From Disneyland to China, the monorail is riding a new high. But would it work in LA?

In 1959, Walt Disney watched his monorail encircle Disneyland in Anaheim, a train from the next century bringing park guests, appropriately enough, into Tomorrowland.

Disney figured transportation planners would take his monorail concept — a sleek, elevated, electric-powered train straddling a single beam — and replicate it inside real cities.

“He wanted to build a whole city with monorails and people-movers,” said David Koenig, author of several books on Disney’s legacy. “He was convinced everyone was going to build monorails all over the world.” Instead, California in the 1950s and ’60s built roads and freeways.

But in the last 30 years, Los Angeles awoke to the potential of hard-rail subways and light-rail trains as a way to unclog jammed freeways.  Now the transit world is considering cheaper, less intrusive ways to move people, and that includes a modern version of The Magic Kingdom’s monorail concept.

LA Metro is proposing four concepts to take at least 120,000 people a day from the San Fernando Valley’s Metrolink Station in Van Nuys roughly along Sepulveda Boulevard through the pass and connect with the Expo Line, either the Sepulveda Boulevard or Bundy station in West Los Angeles, and then in later phases continue to LAX.

If LA Metro chooses the option known as SkyRail, proposed by Chinese company BYD, Los Angeles could get its first monorail.

Metro options

Connecting the San Fernando Valley to West LA and then to LAX would be the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s most ambitious project to date.

Driving the route one-way during morning peak hours can take up to 110 minutes. Going from nearly two hours to 15-20 minutes would make a major impact in one of the busiest freeway corridors in Los Angeles County.

The first three transportation concepts being considered by Metro are heavy-rail like the Red Line subway in Downtown LA and Hollywood.

Two of those would mostly travel underground. A third concept would be partially underground and partially above ground on an aerial system, said Dave Sotero, LA Metro spokesman.

The fourth option is a monorail that straddles a beam but uses rubber tires as well, either elevated on a track or riding flat on the ground. LA Metro does propose some of the monorail to go underground.

“People are becoming more aware of monorail technology,” said Ben Jurjevich, product manager for BYD’s SkyRail in North America. “We really are in a renaissance for transportation. In Asia, people have been building monorails.”

BYD has contracts or is in talks with 14 other cities, he said.

Monorail potential

Tom Stone, a consultant for BYD and civil engineer who worked on building the Los Angeles-to-Pasadena Gold Line light-rail took notes on how to improve the Disney monorail when he worked for Bombardier, a company that built the 1989 monorail that runs between Epcot and Disney World Resort.

Since the ’50s, “monorail technology has improved by orders of magnitude,” Stone said.

BYD’s SkyRail is a sleek, lightweight train that can add or subtract cars depending on demand. The monorail runs on electric power, not diesel locomotives. It is quieter than a light-rail or heavy rail because it is usually elevated and doesn’t have to sound horns or ring bells. In the event of a power outage, the monorail can continue running on battery power, Jurjevich said.

But the biggest difference between building a monorail or building a heavy-rail subway underground is cost. Since it is built on pre-cast supports on an elevated track, there is no tunneling. That saves money and time, Jurjevich said.

Feasible?

Marlon Boarnet, a USC professor from the Department of Urban Planning and Spatial Analysis, was paid by BYD to study the concept of a monorail through the Sepulveda Pass.

Boarnet estimates an underground subway for 19 miles all the way to LAX would cost about $20 billion. BYD’s SkyRail would be built for between $6 billion and $7 billion.

“It is about three times more expensive to tunnel than to go above ground,” said Boarnet in an interview. “Both point to this idea that a monorail could come in about one-third of the subway cost. For the whole 19-mile corridor.”

The monorail concept is the only one that could be built all the way to LAX by 2028 and within the current LA Metro budget. The agency has set aside about $9 billion from Measure M, a one-half cent sales tax measure passed in November 2016.

However, one of the disadvantages of monorail is the switching technology is more difficult.

“That is one reason why monorails have not built out to large interconnected systems,” Boarnet said.

Also, some residents may not be in favor of the elevated tracks. The Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association said they “want nothing at grade or aerial that worsens our congestion.”

Stone estimates the SkyRail monorail as configured by BYD would take about 20 minutes from the Valley to the Westside.

Metro’s estimates are slightly longer —  estimates a monorail would take 26 minutes as compared to 15-18 minutes on a heavy-rail subway — but considering current traffic times, “it is a game-changer,” Sotero said.

Metro plans to refine release a finished feasibility study by the end of the year, Sotero said.