will become much worse. In 1998, traffic was congested 120 hours per year at Eisenhower Tunnel. If traffic continues to grow as projected (doubling by about 2020), and if the number of slow-moving vehicles continue to grow more quickly, then the number of hours the highway is congested each year could exceed 1,000 hours. This would mean that the highway is congested all day and most days during the summer and winter seasons. It would even be congested at times during the slowest week in the year (late April or early May). For more information, please go to our page on traffic.

Will construction of the guideway disrupt traffic?
For the most part, the guideway will be located one side or the other of the highway right-of-way (not in the median), giving some separation. The guideway beams will be cast off-site and trucked in and erected during the early morning hours, minimizing disruption to traffic.

What will a ticket cost?
Ticket prices have not ye