Tainan Proposes Monorail System

Tainan has proposed building a monorail, which it calls a "light metro" (輕量捷運), and which would run from near the intersection of Xiaodong and Zhonghua Roads to Anping and connect to planned bus transfer stations.  Tainan's Transportation Commissioner Zhang Zhengyuan (張政源) claims that a monorail would be more convenient than a light rail system, could be privately run, would cost half as much as light rail (?!) and, since it could be built above medians, construction wouldn't disrupt traffic.  He also claimed that travel times could be reduced to less than 10 minutes.  The city government hopes to conduct a viability study next year.

While I'm glad Tainan is taking some tentative steps to building a rail system, I can't help but be skeptical about Tainan's choice of mode when they claim that an elevated monorail would be cheaper than an at-grade light rail system.  Of course, it will be a long time before we know if anything will come of this at all.

Taoyuan Announces Taoyuan-Xinzhuang Line Alternatives

Last week the Taoyuan County government released two alternatives for a rapid transit line between Taoyuan Train Station and Huilong MRT Station, slated to be the Taoyuan MRT's Brown Line.  The first alternative would be what the linked article calls light rail, and would run underground in Taoyuan City and elevated for the rest of its length.  (I was under the impression, however, that in Taiwan a rail line had to run on the surface for at least a quarter of its length to count as light rail.)  It would be 11.5km long, and cost NT$23.5 billion, or NT$2 billion/km (US$67 million/km).  Its depreciation rate, or the portion of construction costs that would be paid through operating profits, would be just over 30%.  The second alternative is a monorail line, which would be elevated for its full length and cost NT$16.4 billion, or NT$1.4 billion (US$47 million/km).  The lower cost would bring a higher depreciation rate, of 40%.  Presumably this is largely because the whole route would be elevated, which would be more acceptable with monorail since they can use sleeker support structures.