The powers that be are planning, with some seriousness, a monorail for Colombo. We saw this video which shows how awesome a monorail would be, though we don't know the source of the video. All that has been
released on the subject is that Sri Lanka is
likely to build a $1.3 billion USD (Rs. 169 billion) monorail with Japanese funding (in the initial stages). It is also estimated that the project would take eight years total (three for planning, five for construction.
If We Did Have A Monorail
If Colombo did have a monorail, the route would look something like this, with the Malabe to Fort corridor opening first. This would drastically speed up the commute from Battaramulla and the easter suburbs, of course after construction would have made commuting hell for five years (at least) in the process.
Afterwards they envision other routes connecting Colombo North and eventually a rail connection to the Airport.
There are, however,
other unsubstantiated plans circulating that show a Moratuwa to Fort line being built first.
What Would A Monorail Mean
Civilized public transit would be amazing and is, ultimately, necessary for Colombo to be an international city. However, building a monorail could be prone to cost overruns and delays and could turn out to be a huge burden on tax-payers.
The general idea of getting into town fast, reliably and without traffic, however, is very appealing. The actual feasibility analysis still has to be done.
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Jehan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ5CbLnSjo0
Jehan
Seriously though… if the public bus system was improved, i.e. modern hybrid doubledecker buses, professional drivers, cashless touch card/mobile payment options, clean, well designed/planned stops with bus times/routes clearly stated (hell it would cost almost nothing to GPS track the bus so that arrival times are known and even respond to breakdowns in real time from a central NOC), you could achieve the same thing at a fraction of the cost without the 5 years of congestion caused by construction.
ravipathiravithana
wrong route concept ,monorail or metro rail always overlap routes to facilitate passengers to have connecting rails….study the sys in
london KL,BKK and even india for that matter
k
TJ
Since when have being a "burden to tax payers" ever stopped a politician from doing something? :-D
Some
The route alignment has been decided after an extensive study. Read the Colombo Urban Transportation Master Plan http://www.transport.gov.lk/web/images/stories/F-CoMTrans_Main_S.pdf
ISK
Idea is good, but two of the major routes omitted. There should be two lines along galle road and highlevel road.
kp
Jehan- while improving the bus system would certainly be welcome, there's a couple things you're ignoring there. a) colombo has traffic issues. big ones. and getting rid of some buses as a result of this isn't a bad thing. b) colombo in particular is held hostage every time the private bus associations decide they want to up prices. c) what happens when the buses can't keep up, sometime in the future? is it not better to have the disruption now (for 3 years, not 5. unless they're doing the planning stage in the middle of galle road as well) rather than have it 20-30 years in the future when the city will be even more crowded?
dj
I recall spending more than an hour to travel from Kiribathgoda to Borella during the peak rush hours in 1990 when I was a schoolboy. While I no longer do that trip, my in-laws (who live in Kiribathgoda) have told me that it still (in 2014) takes over an hour for this trip during peak hours and this is post construction of the flyovers at Kelaniya and Dematagoda.
A metro/mono rail system for Colombo is very long overdue.
The price tag of US$1.3 billion might seem high but the time saved in travel time should definitely be worth so much more.
One more thing to note is that a rail system WILL be used by the general public whereas expressways with tolls are not for the likes of the avarage commuter (and there are mucch more of them than those who own private vehicles) who earns low salaries but still need to get to work on time. So with this type of system there definitely is benefit to the masses and not just a select few who have cars that can do 100km/hr and can afford to pay tolls even on a daily basis.
Rani
The video has been removed…
Warlorde89
The stupid video has been removed and they couldnt wait until i watch it. :(