That’s an interesting question, though not directly relevant to Wellington for a number of reasons. Of greater relevance is to compare current Wellington proposals to Sydney’s new but struggling, slow, and horrendously over-budget Trams [see FAQ #8]. But, getting back to the Sydney monorail...

The Sydney monorail was never integrated with Sydney’s wider public transport network. It was a gimmick that did not really go anywhere, and just went round in a circle like the Disneyland monorail. It was  a small line serving sightseeing and educational locations around Darling Harbour, including the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney Aquarium, and Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre.

It should also be noted, that this was a straddle-type monorail, not a suspension monorail, with totally different characteristics compared elsewhere in our website.

• The reason for decommissioning the Sydney monorail related to maintenance: it was reaching the end of its economic life and the NSW Government was unable to justify costly upgrades such as the purchase of new vehicles, in order to keep such a limited system running.

No doubt, if it had been integrated with the wider public transport system it would have been easier to justify such an upgrade.

This was certainly the case for the Wuppertal Schwebebahn, in Germany (see Links page). After 120 years it is still running its 13 km track, carrying more than 80,000 people daily, and had a major upgrade including new carriages in 2019. It won the IF Design Award in 2017.