It's six months after the first writeup, and the
Merry Hill Monorail is now in the process of being deconstructed, and the monorail stations are all being demolished.
The original
problem with the
Monorail was that, while it was
fun for five minutes it was
slow, and it didn't actually
go anywhere useful. There were three
stations:
1. Inside the Merry Hill center itself.
2. Outside the row of (mostly)
electrical retailers detached from the main centre.
3. A
car park near the
Waterfront, where hideously
expensive pubs serve local
businesses which can afford the expensive
rent. (
Telewest Communcations is one, the
government tax office is another!)
Back when Merry Hill first opened, the Waterfront car park was hardly ever used, so only the first two stops were of any particular interest.
However, the
walk between the first two stations would take around 5 minutes, and walking from the second to the third would take perhaps 15 minutes.
This, combined with the fact that a large percentage (I have no actual figures) of
people arrive at Merry Hill by
car made the monorail pretty
redundant.
Ironically parking the
car is much more of a problem today, so it's now quite common to see the Waterfront carpark completely full. The monorail would've been
perfect for people who have to park this far away!