Okinawa Monorail extension construction work starts

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The groundbreaking ceremony was held for the monorail extension construction at the Okinawa Internation Center in Maeda, Urasoe City.

Okinawa Urban Monorail Corporation President Ryouji Nakayoshi, and 450 government officials and residents from the surrounding communities attended the ceremony. The extension will connect the Monorail Shuri Station to the entrance/exit of Okinawa Expressway in Nishihara, adding four more stations and 4.1 km track to the monorail. The extension is scheduled to be in operation by spring 2019.

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Dave Comeau

They should have run the Monorail to the agricultural land next to Ryuku University. It’s also close to Christian College. There would have been a big demand from students, staff and all patients using the University of Ryukyu’s Hospital.
- salvaion
  
  They need to build a regular rail system from Nago to Naha. Take a look at the morning traffic around here; it’s absolutely terrible. Too many cars and no reliable transportation. I know it’s not easy but if they can make it work in Mainland, it can work here. I don’t know who’s retarded idea it was to build a monorail system in Naha, but the money was squandered for new technology than function alone. Why would they ignore function over looks? Oh, probably because an okinawan was in charge of it LOL.
  - BlahJU
    
    You seem to have an issue with Okinawans and are rather uninformed about the history here and the current situation. Okinawa actually had a rail system until the US came and blew it up. Then, while Okinawa was under US control, the American car culture was imported and roads were built while the remaining rail lines were dismantled. That’s why Okinawa is in the situation it is in today and they are trying to work around it with the monorail. Due to the way projects are funded, land is acquired, and UXO all over the place, progress isn’t exactly quick. It’s not because “an okinawan was in charge of it LOL”. That’s just an ignorant thing to say.
    - salvaion
      
      I’m just going to leave this here so you can feel dumb about your post about a rail system in Okinawa that transported people pre-WWII. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Okinawa
      That historical information basically nullifies your entire post.
      - BlahJU
        
        I suggest you go read that again in full.
      - salvaion
        
        I read it, you’re still wrong.
      - BlahJU
        
        What part of “Although the original intent was to transport sugar cane by handcar to the refinery in Nishihara, the line was unused in the off-season, and the operator set up a separate company to provide passenger service on the line. It opened in November 1914, providing service between Yonabaru and Konaha.” was difficult to understand? It specifically says “passenger service” and it continues to say it was in operation until 1944.
    - salvaion
      
      Secondly, Okinawan people will never tell you the real dirt on Okinawa and their government. The fact is that they mismanage funds and projects–and always have– since Okinawa Pref. joined back to the Tokyo government. That is why there is discontent toward large companies in Okinawa; they don’t hire Okinawans. Look around you and all you see are large industrial complexes, apartment chains and food chains. NONE of these are Okinawan owned and they are not staffed at an executive level by Okinawans. Oh, and the interesting thing about the animosity from Okinawans toward Mainlanders; they are the ones selling their land to these companies… the Okinawans. So it’s self-inflicted.
      - BlahJU
        
        How long have you been in Okinawa? What you just said is the stereotypical SOFA personnel view of how things operate here. You should spend a couple years working off base for a new perspective. Surely you have seen San-A? Okinawan owned. A&W? An Okinawan runs the contract for those over here and you’ll only find them in Okinawa. There are countless successful smaller companies as well especially in the IT field.
      - salvaion
        
        San-A is owned by the same company that owns Joyful Restaurant Chain. I’ve been living in Japan, both as SOFA and on a Gaikokujin toroku. I stopped drinking the cool aid long ago. You want me to show you an example? How about the monorail system? You say “countless” but you have not shown me one example yet. There is a time where you must stop drinking the cool aide and understand how things really work on this island. The Gov’t is taking care of the Okinawans and they are practically atrophied mentally. Take a look at all the Gov’t housing around here. You can’t even go one kilometer in a rural area without seeing large buildings with the city marking. Have you ever been to the Okinawa-shi City Hall? It’s a megastructure.
      - BlahJU
        
        What? San-A has been in a franchise agreement with Joyful since 2002. San-A has been around much, much longer than that. They are also in franchise agreements with several other companies.
        
        I’m not sure why you dislike the monorail system so much. It was built to ease the traffic in Naha and now they are expanding it…there’s no reason to get your panties in a bunch over it. I’ve already given you examples of companies, but since you demand examples of smaller IT companies that I mentioned, how about Lexues and SYON Communications? There are even incubation centers here that help new startups get off the ground. How about you provide some examples of your claims of mainland companies here only hiring mainlanders or how the monorail is an example of mismanaged funds?
        
        Why are you bringing up government housing? I don’t even know why I’m wasting my time replying to you.
      - Firsag
        
        The monorail was cheaper? You both sound like a couple retards who are saying things you can’t back up with evidence.
      - BlahJU
        
        I don’t have exact numbers, but when you factor in how much land would be required for a traditional rail system (think about the terminals too, not just the rails. The monorail has the terminals built over the roads), the fact that people are currently living on said land, and the fact that so many roads and infrastructure under the roads would require work to support a rail going across them, then yes, the monorail was cheaper. You don’t think they did the math on this when they were planning this in the first place? The infrastructure changes needed to support traditional rail here would be astronomical in price and it would take far longer to construct.
      - salvaion
        
        No need for exact numbers. They should have invested the money given to them by Tokyo to start a JR Rail system. Instead they squandered it on the Jetsons’ experiment. More traffic is what they deserve till the streets are clogged and it resembles Walking Dead around here.
      - BlahJU
        
        Ok, here are the numbers: http://www.jrtr.net/jrtr26/pdf/t58_neh.pdf
        
        The monorail cost about $85 million per kilometer (which is pretty cheap compared to other monorails). Lets say they built a traditional rail 1km long… They’d probably need about 10 meters to support two tracks plus a small buffer area on each side. Land price ranges from $2k to $7.5k per square meter in Naha depending on if it’s residential or commercial land so lets stick with an average price of about $5k (although the average price of the land needed near where the monorail goes is likely higher and these are modern land prices which are lower than what they were when the monorail was constructed). Just in land prices alone, you’re looking at around $50 million per kilometer (10m wide x 1000m long x $5000). Now factor in that you need to purchase not only the land, but the buildings that are sitting on the land, destruction of the buildings, landscaping, modifications to existing infrastructure, materials, labor, etc and it’s not difficult to see how a traditional rail would be much more expensive in a densely populated area like Naha.