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Sky Taxi Monorail At Houston International Airport


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I never knew that Houston was a proposed site for the 1962 World's Fair. We could've had a Space Needle!

 

That would have been so appropriate for this city - even more so than for Seattle. At 605 feet the Space Needle would now be dwarfed by many buildings here. San Antonio's Tower of the Americas is 622 feet and, I believe, still the tallest structure in Bexar County.

 

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I wonder if having a 605 foot Space Needle would have affected the heights of the buildings built here...

 

If you mean, would developers, designers, and building owners honor the height by avoiding building above it I doubt it. I believe the only thing that keeps Houston from having a 100+ story building is economic reality.

 

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  • 2 years later...
On 3/5/2006 at 3:12 PM, sevfiv said:

Instead of dredging up old topics, i thought i'd share these photos here...I found these while browsing through some older volumes of the Houston review:

IAH sky taxi:
mr001.jpg

the trailblazer (tested at arrowhead park):

mr002.jpg

mr003.jpg

a downtown rendering:

mr004.jpg


The Houston review of history and culture
University of Houston. Center for Public History
Published by the Houston Public Library Board, 1979-97

fgdfg.JPG.3eb146d8b05b5e1d97f2cdbd382117b6.JPGThis snapshot of a film/video clip is of the monorail being installed at Hobby Airport, then called Houston International Airport

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  • 2 years later...

There was plenty of talk about this notion when I  First moved to Houston in 1977. Mostly I remember the plan to connect both airports with $$$ set aside. By the time I moved back to Houston in 1979; guess the plans had changed because those earmarked funds were used for something else.

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Sainted MayorBob (Lanier), suburban developer and previously a highway department commissioner, successfully used the "toy" argument when running for his first term.  The claim was that monorail is Disneyland technology.  Somehow, the counter argument that Disney's business model includes efficiently moving large numbers of people around in order to make a buck was never really raised.

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  • The title was changed to Sky Taxi Monorail At Houston International Airport

Information found in the newspaper The Bellaire & Southwestern Texan August 18, 1965.

This particular Monorail was designed by Murel Goodell for his company Monorail, Inc. based in Houston, TX.   Actually, all three monorails that were tested in Houston (Houston International Airport, Arrowhead Park, and Fondren/S. Main) were owned by Murel Goodell.

Sky Taxi

The “Sky Taxi” monorail at the International Airport, Houston's unique answer to the nation's parking problems will get off the ground sometime this week with a leting of construction, electronic and coach building contracts.  The announcement was made by Marel Goodell.

ktEaDqO.png

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