Escalation of transportation
Scott Dennis
Issue date: 6/25/08 Section: Forum
A few months ago, Anaheim city mayor Curt Pringle proposed funding a new monorail system to connect the popular Disneyland entertainment district to a developing area of the city.
The proposed system, which is currently undergoing a feasibility study, would carry approximately two million passengers a year. At the same time, Disneyland has been testing out its brand-new Mark VII monorail trains around the resort. The efforts of Disney and the city of Anaheim to improve public transportation should be an example to communities everywhere.
However, there is a dark side to these Southern Californian developments.
By building a cool new monorail system, Anaheim is outdoing Oregon transportation-wise - an act that must not go unanswered. Perhaps this is Anaheim's belated answer to Portland's MAX system. Whatever the reason, we must respond with an even better public transportation system, a system so awesome its magnificence will be likened to a radiant Lampyridae among Scarabaeidaes (in other words, it'll be cool).
The innovative new mode of transport I'm referring to is, of course, submarines.
Monorails may regularly operate at 99 percent reliability and be environmentally friendly, but we can outdo our friends in Anaheim by using the proven technology of subway tunnels to link various underground stations throughout the state.
After the tunnels are built and sealed we can flood them, which will negate the rodent infestations that tend to plague traditional subway systems.
And while monorails are incredibly safe and incapable of traffic accidents, our cutting edge subway submarines will float along attached to a track, eliminating the possibility of collisions with the tunnel walls. Should an emergency occur in which a sub needs to free itself from the track (say it encounters a school of giant submarine-eating Pistol Shrimp), we'll install an emergency release switch to detach the vessels.
Sure, monorails are super quiet and occupy very little space, but Oregon's new submarine transports will be housed entirely underground (and underwater), thus muting any noise the subs may emit.
The proposed system, which is currently undergoing a feasibility study, would carry approximately two million passengers a year. At the same time, Disneyland has been testing out its brand-new Mark VII monorail trains around the resort. The efforts of Disney and the city of Anaheim to improve public transportation should be an example to communities everywhere.
However, there is a dark side to these Southern Californian developments.
By building a cool new monorail system, Anaheim is outdoing Oregon transportation-wise - an act that must not go unanswered. Perhaps this is Anaheim's belated answer to Portland's MAX system. Whatever the reason, we must respond with an even better public transportation system, a system so awesome its magnificence will be likened to a radiant Lampyridae among Scarabaeidaes (in other words, it'll be cool).
The innovative new mode of transport I'm referring to is, of course, submarines.
Monorails may regularly operate at 99 percent reliability and be environmentally friendly, but we can outdo our friends in Anaheim by using the proven technology of subway tunnels to link various underground stations throughout the state.
After the tunnels are built and sealed we can flood them, which will negate the rodent infestations that tend to plague traditional subway systems.
And while monorails are incredibly safe and incapable of traffic accidents, our cutting edge subway submarines will float along attached to a track, eliminating the possibility of collisions with the tunnel walls. Should an emergency occur in which a sub needs to free itself from the track (say it encounters a school of giant submarine-eating Pistol Shrimp), we'll install an emergency release switch to detach the vessels.
Sure, monorails are super quiet and occupy very little space, but Oregon's new submarine transports will be housed entirely underground (and underwater), thus muting any noise the subs may emit.
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