COMMENTARY

Why Can't Tampa Build A Monorail?

By TED JACKOVICS The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jul 22, 2007

TAMPA - Soon after The Tampa Tribune printed a news article last summer headlined "Trainless in Tampa," readers responded quickly and candidly.

"Can you tell me which moron county commissioner voted against the rail system in Tampa, so I can help vote these fools out of office?" one e-mailer asked.

A professor at the University of South Florida warned that a previous proposal for a light rail system for Tampa was "the wrong technology, in the wrong place, at the wrong time," adding a cautionary note to enthusiastic plans for the area's first rail network.

But one response stood out from the rest with a fresh idea. And a swift timetable.

The writer suggested the heart of Tampa's new transit system should include a monorail system, a rail concept that's been overshadowed by light rail proposals in the United States.

Unlike most local transit proposals, the overall network would not take years to materialize. Plans for initial phases could be launched in months, if the community summoned sufficient determination.

Of course, this transit plan would have to adopt certain business and political practices from halfway around the world to pull it off.

"I am a retired transportation engineer," the e-mail from Dade City resident Lanney Wenn began. "Spent the last 40 years in Asia planning and designing public transport for Calcutta, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.

"The Kuala Lumpur monorail is carrying an average of about 60,000 passengers per day. The monorail is appropriately applicable to Tampa's transit needs."

Wenn cheerfully points out it has taken longer to write this article than it took the company Monorail Malaysia, in which he played a principal role, to design, build and test a prototype the Kuala Lumpur Monorail System.

"We were given three months by the then-Prime Minister of Malaysia to build the prototype to prove to him as a group we were up to the task at hand," Wenn says.

Wenn's group got the go-ahead by the end of May 1999 and invited the prime minister to test drive the prototype on a 100-meter test track by September that year. The system opened in Aug. 31, 2003.

Wenn estimates a 20-mile monorail connecting North Tampa, downtown and the airport would cost about $860 million, or $43 million a mile based on building the Kuala Lumpur monorail.

That's a cautious estimate, $3 million more a mile than planners said a 38-mile, $1.5 billion monorail route in Pinellas County would cost. That plan, except for a small segment in Clearwater, has been shelved for the near future in favor of Bus Rapid Transit routes running on highways with regular traffic.

By comparison with the $860 million monorail price in Tampa, the state indicated it will cost $540 million to widen Interstate 275 for a five-mile segment from the Howard Frankland Bridge to Ashley Drive.

"So why can't Tampa do this?" Wenn asks about a start-up monorail.

Getting Started

After Wenn's initial e-mail, he took time from fine tuning his golf game on the fairways at the Lake Jovita Golf Club to meet with a reporter at Lunch On Limoges in Dade City on a steamy August afternoon and spread a $2.95 street map of Hillsborough County across a table.

Wenn used a green felt tip pen to draw a line from Tampa Palms along Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, west along Fowler Avenue, south along Nebraska to downtown Tampa and west along Kennedy Boulevard to Tampa International Airport. That would be the path of a "NEKA" monorail: "Nebraska-Kennedy-Airport."

That was just the beginning.

By October, the retired transportation engineer/planner had expanded his conceptual plan to a network of 12 transit corridors, with monorail, bus rapid transit, bus-rail, and trolley lines throughout Tampa Bay.

In addition to the original monorail concept linking downtown with the airport and north Tampa suburbs, monorail or light rail lines would connect Brandon and Tampa.

Wenn says if the system became increasingly popular, it would be conceivable to extend a monorail to connect a Pinellas County transit system with an extension from Tampa International Airport. The University of South Florida could be asked to provide applied research to the network and develop a bus that could also ride on rails and serve Lakeland from Union Station and additional destinations east and south of Tampa

But, Wenn warns, "We must start modestly."

He says the initial step could be a bus rapid transit line along Dale Mabry Highway and into downtown. The modified buses, designed with controls to regulate traffic lights and doors added to the left side, would enable them to run more quickly down the left lane or a designated bus/car pool lane of Dale Mabry, stopping at raised portions of the median that would serve as bus stops.

At the same time, Wenn would push for plans to finance the first monorail, one linking North Tampa with downtown and the airport.

Of course, point-to-point mass transit won't work if there's no way for passengers to get to their ultimate destinations.

"So that would require some additional form of transportation downtown, small buses or vehicles that circulate people on frequent schedules. In the longer run, the underutilized trolley system could be modified, but the companies that built the system and know its potential should finance a proposal for trolley expansion, not the taxpayers, Wenn says.

Dreams Vs. Plans

Anyone can draw lines on a map, but Wenn's thoughts are backed by almost 40 years of international experience in transportation planning and engineering.

He is a graduate of Furman University in South Carolina and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Wenn spent 24 years as a regional director and vice president in charge of the international planning firm Wilbur Smith Associates' projects in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Those ranged from expressway studies to all-bus option plans to monorail and light rail networks.

Wenn knows as well as anyone that Tampa Bay is not transit crazy Portland, Ore., let alone Kuala Lumpur. So it would make little sense simply to import details of transit plans and expect them to work.

The public must buy into an expensive system that won't eliminate but only mitigate highway congestion. It would not even be used by a majority of residents on a regular basis.

But improved transit, with a comfortable rail option, can make trips to downtown, the airport and sports events more palatable than driving amid traffic jams. It's been shown in Dallas, Toronto and elsewhere that a rail plan can stimulate business development in and around station areas.

Tampa Bay's economic development leadership learned a vital lesson in Washington a few years ago when U.S. Rep. John Mica of Winter Park, the Republican leader on the House Transportation Committee, told them they need not bother making a pitch for federal highway money if they did not come up with a transit plan, too.

So using rail as part of mass transit system has been part of discussions for Tampa Bay improvements. But those ideas have failed to evolve into action, unlike Salt Lake City or Denver or Orlando or other U.S. cities, let alone the modern, urban centers of the Far East where Wenn spent much of his career.

The Case For Monorail

Monorail systems have their share of critics, including a privately operated system in Las Vegas, where ridership has not lived up to expectations.

But monorail has its pluses, too. It eliminates the need for dangerous rail crossings that tie up vehicular traffic and would not divide buildings and street activities in a neighborhood.

Building a monorail requires a much smaller "footprint" on the ground, about 1.6 meters for two monorail columns generally placed about 75 feet apart for two-directional travel. That compares with at least 7 meters wide to add light rail where there is no existing track, Wenn says.

The monorails could reach speeds of 50 mph, and average 25 mph, with stations planned close enough so the longest walk would be about a quarter of a mile from the nearest station.

Unconventional Wisdom

The overall notion is to design a comprehensive transit system that would improve Tampa Bay transportation, but to finance and build it in segments, based on public acceptance of each successive link.

That's where Wenn's proposals to rethink conventional political and planning come into play to get something going quickly in Tampa Bay.

By no means, does Wenn endorse rushing a project, nor does he espouse rail transit as a panacea at the exclusion of other transportation modes.

He is very apprehensive when people talk light rail. They must look beyond the existing rail tracks and the presumption that rights of way to build new rail transit must be readily available, Wenn says.

Perhaps Wenn's major contribution is to encourage a plan for getting a transit program started with a sense of urgency, beginning with a modest proposal planned as part of a comprehensive system.

"If one shoots for the moon with an all-or-nothing approach, chances are it may wind up again in the round file," Wenn says.

"Chasing smoke is better than chasing a rainbow as with the latter, one cannot find its beginning or its end."

Reporter Ted Jackovics can be reached at (813) 259-7817 and tjackovics@tampatrib.com