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The Chief reason Buses replaced the old Streetcar (trolley) systems was that the Streetcars had to maintain their own right of ways (and if on a public Street the Public Street) while buses could travel on highways maintained by gasoline taxes. Thus except in locations where it was impossible to replace the Streetcar, buses replaced streetcars. A bus company only had to maintain the buses NOT the right or way.
In my home town of Pittsburgh, buses replaced Streetcars till only three Streetcar lines were left. These had originally been built as inter-urban line to Little Washington (i.e. Washington Pa, as opposed to Washington DC) and Charleroi on the Monongahela river. They had their own right of ways and tunnel through Mt Washington. They had travel through that part of the South Hills of Pittsburgh that had expanded to provide Coal during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Thus they connected various old "Coal patches".
After WWI, the City of Pittsburgh Built a Tunnel for Cars through Mt Washington and the South Hills became a Growing Suburb of Pittsburgh. The Streetcar line became even busier and given the growth of Traffic after WWII, it was faster to go take the Streetcar than to drive to Downtown Pittsburgh (Through after WWII the lines were cut back to the Allegheny County line ending service to both Charleroi and Washington Pa).
When it was proposed to replaced these Streetcar lines with Buses, people demanded the SAME SPEED and the buses could NOT do it (they had to go on the highways which had become clogged with traffic, the Streetcars, going on their own right of way, almost always beat CARS driving to Pittsburgh and that included the Streetcars to pick up more passengers while the car just ran to Town (Pittsburghese for Downtown Pittsburgh).
Note, CARS could not beat the Streetcars, trips on bus trips would have been twice as long as Streetcar rides. The powers that be in Pittsburgh wanted to get rid of the Streetcars but could not figure out how. Buses were out, to slow compared to the Streetcars being replaced. They did not want to rebuild the Streetcar line (It was over 60 years old at that time and needed a rebuilt) for streetcars were obsolete (This was the Mid-1960s, the LRVs would not start to come in till the early 1970s).
Westinghouse Electric made a proposal. Westinghouse was developing the people movers you now see at various airports in the Country. Rubber tired and automatic. Westinghouse proposed replacing the Streetcar line with an all weather, automatic, elevated full time version of its people mover called "Skybus".
Skybus had several advantages, first it was capable of going as fast as the old Streetcar line, it could travel frequently for it had no driver, it was to be elevated except for areas where the streetcar ran on its own exclusive right of way and had no road crossings.
Skybus also had problems. First to the technology being used, the speed of the cars had to be kept low, thus to maintain the same speed of service as the old streetcar line, the number of stops had to be reduced (almost 1/2 of the stops were to be eliminated). Now this does not sound bad, but the stops being eliminated were in areas that had been build up doing that time period between the opening up of the Streetcar tunnel in 1900 and the opening up of the Highway Tunnel (Liberty Tunnels) in 1927. These communities had been designed around the streetcar line and its abandonment meant complete disruption of the transportation system for those areas.
Another problem was do to the technology being used, you could not have two stream of traffic flowing together. i.e. the merging of two lines into one. To complex for the rubber tire system except for very limited entrances. This was complicated by the system having to be closed, you could not add lines to other locations. The streetcar line being replaced were actually THREE interconnected lines with three different end points (a Fourth being Downtown Pittsburgh for all of them). You could run two of them as one but not the third, it had to be merged with another line.
These problems were never resolved by the Skybus proponents and lead to extensive opposition. One area of opposition was the Beechview Neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Its students went to South Hills High School on the Street car line. The time between the School and the Neighborhood was about 6 minutes by Streetcar (and about 15-30 minutes if you drove). Skybus would bypass South Hills completely forcing ALL of the students to take School Buses (and the 15-30 minutes drive).
Another problem with Beechview is that when the Streetcar line was put in, it was put right on top of the ridgeline between two ridges. The Roads from Beechview to the outside were (and are) narrow and curvy. Thus the reduction of stops would have killed the neighborhood for the best way in and out of Beechview was (and is) by Streetcar.
Another Neighborhood to object was the Bethel Park Borough, now Bethel Park started out in the late 1800 as a collection of old coal patches, but with the coming of the Streetcar became a suburban growth area. After WWII, suburban growth was rapid, to much for the existing road system. Given the topography various plans to improve the road system had been still born, over the price to buy the homes in the area to expand the roads, AND the cost to cut into the hillsides to expand the highways (with additional costs that would have to be incurred for the whole area had been undermined during the late 1800s). Improving the Highway system was just not economical. As part of Skybus project a bus line through Bethel Park was to feed into the Skybus system instead of the existing Streetcar system, this was to get around the inability of Skybus to have more than one endpoint.
Thus both Beechview and Bethel Park opposed Skybus, for all they saw was decrease in service. Other areas supported it for increase service (The Streetcar line went by the first enclosed mall in the Pittsburgh Area, but missed it by about 1/4 mile, Skybus would be right next to it, so the Mall supported Skybus).
Areas NOT getting Skybus questioned its worth. Interesting side note, the three biggest transit stops in Pennsylvania are 1. Downtown Philadelphia, 2. Downtown Pittsburgh 3. The Oakland section of Pittsburgh where the University of Pittsburgh and CMU are located. Many people questioned why the South Hills? Why not Town to Oakland? Actually made sense given the movement of people between Oakland and Town but never was even proposed, SKYBUS was strictly a method to get rid of Streetcars NOT as a real transit system. At the time period in question 1965-1975, more people supported Skybus from Oakland to Town and improvement of the Streetcar line to the South Hills than either opposed Skybus or wanted Skybus to replace the South Hills Streetcar system.
Finally in the mid-1970s the Federal Government told Pittsburgh to get its act together as to improving its mass transit. A study was done and determined that re-building the Streetcar line as a LRV line made the most sense. You kept most of the stops, you could keep all three lines going and merging and since LRV are man operated (as opposed to the Computers of Skybus) you could run it on existing streets (Through most of the route was to be on its own right of way).
The study basically pointed out that NO TRANSIT system can break even on its own. The main reason is the costs to collect tolls. Roughly 30 % of the cost of Tolls are used to pay for the collection of such tolls. Given that such costs when it comes to Highway construction is carried by the seller of Gasoline (as part of his costs to collect for the purchase of gasoline), highway construction based on gasoline taxes has a built in 30% cost advantage. Mass transit can NOT compete with that.
A second findings was that by 1975 European LRV design had cross over the Atlantic to hit the US. You than had LRVs as a option to replace old streetcars, something you did not have in the 1960s unless you started construction of such cars yourself.
A third finding was that by retaining the old streetcar right of way (and adding a tunnel under the only major highway the Streetcar line traveled on) costs could be reduced since the number of buildings needed to be purchased could be minimized.
The fourth and final factor was that the LRV could have more than one end point and as such more flexible for future expansion, Skybus had never been designed as something you could have more than one endpoint.
Now what has this to do with your Mono-rail? A lot. First, Skybus was an elevated system, this increased costs for the towers costs money to build and to maintain. The old streetcar line was in need of replacement, but the big costs were NOT the rails, but the Bridges it traveled on. Skybus would be one big Bridge (like your Monorail) and as such more expensive to maintain.
Now the old streetcar system (and the LRV system that replaced it) was (and are) Pennsylvania Standard Gauge (5'2") as opposed to US Standard Gauge (4' 8 ½"). This reduced the ability to run other rail cars on the system, but conversion is not that hard and such interchangeability has been found to be valuable. Your Monorail system (Like Skybus) was restricted to its own right of way and could not be used anywhere else.
Related to the above is the ability to buy used or new cars. As the Pittsburgh rail system aged, it purchased used equipment from other rail system. The Conversion to Pa Gauge was easy so costs could be kept down. Your Mono-rail (and Skybus) could only use custom made cars, thus the system lacked flexibility as to where and how to buy additional vehicles for the system.
Related to the above is also the concept of economies of Scale, LRVs are still made in Europe and Japan, thus the Fixed costs of setting up a production line can be spread over many more vehicles than a custom built system like Skybus or your Monorail.
These are the main reason the Streetcar is coming back (as the LRV). The Alternatives (People Movers, Monorails) are not as flexible in the above areas (and these are major areas of costs). Power usage is about the same in any of the systems, but the increased economies of Scale, the ability to sell (and buy) already made equipment, and the ability to run with traffic if it has to, all gives the LRV an advantage over other systems.
The only transit with lower costs is a bus system. The problem with buses is they run with cars and therefore will always to slower than cars (and given that buses uses diesel fuel, you can not run them underground like you can a LRV or even your monorail system) . To improve mass transit in urban areas, you have to separate Mass transit from Auto transit and today the best way to do that is to install a LRV system.
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