Monorail proposed to connect CNMI islands

Transcript

A Macau-based investment group has come up with a proposal to build a monorail connecting the Northern Marianas islands of Tinian and Saipan.

Alter City Group says its proposed elevated transport system will have six stations, and will connect the tourist area on Saipan with its proposed resort on Tinian.

It says it would cost the local government nothing, and could carry more than 1,000 passengers per hour.

But our correspondent on Saipan, Mark Rabago, says at this stage it is very much a dream, and it would have to cross an incredibly deep 20 kilometre wide channel.

MARK RABAGO: This Macau-based investor is building a five-star resort on Tinian [and it] wants to build an elevated transportation system, which is basically an aerobus or monorail, that would link Saipan and Tinian. They said that it's not only to accommodate their would-be customers from abroad, but also it would serve as a tourist site for tourists coming in. They said it would have six stations and would basically would link the tourism district on Saipan and on Tinian so people could go there much, much faster and safer and easier.

JAMIE TAHANA: How feasible is it? This channel between Saipan and Tinian is about 20 kilometres isn't it, and it's a very deep channel. Surely there's some infrastructure challenges there?

MR: Yeah, there is going to be a lot of infrastructure challenges and they didn't even put a price tag on this because it's probably going to cost in the billions. Hopefully it's not a pipe dream; hopefully it comes true because it's been a long-held dream of having Tinian and Saipan connected via a bridge or a tunnel to ease the movement between the two islands. So this is very, very ambitious and a very, very hopeful dream on the part of Alter City Group.

JT: That's high hopes considering the other casino on Tinian's had to shut down for lack of demand?

MR: Mmhmm. Well they say they're expecting 1.5 million projected tourism numbers for the CNMI, so they're quite upbeat about this. Aside from what they're proposing, there's of course the Tinian Dynasty [resort] there and there's another investment group that's planning to build a Titanic-themed park also here on Tinian. So there's three attractions that people would have to go to Tinian for so they're they could bank on that investment to finance whatever billions of dollars they're putting in here.

JT: And it's a very early proposal isn't it? Is there any kind of date or process that they're to go through now or has been launched?

MR: It's still a proposal, of course they would have to ask for permits, they would have to go around the gamut of government agencies to get permits for this and also ask for the opinion of people. So it's a process and they didn't set a timeline or even a price tag on this.