Is personal rapid transit for real?

USC associate planning professor Catherine Burke had an interesting opinion piece in The Times on Monday: She advocated for more research of personal rapid transit systems, saying the time is now for a new transportation alternative.

What are these things? Basically small, automated cars that are attached to fixed guideways. What makes them different from a train is that the guideways go all over the place, the idea being that the pod on the personal transit system takes you directly to your destination. There's no going to umpteen other stations first.

Now, a confession: I have to say that I'm skeptical. Readers e-mail me ideas for these type of systems all the time. I think they're novel and kind of neat, but I also tend to think that it's a little too advanced for the Southland.

To put it another way, I'd be more ready to accept podcars zooming about if there were more bike racks at train stations, synchronized traffic signals or ticket machines that dispensed monthly passes. You know, the kind of simple, no-brainer things that should have been done decades ago but still seem beyond the grasp of local transit officials and the politicians who are supposed to be watching them.

So that's my issue. Others have, well, other issues. The group Light Rail Now, for example, has a long dissection of personal rapid transit on their website and they conclude it doesn't work too well -- that crowds will swamp such systems and result in long amusement park-like lines.

On the other hand, the above video is from London Heathrow's Airport, which is building a personal rapid transit system to connect one of its terminals to parking, rental car facilities and other buildings. If nothing else, it's slick.

And, if it works, maybe there is a real-world application out there somewhere.

-- Steve Hymon

Comments

[Andre]

Buses: loud, multiple transfers (very inefficient), burn fossil fuels, congest traffic. Subways: serve a limited (mostly linear) area, very expensive to build, long construction time. Light Rail: similar to subways, possibly less expensive to build. Cars (including taxis and limos): burn fossil fuels; expensive to purchase, insure, and maintain; large numbers result in congestion, accidents, and fatalities.

Having expressed what is mostly obvious, it is time we entered the 21st century and embraced an innovative form of public transportation that addresses most (if not all) of the above concerns.

PRT, while not without its challenges, offers logical, reasonable solutions to present transportation challenges. Still, some detractors continue to mis-characterize the fundamentals of the system.

PRT operates on an elevated guideway, and does not interfere with surface traffic. Passengers would not be forced to share a pod with other riders (though such an option - if offered - may reduce the cost per rider). PRT operates non-stop, your pod only stops traveling when the destination of choice is reached. Guideways would not criss-cross EVERY street; they would primarily operate along larger boulevards, easily within walking distance of most residences and businesses. Guideways would not have to be large eyesores; they could be streamlined, and designed to include lamps, street signs, and harbor utility cables.

Of course, it will take some time and effort to bring PRT to its full potential, but imagine the jobs such a construction project could create. Furthermore, PRT does not have to happen all at once; the system can be put together one area at a time. Nevertheless, the point is that we need something like PRT, and we need to get started now!

[James Anderson Merritt]

"...too advanced for the Southland..."

Like personal computers, DVDs, and GPS units were also too advanced for households, I suppose. Or like self-service elevators were too advanced for skyscrapers.

Everyone is so quick to kill a non-traditional idea before people get a fair chance to consider it. I look forward to the completion of the Heathrow system, because even if it only functions as a peoplemover there, that will still give many thousands of people the opportunity to get enough real-world experience to be able to imagine PRT making a difference in their own towns and cities.

Buses, trains, and light rail have succeeded in certain circumstances, but Americans overwhelmingly like their personal automobiles. There are many reasons for this, but primarily, automobiles give us the freedom to come and go as we please, from wherever our cars are parked and to wherever there are roads for driving, on our own schedules, more or less securely, in comfort and privacy. Personal cars also have significant drawbacks. Fuel is expensive. Traffic is often congested and dangerous. Cars themselves require serious financial outlay for lease or purchase, maintenance, and insurance. Driving requires full alertness, but sometimes you want to leave the driving to someone else: buses and trains aren't private enough for most people to consider napping on the trip (and there is always the possibility of sleeping through your stop); cabs are often too expensive to hire. The very young, very old, and ill or infirm -- not to mention the very tired or inebriated -- often cannot drive themselves to their destinations. Finding parking spots can be time-consuming, frustrating, and expensive.

Even so despite the drawbacks of owning and using personal cars, people prefer them to the major modes of public transportation. The benefits of public transportation either do not outweigh the corresponding drawbacks, or are also inferior to the benefits of the personal car, even when the car's drawbacks are also fairly considered.

People will keep choosing their cars unless and until someone introduces a mode of transportation that offers many of the benefits of the personal car without the attendant drawbacks, while also providing many benefits of its own that overcome its own unique drawbacks. I think PRT hits the sweet spot, or close to it.

PRT doesn't have to supplant the car to be successful. Indeed, if we establish PRT's goal as replacing the personal automobile, then PRT will almost certainly fail. All that is needed for PRT to succeed, is for people to prefer to use it instead of a personal car or other mode of transportation, often enough to generate revenues that are sufficient to repay construction, operations, maintenance, and system expansion costs. A system that can pay its own way joins the constellation of transportation options available to the citizen, who feels no pressure to do anything except that which best serves his or her purposes in any given situation where transportation must be arranged. If a PRT system is designed and managed properly, it will ensure its own survival and enhancement by providing the best value proposition for people who want to go from A to B in a large and varied collection of scenarios.

It's definitely possible to do PRT wrong, so that it becomes at best a boondoggle and at worst an abject failure. But the critics who have crawled out of the woodwork would have you believe that it is IMPOSSIBLE to do PRT right. I think that is untrue, but we won't know for sure until we actually get some real-world experience with a prototype or pilot system, which is why what is going on at Heathrow is so exciting to many of us who want to see public transportation escape the 19th century. The Heathrow system will soon go into passenger service. By this time next year, we should know a lot more about the practical aspects of PRT, and be able to say with more confidence whether something like PRT is right for the Southland, or any particular region. Keep watching!

[B22]

Steve Hymon: "To put it another way, I'd be more ready to accept podcars zooming about if there were more bike racks at train stations"

One plus of PRT is that you can take your bike on board. All the designs that are at an advanced stage - i.e., test track or prototype - have enough room in the cabin to take a bike or a wheelchair.

"The group Light Rail Now, for example, has a long dissection of personal rapid transit on their website and they conclude it doesn't work too well -- that crowds will swamp such systems and result in long amusement park-like lines. "

The Light Rail Now article is pure drivel, full of outrageous inaccuracies. It has been demolished and dissected several times. Here's one of the several rebuttals available on the web:

http://kinetic.seattle.wa.us/nxtlevel/prt/rebuttal-lrnow-BW.html

Kymberleigh Richards: "Amusement park rides are not the basis for public transit."

Yes they are. The first escalator used by the public was an amusement park ride at Coney Island in 1896, and the steam train that inspired the railway revolution was Trevithick's demonstration called "The Steam Circus", a.k.a. the "Catch Me Who Can", in 1808 in London.

The fact is that the track technology developed for modern amusement park rides is vastly better than the 200-year-old idea of steel wheels on steel tracks, which are very limited as to how steep a slope they can climb, and how fast a train can accelerate or brake. A high speed train takes several miles to stop. Generally, if a driver can see an obstacle on the track, it is already too late to stop. If the train tried to stop faster, it would destroy the track and derail catastrophically. An amusement park ride can stop safely from a very high speed in a few yards.

Ken: "Who are the "entrenched interests" that seek to thwart PRT?"

Look in the mirror, Ken. Every time I've visited a news or blog site that mentions PRT and permits user comments, you're there, spreading inaccurate F.U.D. and making links to discredited Light Rail Now propaganda. You are by a long mile the web's most prominent enemy of PRT. You personally have links to Light Rail Now, which has published material by you more than once, and Light Rail Now receives rail industry sponsorship.

If PRT works as promised, and is deployed in cities, that will be the end for light rail, because PRT will move people around more quickly, more conveniently, more energy efficently, and more cheaply. No new urban light rail systems will ever be built if PRT gets a foothold in the marketplace, and the old ones will not be upgraded or renewed when they come to the end of their lifespan. Therefore, the rail industry has a stake worth tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars in preventing PRT from ever being deployed. On the other hand, if PRT is the nonsense you say it is, then you don't need to do any campaigning. The people who have invested in it will lose their money, egg will decorate their faces, and interest in the idea will die. But you won't leave them to it. You campaign, and campaign, and campaign. One wonders how you find time for anything else. Is it a job?

Anyway, I fully expect that your efforts are doomed in the end to failure, and you are doomed to spend your old age suffering from incurable crippling embarrassment about your mad and obsessive web campaign against PRT. Your obsessive support of an archaic transport technology that is known to be inefficient and expensive is a bit pathetic. Most light rail projects are notorious money-pits with disappointing ridership -- boondoggles, in other words. Yet, you oppose the new technology that promises to do the job better, apparently because you are in love with the old. You are stuck tragically in the past, Ken. I almost feel sorry for you.

[Mr_Grant]

Sidewinder wrote: "You have a better chance of getting Federal money for your horse-drawn trolley than you do for PRT, despite the massive benefits that PRT would bring... we will be behind the curve on PRT as well when it finally takes off (and it will)."

I am hoping this will change with a Democratic administration and bigger congressional majority. Today Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY22) says in the Cornell Sun:

"“I want to seriously congratulate you on what you’re doing,” Hinchey said to the [Podcar City Conference]. “We live in a time when dependence upon fossil fuels is really, in a sense, passé.”

As a means of reconciling the issue, Hinchey asserted that government focus should be reallocated to “personal rapid transit automobiles,” [sic] and subsequently to allowance for “substantial amounts of funding” to achieve such a transition.

Hinchey explained that a transportation bill is long overdue.

“It’s overdue because this administration is not willing to deal with the economy, [and] because they’re not interested in reducing our dependence on oil,” he said."

More: http://cornellsun.com/node/31679

Hinchey's bio and committees:
http://www.house.gov/hinchey/about/

[Ken Avidor]

Who are the "entrenched interests" that seek to thwart PRT?

[Sidewinder]

You have heard Ken Avidor tell you that PRT is an "unproven concept", "failed" and "unfeasible" despite much interest in it in many municipalities nationwide.

What he doesn't tell you is that the reason the concept hasn't been adopted already is a Federal Law that says no Federal Funds shall be provided for "unproven" transit solutions.

You have a better chance of getting Federal money for your horse-drawn trolley than you do for PRT, despite the massive benefits that PRT would bring.

So, the US is reduced to being second best in a field that American Engineers pioneered because it is a threat to entrenched interests.

Just like the Japanese became #1 in automobiles by implementing the Deming method of continuous improvement while US automakers gave you the K car - we will be behind the curve on PRT as well when it finally takes off (and it will).

At least we'll still have the romance of the train ...

[Ken Avidor]

M_Grant, the open topic is whether PRT is real.... the answer is PRT is an unproven concept, not a feasible transportation system:

http://prt.blip.tv/file/787526/

... and it is certainly not the "Microsoft of transportation":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjoLkKDzQbU

[Mr_Grant]

Ken,
I'm going to have to insist that you address the open topic before you pull out your next Talking Point. Namely, Jacob Roberts and the Ithaca Festival. You can't just throw mud and then change the subject when it doesn't stick. Let me rephrase that -- I wish you wouldn't do it again. I'll accept a retraction.

You know what else this reminds me of? It reminds me of what you wrote about Gus Ayer and Erik Pellin. Remember them, Ken? October 2007? We can revisit it later if you like.

Anthony,
After so many years of Ken yammering about PRT being a right-wing scam, it's refreshing to hear you liken it to socialism. Maybe you can discuss that! Anthony, meet Ken; Ken, Anthony. Why would Michele "Smoochy" Bachmann support 'bad socialism'? Discuss.

[anthony]

You know what's going to happen when normal citizens begin to use them; they'll treat them just like they do the buses, defacing them and writing graffiti all over. Nobody's going to give a damn making sure they are clean. It's everything bad about socialism rolled into a transportation system.

[Ken Avidor]

If there was anything real happening with PRT right now, there would be a lot of noise on the PRT web forums.

Instead... crickets:

http://93660.forums.motigo.com/?action=index

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/seattleprt/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/prt-talk/

[Mr_Grant]

You're right, Dan, to be angry about the car culture. The infrastructure that has made it possible also enabled many of the blights that dominate our urban and suburban areas. I'm sure we all have a list of our least favorite major offenders.

However to accuse PRT of being "beloved by those who wish to somehow preserve the declining car culture by inflicting it onto public transit" is just plain wrong. And illogical -- how would public pay-per-ride PRTs, that only go from station to station, be anything like a private automobile? Electric cars and alternative fuels sound like better targets for your wrath.

You are entitled to your suspicions, but they are the opposite of what I have experienced. I don't know of one strong advocate for PRT who loves the car culture. In fact the most common reason I have heard from them is that they want to make the overall transit system better because they hate that the car and the road system have been made a higher priority than people, animals, livability of our cities, and the health of the natural environment.

PRT is essentially a train that is divided into small lightweight segments. The vehicle weight reduction allows weight reduction of the track. A rule of thumb in civil engineering is that fewer construction materials translates into lower cost -- so we think PRT will be cheap enough to serve more locations than a train of the same cost. By being an on-demand system, PRT is more energy efficient because vehicles move only in response to that demand.

Think of it this way -- you COULD move people around a skyscraper with one big elevator, but instead we use a lot of small elevators. That's all PRT is. People movers.

[Dan W.]

PRT is an utterly ridiculous concept. It is beloved by those who wish to somehow preserve the declining car culture by inflicting it onto public transit. The bottlenecks for this proposed system at the entry point and along the way are simply laughable.

We already have a "personal" rapid transit system. It is called the "automobile" and we have already seen its best days come and go. The car culture will continue to decline in quality and effectiveness as congestion continues to increase and gasoline prices continue to rise.

[Mr_Grant]

Ken, you know full well there are many examples of PRT past the point of "concepts and a few laboratory-scale models," I have alluded to some of them earlier.

How is your failed attempt to insinuate a PRT connection to the Ithaca Festival's problems an example of moving the goalposts? Maybe the goalposts moved because they were weighed down by all that snow in West Virginia, which is kind of near Ithaca.

[Ken Avidor]

The PRT guys have nothing but concepts and a few laboratory-scale models... so naturally, they can claim anything... and they do.

Arguing about PRT is like arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

The PRTistas don't just move the goal posts... the goal posts are on roller skates.

PRT can be anything... it can run through tubes, hang from a wire, run underground, run on solar energy, batteries, wind energy.... some of these PRT concepts like JPods and Skytran are totally wacky.

The only purpose of PRT is to waste people's time.

[Mr_Grant]

Ken,

I haven't followed the Ithaca issue at all, but in 5 minutes I am able to read enough to point out how you have cherrypicked the news so as to aid your insinuations about Jacob Roberts.

You wrote: "The Podcar Marketing & Sponsorship Director Jacob Roberts was recently fired from his other job - director of the Ithaca Festival after he ran up a six-figure deficit."

and

"I hope the media does a better job with these perennial pod stories in the future and investigate their claims."

You are connecting Roberts, podcars and the Ithaca Festival problems as something that should be investigated, that there is dishonesty going on if only someone would look.

Except in those 5 minutes I found the local Ithaca news has investigated. And you know what? No mention of PRT. No mention of wrongdoing. What emerges is a story all too familiar in this economy: a nonprofit that sets its goals too high, and stumbles on unforeseen complications:

*CLIP* (Ithaca Journal) 'Asked about the spike in 2008's expenses, Roberts said he had been given the directive to expand the festival, and he believed the highest previous budget was about $112,000. Marion disputed Roberts' figure, and suggested that the budget of the 2007 festival was between $125,000 and $127,000.

Asked how a budget could swell to $300,000, Marion declined to comment specifically, but disputed the total budget figure.

"The Ithaca Festival, due to operating two festivals, one of which -- in Stewart Park -- was struck by bad weather, experienced a shortfall in revenue, for which the festival is planning on having multiple fundraisers, and anticipates the support of the Ithaca community in coming to Festival 32 in 2009,” Marion said.

"We acknowledge that this year our reach exceeded our grasp. We have a debt, and we are working to pay that off," he said.' *END CLIP* Source: http://tinyurl.com/599qgx

Roberts was "given the directive to expand the festival." Who issues directives to the Executive Director in a nonprofit, Ken? The Board.

How does this festival's hardship relate to PRT, Ken?

Ken, you know what this reminds me of? This is just like how you keep claiming PRT can't run in the snow. One time you claimed the PRT at West Virginia University had to shut down because of snow. Except the real story was that a car hit a power pole during a snowstorm, blacking out part of the campus, the PRT and a neighboring area. Source: http://tinyurl.com/5njlll

[Peter Muller, PRT Consulting]

Perhaps its time for some facts. Let's look at the Morgantown PRT system. Yes, I agree it is not a true (modern) PRT system but let's focus on what it is and what it has accomplished (facts not anecdotes).

It was built as an experimental project in the mid 70s.

It has demonstrated that the basic PRT characteristics (on-demand service with direct non-stop service between origon and destination bypassing intermediate stations) can be accomplished with 70s technology.

It has a theoretical maximum capacity of 5,000 passengers per hour per direction. It has actually carried over 3,000 passengers per hour at transit level of service A.

It is an all-weather system.

It has now completed over 140 million injury-free passenger miles (regular transit would have injured over a hundred and probably killed someone in that many miles).

It operates at $1.50 per passenger. This is less than most light rail systems charge and much less than they cost.

It travels at 30 mph which, because of the non-stop characteristic, is faster than light rail which only averages about 25 mph despite its maximum speed of 55 mph.

So, if this system is so much better than light rail, why has it not been repeated? Here I can only speculate. I think it is largely because the initial experimental Morgantown installation overran its capital budget and schedule causing the feds to turn their backs on all forms of PRT. Its time they took another look. Perhaps the ugly duckling has turned into a swan! Or, as the New York Times put it "A White Elephant turned into a Transit Workhorse".

[Ken Avidor]

Is the recent uptick in PRT hype because of the Ithaca Podcar Conference next week?

Seems the pod people have a little problem in Ithaca.

The Podcar Marketing & Sponsorship Director Jacob Roberts was recently fired from his other job - director of the Ithaca Festival after he ran up a six-figure deficit.

And Jacob Robert's Connect Ithaca website is down.

Jake was also a supporter of the DestiNY Mall which was hyped to have a PRT system... what happened to that?

I hope someone makes a video of Jake's PRT presentation at Ithaca's State Theater and puts in on You Tube.

In other news... the Minnesota legislature's biggest PRT promoter Rep. Mark Olson just lost his primary.

I hope the media does a better job with these perennial pod stories in the future and investigate their claims.

[Mr_Grant]

Ken, when are you going to stop ignoring?

You know what else Ken calls "hype"? Masdar -- which is investing billions in transitioning the Abu Dhabi economy away from oil to alternative energy. How is a multi-billion investment "hype"? Are you ignoring the meaning of the word? How is BAA's majority investment in ULTra and plan to expand to the rest of the airport just "hype"?

Keep muddying the waters by lumping ongoing projects in with those that are purely conceptual or not PRT at all. Keep ignoring Vectus.se, backed by POSCO Steel, which has had its safety case accepted by the agency Swedish Rail, and appears poised to enter the EU market along with ULTra. Yes, I know this will just prompt you to claim Vectus guideway looks like the failed Raytheon guideway from the late 90s -- which it does only if you ignore the fact that Vectus' guideway is actually half as large.

Ken, stop ignoring your own record of 5 years of off-mark claims and predictions. For instance, your claims about Heathrow would hold more water if you hadn't once claimed the project doesn't exist. Or that ULTra pods will have to be fuel/electric to have HVAC. Or that an outdated Google Maps photo of the ULTra test track site was evidence that facility had been "bulldozed."

Keep ignoring that 25 mph average speed is faster than urban buses, and equal to average speed for many light rail systems. Keep ignoring the Virginia Dept of Rail & Public Transportation reported that ULTra's expected capacity "would also be equivalent to the observed capacity of existing light rail and busway lines."

Keep ignoring that a growing number of urban planners are becoming "gadgetbahners," as you call us. Among them are Peter Calthorpe, who has done perhaps the most to popularize Smart Growth and transit-oriented development.

Yes, Ken, keep ignoring all this while the rest of us keep making progress. Tick-tock, Ken. Tick-tock.

[Kymberleigh Richards]

All I have to do is quote the previous commenter:

"We actually have something very much like PRT in the form of amusement park rides at Magic Mountain."

Amusement park rides are not the basis for public transit.

[Russell Johnson]

I live on the West Side and have long been an advocate of PRT. I have suggested this as an alternative to the Expo Line in meetings with the MTA and only gotten scoffs. We actually have something very much like PRT in the form of amusement park rides at Magic Mountain. Running PRT on twin steel tubes with rubber tires would be quieter and faster than a guideway system like the Heathrow project. PRT has huge advantages:
1. The ability to go up and over roadways and other obstacles.
2. Faster travel times than light rail if PRT cars are only stopping when a passenger needs to get on or off.
3. Far better mileage per passenger mile because one is not moving a multi-ton train.
4. Stations could be more frequent and closer to the point of origin/destination.
5. Capital investment can be staggered by adding more PRT cars at a later date as ridership increases.
It's amazing to me that critics don't think we can solve the technical details. Americans can put a man on the moon, but we can't make a transit system work . . . . really? We have an aerospace industry in Los Angeles that may put people out of work when the Air Force ends some of its contracts. These are the companies with the technical expertise and the production know how to design and build PRT. We should be a nation of can-do and innovation.

[Ken Avidor]

It's all just a lot of hype.. the PRT guys have been promising the big breakthrough for over thirty years.

Cabintaxi, Taxi 2000, Skyloop, Cybertran, Pathfinder, Skyweb Express, Hallitubes, Higherway, Eco-Taxi, RUF, Micro-rail... there's a list of over a hundred of these wacky "gadgetbahn" concepts that have gone exactly nowhere. There is no true PRT system in operation anywhere.

The so-called PRT project in Heathrow will go nowhere also...in 2005, they promised it would be in operation in 2008, now it is scheduled for Spring, 2009.. why the delay? If the PRT guys were so sure of the technology. it would have been built by now.

When and if ULTra opens at Heathrow, it will be a flop just like all the other PRT projects flopped. Despite it's futuristic design, ULTra is just a glorified, battery-operated, automated, tiny-rubber-tired golf cart with a top speed of, get this 25 mph... "personal" maybe, hardly "rapid" and definitely not "transit".

[Mr_Grant]

Show of hands -- who doesn't have curtains or blinds on their bedroom windows?

But seriously, there seems to be a natural tendency for opinion on PRT to divide into extremes: it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, or it's evil.

Well no one needs to worry. I can pretty much guarantee that PRT will never replace conventional rail systems where they already exist. How am I sure? Well, can you imagine jurisdictions ever writing off their past capital transit investments?

No. PRT would be adopted as niche systems and circulators. Some pooh-pooh that, but many areas need such things. Circulators can also serve as feeders for train stations.

Where PRT would be the exclusive transit mode would be small but growing towns without rail systems, and new cities, such as planned for the Masdar eco-city that has started construction in Abu Dhabi.

Masdar is endorsed by World Wildlife Fund and BioRegional, and MIT is a partner. The designer is Lord Norman Foster. I'm sure they have considered the role of PRT in Masdar quite carefully.

[A Transportation Enthusiast]

The Heathrow system being built today is a PILOT. If it is successful (and there's every reason to believe it will be) it will be expanded throughout the entire airport and beyond into surrounding areas.

PRT is also planned for the town of Daventry in the UK, as well as several cities in Sweden and Poland. Some of these may not pan out (transit politics are always treacherous) but there are a great many people taking a serious look at PRT in cities. Most of the existing projects (including Heathrow) are privately funded, by companies who believe that PRT can be profitible in the long term and are willing to invest millions in that notion.

If you still think PRT is a limited use toy system, look at the Masdar Initiative in the UAE - an ambitious, one of a kind carbon-neutral city of 50,000 which will be car free and use PRT exclusively for intra-city travel. This is a serious project with serious funding and serious partners: MIT, Foster & Parners, and C2HM Hill. And it's pure PRT.

So you can believe the words of PRT's competitor - the LightRailNow website is funded by corporate entities which are heavily vested in rail projects that would be directly threatened by PRT - or you can believe the hundreds of transit engineering consultants from around the world who enthusiastically support this technology as a city-based solution.

[Ken Avidor]

Does anybody really think that people (real people, not the CGI mannequins that inhabit the computer-generated simulations on PRT websites) would cut down half the trees on their block for an elevated structure with a clear view into their bedroom windows?

PRT  is an infeasible transportation concept that has a 30-year record of controversy and failure.

In Minnesota, the biggest supporters of PRT are the usual anti-rail transit  suspects: Senator Michele Bachmann, Rep. Mark Olson (16b), Phil Krinkie.... and Dean Zimmermann.

Click on my name to learn more...

[Walt Brewer]

We now go to great expense to buy cars to provide personal on demand direct transport directly to a wide variety of destinations. PRT can do that faster at less expense. We have spent $ billions since Gov Jerry's Brown's "Era of Limits" over 30 years ago to get people out of cars into buses and light rail that have no way to provide personal fast no transfer service. That's why they carry only 3% of travelers. Growth alone in daily travel on roads in just two years is as much as the TOTAL for the entire expensive mass transit system. Isn't it time we use our technology to provide the personalized effective travel the vast majority wants instead of more and more 100 year old concept buses and trains their builders want to provide with little favorable impact?