Tehran Monorail

The Tehran Monorail was a project to construct a monorail in the Iranian capital Tehran. The project was cancelled in April 2010, with only 3% completed.

History and Controversy

The concept of constructing a monorail in Iran was first proposed in 1976 before the Iranian Revolution. Then the mayor of Tehran, Shahrestani, eventually scrapped the project after repeated specialist consultations indicated that a monorail network would not ease traffic in the city in a significant fashion. At the time the general conclusion was that it would create more problems than solutions.

In 2002, Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared his intent to develop a monorail system for the capital despite the numerous warnings by transport and traffic experts. The monorail project was expected to cost 135 million Euros for 12 km and three stations.

The largest criticism of the project lay in its heavy costs on the already cash strapped Tehran City. Furthermore, a large part of criticism is directed towards the plan's geographical mapping. According to those who have had access to the initial sketch, the selected route is less crowded, making the project, in their view, unjustifiable. Among opponents of the Monorail plan was Ali-Asghar Ardakanian, a member of the Transport Engineering Society who believed that Iran lacked the pre-requisite skills and knowledge to maintain and run the...
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