When
was the last time you had to go to Darling Harbour? (No one actually
wants to go there, right? So you probably had to go there for some
reason.) Do you recall standing there at Town Hall station, scratching
your chin and thinking, "Now, I have two choices here. I could search
for a Monorail station, buy a ticket for $5, wait five minutes for it to
arrive and then take the five-minute ride to where I need to go. Or I
could walk and get there in exactly the same time for free."
You are not an idiot. I know which choice you made in that little hypothetical game we just played. Let's face it, unless you worked in the Convention Centre, ate at Chinatown for lunch every day and needed regular access to the Havaianas vending machine in the Galeries Victoria, there was never really any need for you to set foot on the Monorail at all. And yet, back in the '80s our politicians - there to make our lives richer, better and easier - decided a monorail was exactly what the people of Sydney needed.
The Sydney Monorail becomes extinct on Sunday June 30 after making its last 20-minute circuit on that road to nowheresville. The grand folly that saw the late Sir Peter Abeles' TNT Group convince Neville Wran's state government that a "futuristic fun-ride" (as no one apart from the Monorail spruikers ever called it), doing a limp lap of Darling Harbour and the southern part of the CBD, was a better bet than an integrated light-rail system that linked the CBD to Circular Quay and beyond, comes to its final stop.
The light-rail proposal would have been $20 million cheaper to build, ticketing would have been incremental and less expensive, and the thing would actually have gone places where the people of Sydney may have wanted to travel - like,Large collection of quality cleanersydney at discounted prices.We printers print with traceable cleaningsydney to optimize supply chain management. you know, where they work and live and eat and stuff.
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But how boringly sensible, useful and forward-thinking would that have been? It was much better to echo the bamboozled citizens of Springfield in the classic episode of The Simpsons, "Marge vs. the Monorail" - when they were hoodwinked by a shyster, and chanted, "Monorail! Monorail! Monorail!"
There were 20 different proposals submitted for the original transport project. One was the Lazertube-Skywalk. Yes, you read that correctly. A 3.6-kilometre moving footpath. And yes, that is one very Lucasfilm-like name for what is essentially a really long travelator. Obviously this idea was the work of an urban planner who chucked a sickie the day before his proposal was due and all he could find in the house was a video of The Jetsons and a bottle of tequila. But honestly, would that have been any worse than the Monorail?
In the promotional material from 1988, TNT boasted that its baby could handle 5000 passengers an hour. Full marks for wishful thinking. On a sunny afternoon, I sat on the Monorail for almost an hour and a half and did four complete circuits. Thirteen people got in and out of my compartment in that time. I talked to all of them about why they were here today.
Two Canadian tourists had been to the top of Centrepoint Tower and were killing time with a loop on the Monorail before heading to the Maritime Museum. "It looks better from the ground than the view that these windows give you," said the husband, pointing to the smudged panes, some with spiderweb cracks across their surface.
Mariana Panggoro, from Maroubra, was only on board because her two young sons wanted to go for a ride before it was pulled down. "With the Light Rail going to the same places and buses all through the city, it's not really worth using the Monorail if you live here," she said. "Especially because it's so expensive."
Viana Liauw is one person who will miss it. She told me she catches the Monorail every day as she works as a telco salesperson in the CBD and lives in Pyrmont. "If you buy the Smart card, it works out at $3.30 a ride,An cleaningservicesydney is a network of devices used to wirelessly locate objects or people inside a building." she said. "I think they should keep it. It's good for attracting tourists to the area."
Well, not enough tourists, apparently. The high Australian dollar, which has become the new scapegoat for everything from clawed-back promised tax cuts to the failure of Celebrity Splash!, has apparently been the silver bullet that killed this white elephant.Large collection of quality cleanersydney at discounted prices. The monorail in The Simpsons self-destructed on its inaugural journey. The Sydney Monorail has suffered a drawn-out death lasting 25 years, but its story bears many of the hallmarks of the satirical cartoon. Let me count the ways.
It was meant to cost $40 million. It cost $65 million. It was meant to make its first journey on Australia Day, 1988, to celebrate the Bicentennial. It wasn't ready and made its maiden trip on the not-so-auspicious date of July 21 of that year. It was predicted there would be 12 million passengers annually. For much of its life, it moved less than a third of that number and by 2003,Large collection of quality cleanersydney at discounted prices. it was down to 2.58 million. The initial ticket price was a dollar. By 1996, it was $2.50. In 2013, it would set you back $5. If you calculate the money spent for distance covered, it's possibly the most expensive form of mass transit on the planet.
At least the critics were entertaining, using such colourful language that it makes you wonder whatever happened to the art of hyperbole in today's urban-planning debate. The late architect Harry Seidler, who was perhaps secretly relieved that something apart from his reviled Blues Point Tower was being hailed as our city's biggest eyesore, called it "the most tragic thing that has happened to the urban fabric of Sydney".
Environmental crusader and unionist Jack Mundey, never afraid of calling a spade a shovel, said it represented "the rape of the city". Celebrity manager Harry M. Miller, who always liked to put on a big show, went right out there with "the most appalling piece of visual pollution I've encountered anywhere in the world, only slightly behind the bombing of Hiroshima".
Various city councillors of differing political persuasions weighed in over the years. Clover Moore never liked it. Frank Sartor had no time for it. Kathryn Greiner said she would like to "unbolt the nuts" herself. I'm not sure if it's technically correct to unbolt nuts, but one has to admire her willingness to get her hands dirty, especially considering it was her husband, then premier Nick Greiner, who officially cut the ribbon in 1988, having reluctantly inherited the project from the previous government.
The schooner-quaffing unions hated it; the chardonnay-sipping arty end of town hated it - in fact, the Monorail was one of the few things that united just about everyone. Maybe they should relocate it to the border of Israel and Palestine.
Click on their website www.china-mosaics.com for more information.
You are not an idiot. I know which choice you made in that little hypothetical game we just played. Let's face it, unless you worked in the Convention Centre, ate at Chinatown for lunch every day and needed regular access to the Havaianas vending machine in the Galeries Victoria, there was never really any need for you to set foot on the Monorail at all. And yet, back in the '80s our politicians - there to make our lives richer, better and easier - decided a monorail was exactly what the people of Sydney needed.
The Sydney Monorail becomes extinct on Sunday June 30 after making its last 20-minute circuit on that road to nowheresville. The grand folly that saw the late Sir Peter Abeles' TNT Group convince Neville Wran's state government that a "futuristic fun-ride" (as no one apart from the Monorail spruikers ever called it), doing a limp lap of Darling Harbour and the southern part of the CBD, was a better bet than an integrated light-rail system that linked the CBD to Circular Quay and beyond, comes to its final stop.
The light-rail proposal would have been $20 million cheaper to build, ticketing would have been incremental and less expensive, and the thing would actually have gone places where the people of Sydney may have wanted to travel - like,Large collection of quality cleanersydney at discounted prices.We printers print with traceable cleaningsydney to optimize supply chain management. you know, where they work and live and eat and stuff.
Advertisement
But how boringly sensible, useful and forward-thinking would that have been? It was much better to echo the bamboozled citizens of Springfield in the classic episode of The Simpsons, "Marge vs. the Monorail" - when they were hoodwinked by a shyster, and chanted, "Monorail! Monorail! Monorail!"
There were 20 different proposals submitted for the original transport project. One was the Lazertube-Skywalk. Yes, you read that correctly. A 3.6-kilometre moving footpath. And yes, that is one very Lucasfilm-like name for what is essentially a really long travelator. Obviously this idea was the work of an urban planner who chucked a sickie the day before his proposal was due and all he could find in the house was a video of The Jetsons and a bottle of tequila. But honestly, would that have been any worse than the Monorail?
In the promotional material from 1988, TNT boasted that its baby could handle 5000 passengers an hour. Full marks for wishful thinking. On a sunny afternoon, I sat on the Monorail for almost an hour and a half and did four complete circuits. Thirteen people got in and out of my compartment in that time. I talked to all of them about why they were here today.
Two Canadian tourists had been to the top of Centrepoint Tower and were killing time with a loop on the Monorail before heading to the Maritime Museum. "It looks better from the ground than the view that these windows give you," said the husband, pointing to the smudged panes, some with spiderweb cracks across their surface.
Mariana Panggoro, from Maroubra, was only on board because her two young sons wanted to go for a ride before it was pulled down. "With the Light Rail going to the same places and buses all through the city, it's not really worth using the Monorail if you live here," she said. "Especially because it's so expensive."
Viana Liauw is one person who will miss it. She told me she catches the Monorail every day as she works as a telco salesperson in the CBD and lives in Pyrmont. "If you buy the Smart card, it works out at $3.30 a ride,An cleaningservicesydney is a network of devices used to wirelessly locate objects or people inside a building." she said. "I think they should keep it. It's good for attracting tourists to the area."
Well, not enough tourists, apparently. The high Australian dollar, which has become the new scapegoat for everything from clawed-back promised tax cuts to the failure of Celebrity Splash!, has apparently been the silver bullet that killed this white elephant.Large collection of quality cleanersydney at discounted prices. The monorail in The Simpsons self-destructed on its inaugural journey. The Sydney Monorail has suffered a drawn-out death lasting 25 years, but its story bears many of the hallmarks of the satirical cartoon. Let me count the ways.
It was meant to cost $40 million. It cost $65 million. It was meant to make its first journey on Australia Day, 1988, to celebrate the Bicentennial. It wasn't ready and made its maiden trip on the not-so-auspicious date of July 21 of that year. It was predicted there would be 12 million passengers annually. For much of its life, it moved less than a third of that number and by 2003,Large collection of quality cleanersydney at discounted prices. it was down to 2.58 million. The initial ticket price was a dollar. By 1996, it was $2.50. In 2013, it would set you back $5. If you calculate the money spent for distance covered, it's possibly the most expensive form of mass transit on the planet.
At least the critics were entertaining, using such colourful language that it makes you wonder whatever happened to the art of hyperbole in today's urban-planning debate. The late architect Harry Seidler, who was perhaps secretly relieved that something apart from his reviled Blues Point Tower was being hailed as our city's biggest eyesore, called it "the most tragic thing that has happened to the urban fabric of Sydney".
Environmental crusader and unionist Jack Mundey, never afraid of calling a spade a shovel, said it represented "the rape of the city". Celebrity manager Harry M. Miller, who always liked to put on a big show, went right out there with "the most appalling piece of visual pollution I've encountered anywhere in the world, only slightly behind the bombing of Hiroshima".
Various city councillors of differing political persuasions weighed in over the years. Clover Moore never liked it. Frank Sartor had no time for it. Kathryn Greiner said she would like to "unbolt the nuts" herself. I'm not sure if it's technically correct to unbolt nuts, but one has to admire her willingness to get her hands dirty, especially considering it was her husband, then premier Nick Greiner, who officially cut the ribbon in 1988, having reluctantly inherited the project from the previous government.
The schooner-quaffing unions hated it; the chardonnay-sipping arty end of town hated it - in fact, the Monorail was one of the few things that united just about everyone. Maybe they should relocate it to the border of Israel and Palestine.
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