Toronto zoo eyes monorail after Edmonton firm’s proposal
Board will vote on whether to accept an unsolicited proposal for a maglev train around the zoo grounds from an Edmonton firm.
thestar.com
April 10, 2016
By Oliver Sachgau
The monorail at Toronto's zoo as seen after the summer 1994 crash that injured 27 people.
The Toronto Zoo’s management board is moving forward on a proposal to build a magnetic levitation train where the iconic monorail once ran.
The unsolicited proposal, brought forward by Edmonton-based firm Magnovate, endorsed by the zoo’s chief operating officer, would see zoo visitors zip around on futuristic levitating trains for about $12 a ticket.
The $25-million project would also be built at no cost to the zoo, financed instead by a mix of government and private money, Magnovate CEO Dan Corns said.
Building on top of the existing monorail infrastructure makes the project cheaper, he said.
“The zoo is the ideal place for this project because there’s already a five-kilometre guideway in place… that really improves the economics,” he said.
Corns is pitching the project as a win-win for the zoo and the company. The zoo gets a flashy new attraction and ride, and Magnovate gets a crucial stepping stone in realizing its goal of getting magnetic levitation (maglev) trains running across Canada.
Maglev trains, instead of driving on steel wheels, float above the rail using electromagnets. It’s has been around since 1979, but technological improvements have made it easier and cheaper in the past few years.
To prove maglev can work on a larger scale in Canada, Magnovate needs to start with small projects, Corns said. Cities won’t consider proposals unless they have examples of other cities doing similar ones, he said.
“You get into a chicken-and-the-egg scenario with cutting-edge technologies, where cities won’t consider the technology if it’s not already proven in a city environment,” Corns said.
The Toronto Zoo line fills that need by giving them a small project that will work as a proof-of-concept for bigger ones. Eventually, Corns said, he wants to see maglev trains running in cities as well as connecting them.
While pilot projects, such as the Toronto Zoo train, are good at showing that something can be built, Magnovate will also have to prove there’s a demand for maglev trains beyond small-scale applications.
“The big question is not the technical specifications. There will be people who have the skills and expertise to build this and deliver it. The bigger question is: Is there a demand for projects like this?” said Matti Siemiatycki, an associate professor at the University of Toronto who specializes in transportation and urban planning.
Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker, who sits on the Toronto Zoo board of management, said he’s excited about the technology, but wary of the no-cost promise Magnovate is making.
“I’m very grateful that the company has come here and made this proposal, but we have to protect the zoo and the taxpayer,” De Baeremaeker said. He’s also worried about continuing support of the train after it’s built, to avoid what he called “a white elephant, a dead elephant or an orphaned elephant.”
“If after five years we need some spare parts, who can we buy them from? We can’t go to Canadian Tire,” he said.
If it becomes reality, the maglev train line will be built using existing infrastructure from the zoo’s monorail, built in 1976 and shut down in 1994 after a serious accident.
The accident shut down the monorail temporarily, but the closure proved permanent. With the accident in mind, Corns said safety will be a priority for the new train.
“We have redundant systems in our vehicles. That ensures that there’s always a backup system in place,” he said, adding the technology of the maglev train is “far more advanced than what they produced in the ’70s.”
There’s no timeframe for the train ride now, but Corns said he’s expecting it could run within five years. He thinks that, once it’s running, people will see the value of maglev technology.
“It’s essentially the Uber of mass transit,” he said.
