The comments here are only from people who take a skeptical view of PRT and Monorail. The internet is dominated by pro-PRT web sites, many of them represent moribund or extinct "Citizens for PRT" groups (who funds all these sites?). There are also a bunch of Yahoo sites where PRT fanatics hallucinate back and forth. Let's give the critics a chance....

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Cartoonist Andy Singer Responds to a PRT Enthusiast:

Dear Andrea,

I'm glad you liked my presentation. Thanks for coming. I only have the one book on transportation issues. My other book is just a general collection of cartoons.

As for PRT, I know it well. Alas, I find it to be totally evil. In theory, it combines the worst features of cars (low capacity) with the worst features of transit, high-tech, capital-intensive infrastructure. It's basically a "Smart Car" on a monorail (but lacks the safety devices found in even a typical car). There are hundreds of problems with it (both theoretically and in reality) but the biggest problem is IT SIMPLY CANNOT BE BUILT (...other than meaningless little test tracks and airport people-movers, which are basically "Trains"). The technological problems are simply too overwhelming. Think of Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)-- a computerized transit system in the San Francisco Bay Area that's been around for over 30 years (and has been periodically upgraded). At any given moment, BART only has to manage 54 trains on a simple 5-line system. These trains have tons of built in redundancies. They have multiple cars with multiple motors (in case one or more motors fail). They have manual overrides for train doors and car controls in the event of computer or mechanical malfunction or in the event of emergency ...AND they are built to withstand crashes even at high speeds, in tunnels and elevated tracks with emergency access walkways. Originally, they were supposed to be driverless, but (despite numerous retrofits) the error rate was high enough (given their heavy use) that they eventually had to put in redundant operators to make sure doors didn't close on people ...or to override train controls when the computer system failed. Since they only need 54 operators (at most) ...and each train holds over 1000 people, this wasn't a big deal or an overwhelming expense. Finally, BART operates on fixed routes on a fixed, very predictable schedule. Even with all these features, redundancies and just 54 trains (at any given moment) ...BART only operates on-time, without failure at 89%!!! (and they've had 30 years to work out the kinks!!!)

Now, imagine a PRT system with 10,000 little pods, which have NO built in redundancies, each traveling in an unpredictable path on random schedules, on a maze of overhead tracks, which (as currently designed) have no safety or capacity redundancies. If a single car (of 10,000) had it's single motor break down or some sort of on-board computer failure ...and (as sure as death and taxes) computers DO fail from time to time ...the car would stall, shutting down part or all of the system while someone with heavy equipment went out to get the pod (and it's stranded passengers) off the track. What would be the failure rate? Extrapolating from other computer operated transit systems that only operate 50-100 trains at a time, the failure rate of a 10,000 pod system (on fewer over-all miles of track) would be 80% or 90% or god knows!?! They couldn't keep the thing running for 5 minutes before multiple failures would shut it down. IT IS SIMPLY TOO COMPLEX of an engineering and computer engineering problem to solve. Shooting down a single incoming nuclear missile with space based lasers is a far EASIER engineering problem than PRT ...and, despite hundreds of billions of dollars and 25 years of research, the Defense Department has been unable to solve even THIS problem with less than a 50% failure rate.

The bottom line is a fully functioning PRT system CANNOT BE BUILT. It is a crack dream of engineers at U of Minnesota and MIT. Ed Anderson or Dean Zimmerman will say they have an answer for every one of your objections ...but, when you add them all up and carefully reason out and cost up their "Answers," ...they don't add up! Think for one minute-- If PRT could be built and would be cost effective, dozens of major engineering firms would have put money into building it-- like Siemens, Rockwell, Bechtel, etc.  But, when these companies looked at PRT, they see the above problems that I described and the astronomical costs involved and they refuse to invest more than token amounts (in simple "People-mover", airport shuttle systems or other vastly abbreviated, fixed-route, train-like systems). In over 30 years, an ACTUAL PRT system has been unable to attract a single major, corporate private investor. In 30 years, no ACTUAL PRT system has ever been built  ...and it never will be built. Trolleys, Buses and subways by contrast were all developed and paid for by the private sector. Twin Cities Rapid Transit (which ran 530 miles of trolleys in the twin cities) was a private company. So, even if you don't believe what I'm saying, I think it's important to ask why PRT has been unable to attract major private investment.
Meanwhile, people like Tom DeLay (now indicted for conspiracy) ...who HATES transit ...or Mark Olson (a transit hating, road builder in Minnesota) and the highway lobby that they serve view PRT as a way to stifle funding for actual, viable bus and light-rail transit. They support PRT precisely because they know it won't work and because it serves as a wedge issue to divide transit advocates and helps prevent real transit systems (that are proven to be effective) from getting funded or built.

Taxi 2000 is a cultish pyramid scheme, where Ed Anderson, in his charismatic obsession with PRT has managed to hoodwink hundreds of well meaning individuals into investing a minimum of $5000 each based on scant engineering information, made-up balance sheets and financial data. He's hooked a former chancellor of the University of Minnesota, a well meaning but clueless peace and justice studies professor at St. Thomas University, a random clueless financial planner in Saint Paul ....right up to some people in city and state government.  Witness the recent lawsuit, where some of these investors realized they'd been had and tried to recoup some of their losses. It's the Minneapolis equivalent of the "Falun-Gong" cult in China ...only it's trying to milk Minnesota taxpayers for millions of dollars that would be better spent on extended bus service, new LRT lines or even after school programs in Minneapolis's underfunded public schools (which have been severely cut).

...So, for all these reasons (and more), I will not allow my cartoons or images to be associated with PRT in ANY WAY! ...and would consider suing for copyright infringement if I found out they were being used by PRT advocates.

I mean you no offense and admire your interest and activism on transportation problems ...but that is my feeling on the issue.

Sincerely,
Andy Singer

 

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Vukan R. Vuchic, Ph.D. ,UPS Foundation Professor of Transportation, Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering,University of Pennsylvania....In Professor Vukan R. Vuchic's book "Urban Public Transportation Systems and Technology", Prentice-Hall 1981, section 6.3.2, pp. 494-498 Professor Vuchic discusses the PRT concept and concludes that the concept of PRT is "infeasible under any conditions."

Professor Vuchic said the following recently about PRT:

"In a major speech which I presented at a conference of the German Association of Transit Agencies in Frankfurt, Germany, when they also had a federally sponsored program to develop PRT (Kabinenbahn), I said that the PRT concept combines the features of the automobile (small vehicles, personalized travel) and rapid transit (expensive guideways and automated control which are economically feasible only for high volumes). This is as realistic as crossing a sow and a centipede to obtain 100 hams!"
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More from Professor Vuchic:

Non-conventional transit modes often attract attention because of their innovative image and exotic features. It takes considerable understanding of transportation systems to distinguish their advantageous features from the features that make them inferior to conventional modes or even, in one case (personal rapid transit, or PRT), functionally infeasible. There are entire modes that are conceptually unsound but that attract the attention of the public. Promotional efforts by some inventors, as well as the naive views of inexperienced theoreticians, often cause confusion and costly delays when cities intend to develop new transit systems. Selected misleading statements are briefly reviewed here.

“Monorails, AGT, and PRT are modes of the future.” The popular view that the solution to present day urban transportation problems lies in new technology is for the most part incorrect, because these problems have been created by incorrect policies rather than by inadequate technology....

Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) is claimed by its promoters (J. Edward Anderson, President of Taxi 2000 Corporation, and Jerry Schneider of the University of Washington, among others) to combine the advantages of rapid transit and private cars. Actually, this is an imaginary system based on an operationally and economically infeasible concept (elaborate infrastructure, yet low capacity) and has no realistic potential for application in urban transportation.

-- Vucan R. Vuchic, "Transportation for Livable Cities", Rutgers: Center for Urban Policy Research (1999), pp. 220-221

http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/vuchic2.htm

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Here's some comments from readers:

PRT Nut Crashes Real Transit Meeting.

Hi Ken,
 
On Saturday I attended a presentation on "The Past and Future of Toronto's Streetcars" by three individuals with intimate knowledge of the system's history and potential.  The meeting was organized by Transport 2000 Ontario, a "volunteer organization with the mission of promoting environmentally sustainable modes of transportation."
 
Five minutes before the end of the Q&A, an odd fellow at the back of the room brought up his idea for a PRT scheme in a part of Toronto that was to be redeveloped.  Frankly, he looked like he was out on a day pass from a nearby psych institute.
 
This for me was quite amazing.  I'm a long-time transit enthusiast, but it was only in the past week that I've become familiar with the PRT concept (through the lightrailnow.org feature on "Cyberspace Dreams" and through your website PRTisajoke.com.)  I was frankly surprised that serious people had to waste time arguing this nonsense.  Who on earth would they be arguing with?
 
I got my answer within days, at our streetcar event.  You would have enjoyed how Mr. PRT was handled:  "I'm not going to beat around the bush --- I think PRT is a crock," was one panelist's response.  He tried to elaborate on this point, despite repeated interruptions from Mr. PRT.  "If you would just SHUT UP I'll tell you why it doesn't work!!"  It was quite a change in the tone of the meeting, which had been cordial up to that point.
 
Thanks for the advance warning on the psychology of PRT proponents: had I not studied PRTisajoke.com a few days before, the above exchange would have left me baffled.
 
Interesting anecdote:  Thirty years ago the Province of Ontario was trying to push a more "futuristic" transit system on Toronto, and the Minister of Transportation of the time was enamoured of the PRT concept.  In one of his speeches, he was fumbling for words to describe the allegedly unobtrusive and elegant guideways for his PRT vision... the word that he finally came up with was "flimsy..." intended in some kind of positive sense of course.
 
NB:  Not all "Greens" are lunatics like your city councillor there.  I was candidate for the Ontario Green Party in our elections last year.  It's too bad he's giving Greens a bad name.
 
RD, Green Party of Canada
Ontario Canada

 

BAD DESIGN

I like what you've got but I'd harp more on all the ways that PRT fails to utilize the advantages of public transport-- cost per person, energy use per person and, most importantly, capacity (The ability to move more people per hour in a smaller space).
It's like a car lane can move a maximum of 4500 people per hour (if every one carpooled) ...but a light rail line can move from 20,000 to 40,000 people per hour, in the same lane's worth of space. PRT takes up MORE space and needs more elaborate infrastructure than either a car or public transport ...but fails to increase capacity beyond that possible with cars ...and the key transport issue is increasing rush-hour capacity, without destroying space. PRT is basically a "Smart Car" on a more elaborate and expensive right-of-way. And this cost has never been adequately analyzed. I'm sure the "cost per person moved" is astronomical, compared to a light rail system ...as is the "energy use per person moved".

My favorite local example of failed, supremely expensive "People Movers" (and a forshadowing of PRT) is at the airport, where you USED to be able to take the bus directly to the check in area. Now, for no good reason (other than to enrich PRT companies), they put in a "people mover" that
necessitates you get off the bus at a parking lot, go down a long excallator, get on a people mover, go literally 200 yards, get off, go up
two long escallators ...all to get to the same place the bus used to bring you directly to in the first place! THIS IS PROGRESS?????!!!!???? NO, it's BAD DESIGN and money wasted on useless technological toys. What a joke.

-Andy Singer

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VAPOR WARE

OK. Here it goes.

I want to start with very concrete and practical concerns I have about PRT. One of my problems with PRT, perhaps the main one ultimately, is the disconnect between the squeaky clean vision of the technology and my urban experience, which tends to be a far grittier. The technology as I understand it would require a massive maintenance component in the real urban world. I believe that there will simply be a lot of trashed redolent pods with garbage on their floors circulating the system unless a labor intensive system of cleaning, testing, and repair is implemented. Vandalism may be regrettable, but it is real and will add significant costs to the maintenance of the system. And this is not a frictionless system so there will be wear and tear, not to mention break-downs of the pods, since they are driven by individual electric motors. I have to wonder, too, about the potential maintenance costsmiles of elevated monorails. Water has an amazing ability to find a way in and around supposedly watertight barriers.Estimates on the life of a heavily used and abused pod? How about a support pylon sprayed with salt slush at its base eachwinter? If a section of guide way “goes down”, how fast can it be repaired? Ice storms-how does this system handle a two inch coating of ice?

Proponents will probably dismiss these vulgar questions as "attacks." But I am serious in asking them. To do less, is to accept the classic "vapor ware" rhetoric unburdened by testing or basic design considerations. It seems to me that for all the years of study and the advances in computing power and software engineering, it's the hardware that will be the BIGGEST problem ultimately. The physical world is a stern task master.And that is where the relatively modest costs put forth by PRTers are, in my opinion, bogus.

So in summary. . .
I see astronomical costs in keeping the PRT system running,with constant reconstruction of lines and refurbishing of pods. Then there is that nagging questions of upgrades. . . . Another way to state this is, I suppose, is that even if PRT is built and actually "works," it won't be as advertised--far less sleekand clean and cheap, more prone to delays, less reliable etc. All we have at this point are the marketing materials, somepreliminary design work, a glorified amusement park ride, and some big rhetoric, in my opinion.There are transit systems that we can implement now without subsidizing a research phase, which is really what we are talking about here. I am far more interested in buildinga BRT system like the Transmilenio in Bogata, Columbia. Google "transmilenio" for more information.

-Russell Raczkowski

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BEYOND THE SAFETY LIMIT

Dear Webmaster,
Great site!

And in addition to the compliment..a "hot tip" for another anti-PRT argument.(Actually, two.)

First, there's a well-known transportation-planning concept overseasthat tends to get ignored over here. It's called the "safety limit."This refers to the "safe stopping distance" from the "speed limit" or"maximum permitted speed."

As we all know, road vehicles operate "beyond the safety limit." Inother words, the safe stopping distance from the speed limit (ortraffic speed) is greater than the average spacing between vehicles.(However, there IS a limit, but more on that below.) By contrast, "trackbound" or "trackguided" vehicles are NEVER permitted to operate beyond the "safety limit" ? anywhere in the world.

The only qualified exceptions are streetcar lines (and new light rail lines on city streets), but these systems ALWAYS have operating rules that specify a minimum distance between cars. (Buses are permitted to follow each other more closely than light rail trains through Pittsburgh's Mount Washington Transit Tunnel, which has been used jointly by buses and rail vehicles since 1975.) I don't think I need mention that operation "beyond the safety limit" is CRUCIAL to the PRT concept (er, fantasy).

It is not well known over here that Japan developed what was then the world's most advanced PRT system, "CVS," during the early 1970s. This actually provided demonstration rides during Expo '75 in Okinawa. However, the Transport Ministry did not issue a formal "license" to carry passengers (as it did for another system, with larger cars, that also served the exposition). CVS was permitted a maximum service frequency of 12 seconds . . . and a maximum speed of 12 mph. The thing operated more or less as a "ride" at scheduled intervals; self-service "on demand" operation was not permitted. It is also not well known that plans for a 6-mile CVS line in Tokyo reached an advanced stage by 1975.

However, the scheme collapsed when the Transport Ministry made clear that a trackbound vehicle is a trackbound vehicle, subject to the same safety standards as apply to ALL trackbound vehicles. Even the fanatics admit that without "close headway" operation, PRT doesn?t "pencil out." The good Dr. Anderson can't bring himself to acknowledge this, but the "real" reason Japan has such tough transport safety standards is the fallout from a series of rail and ferry accidents between the mid-50s and the early '60s. (I'll send details if you'd like.)

Which brings up the second anti-PRT argument I can contribute: Statistics show that a freeway lane can carry between 2,200 and 2,400
vehicles (sometimes a bit less) before things grind to a halt. Ever wonder why these numbers are so consistent in widely different
The subject of "driver reaction times" is quite complex, but it takes about half a second for the nervous system to perceive a "stimuli."
(Hence the saying that we live "half a second in the past.") It takes roughly 1.5 seconds to perceive and respond to a "stimuli" such as
the need to jam on the brakes. So what happens on the freeway is that people, on average, don't mind driving "beyond the safety limit" , but they do mind driving beyond the reaction time limit. If the spacing between vehicles crowds this limit, people instinctively slow down (especially when the freeway becomes too crowded for a "brake and swerve")

Now to Dr. Anderson's little toy cars: Emergency braking systems have been developed and tested that can bring things to a stop before a collision, even given "close headway" operation. But . . . if cars operate less than about two seconds apart, passengers simply would not be able to respond to an emergency and push the "panic button." Given the "half a second" headways that PRT buffs wax enthusiastic about, passengers would never know what hit them in the event of a collision.

Leroy W. Demery, Jr

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VERTICAL PENETRATONS

Notwithstanding the obvious problems with the horizontal throughput of the system, another bottleneck may be the vertical circulation. This is because the system has to be built at the third level so it can pass over Cincinnati's second-level skywalk system. With an aging population, fewer and fewer people will want to walk to and from the third level of a building to use the PRT, so elevator capacity well in excess of ADA requirements seems necessary. In order to move the number of people you're talking about, you will certainly need more than one elevator per station. If these are high-speed elevators with productivity matching the projected boarding rates, they will not only be very expensive to buy and to maintain but they will also require a machine room one floor above at the fourth floor level - inside the building. Is it likely that a builing owner will give up portions of four levels of street-fronting space to accommodate a bank of elevators, plus the geometry needed to build the berths for all the stored vehicles on the third floor? I wouldn't. You could say, I suppose, that PRT passengers would simply use the building's existing elevators, but most buildings have no spare elevator capacity at peak. Building tenants will object to non-tenants tying up their elevators. It's a big problem.
The noise from the elevator machine room over the top of the elevator shaft will devalue leaseable space around it on the fourth floor. Elevator mechanics will need to get to the machine room on the fourth floor, requiring a corridor to it. This corridor will consume and cut up leaseable space, causing lost rent and diminishing the value of the space that remains on both sides of the corridor. This is why elevators in large downtown buildings generally are placed in the center of the floor plate, not at the edges of the floor plate. It's fundamental.
The vertical penetrations through four stories may introduce fire separation issues that could be expensive to implement.
In addition, massing the number of people you're talking about may trigger Place of Assembly fire codes which are always expensive and sometimes impossible to implement in existing buildings. That's because the stations will have to be designed to hold the occasionally huge number of people which would gather and wait in increasing numbers whenever there is an incident which shuts down the line. I suppose you could turn passengers away at the door during incidents, but that would undermine confidence in the system, especially if there were bad weather when people really wanted to ride rather than walk. To me, bad weather periods would seem to be precisely the times when the system would be most likely to fail.
Many passengers smoke cigarettes while waiting for their bus. Just look on the ground around any downtown bus stop. Unless the station area is heavily and costly ventilated, the cigarette smoke will sometimes trip smoke detectors in the elevator lobbies, sending the elevators to the first level and locking them out until the Fire Department or an attendant comes to reset the alarms. It happens in small-lobby buildings. And without a driver to enfore "No Smoking" rules in the PRT cars, some passengers are certain to smoke there too, likewise tripping the elevator lobby detectors when they alight from the cars. You could put smoke detectors in the cars, but what would be the effect? A "No Smoking" rule seems unenforceable. And ... what non-smoker would want to enter a car that three heavy smokers just left?
Besides these problems and the fact that there is hardly any support for PRT in Cincinnati, I don't see too many other problems except the dozen or so I've pointed out over the last couple of years

John Schneider
Cincinnati, Oh USA - Thursday, January 18, 2001

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PRT FEASIBILITY

I am a professional registered transit engineer and had a bout with what became
Miami;'s MetroMover years ago. I have been to Morgantown and have data
on that one more like a "real" Personal Rapid Transit. Morgantown
has no FTA NTDB data that I have ever seen, but the data they do have
indicates that Light Rail Transit would have done their job much less
costly, more reliably and just as good if not a lot better.
Detroit sky-train may not be PRT but is has PRT cost characteristics.
Denver was delayed for almost a generation getting Light Rail
because Anderson from Minnesota lobbyed them for years to build PRT and
avoid "outdated" LRT.
In winter, rubber tired vehicles on guideways are just not safe.
Morgantown has to heat theirs, which is no way to save energy or money,.
Pittsbrgh had to heat theirs, just like Miami otherwise but that was
only one of many reasons we killed it. The biggest objection is cost.
Even subsides must be limited to what they are worth. Miami and Detroit,
one rubber tired down south and one steel wheel up north both cost $
3.20 per passenger-mile to operate, the times LRT cost among the better
LRT systems., Ridership is low on both Miami and Detroit. Construction
cost is very high Safety is not as good as Light Rail. PRT
avoids collisions, but it needs elevators and escalators to reach every
station which is a horrible cost and maintenance problem. People fall
on stairs, get mugged in elevators, and get ground up on escalators.
Because of the transit environment, transit escalators do not work as
well as department store or airport escalators.
At a TRB meeting years ago, a math- metician demonsteated proof of
the feasability of a three second PRT head- way. I asked him about a
slippery guideway. He said very simply, SHUT DOWN.

E d T e n n y s o n

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OPEN LETTER TO ED ANDERSON

Ed Anderson wrote:
> Thanks for your comments. It would be helpful if you could
> state more explicitly why we did not "take the anti-technology
> literature to heart" and what your alternative is.

Dear Dr. Anderson,

You have designed a transportation system that requires computer
coordination and a large amount of electricity. To put it simply,
Personal Rapid Transit is "high tech". The engineer in me
appreciates your desire to design such a system. However, I have
also evolved an ecological awareness that has led me to transcend the
desire to apply science toward technological "progress" at the
expense of nature. In particular, I aspire to live in a society
whose relationship with nature changes from one of use and control to
one of respect and love. In a word, a key to this relationship would
be SCALE. I view your large-scale technological invention as another
potential cog in the machinery of modernity that is destroying
nature.

I suppose that you probably already know that I really don't need to
have an alternative to your invention as a prerequisite for
criticism. Given my system of values, I especially don't want an
advanced technological alternative to PRT. However, since you asked
for help, I will offer a few ideas.

I start by noting that we are entering an age of energy decline. The
worldwide production of fossil fuel -- particularly petroleum and
methane -- is peaking and will start an inexorable plunge. Since I
am not a cornucopian, I do not believe that human technological
ingenuity will rescue the modern world. There is no laboratory with
award-winning scientists and investors waiting in the wings to save
capitalism. In fact, many Nobel Laureates have been among those
warning the world to put the breaks on the industrial juggernaut.

In the wake of the first oil shock and after decades of research and
development, no large-scale alternative energy schemes have been
proven to be sustainable. Even wind and nuclear power rely on a
plentiful supply of fossil fuel. For example, wind turbines are made
of steel that is forged in a high-temperature blast furnace. Uranium
is mined and processed with machines that burn oil. So the
development of large-scale transportation infrastructure that
requires a continuation of modern energy consumption is shortsighted
at best.

Furthermore, I question whether we should even 'want' the breakneck
pace of energy consumption to continue. The industrial age has led
humanity to alter the biosphere to such an extent that we are on the
threshold of global climate change, depletion of aquifers, depletion
of topsoil, toxic overload, and a Sixth Great Extinction that will
eliminate half of the Earth's species in the next 100 years

(http://www.well.com/user/davidu/sixthextinction.html).

Alternatives to the car culture require us to think about the needs
of a society that uses extrasomatic energy at a tenth of its present
rate. Most transit will be human powered. There will be a
renaissance of walking, widespread bicycling, and pedaled cargo
vehicles on roads free of petroleum products. If you apply your
ingenuity to 'that' kind of world, I predict you will create a much
stronger legacy for yourself.

Sincerely,
Mark Knapp
Portland, OR

------------ __o
----------- _'\<,_
---------- (_)/ (_)____________________________

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CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Several readers sent me information about PRT supporters who had an undisclosed stake in the PRT company they were promoting.A reader sent me this article about one such case:

Light-rail  foe  has  rival-rail  link  Conflicts? 
May  19,  2002 
David  Quigg-  The  News  Tribune

Since  the  1980s,  years  before  he  emerged  as  a  civic-minded  general  in  the  battle  to  kill  light  rail,  Seattleite  Emory  Bundy  has  been  a  corporate  officer  of  a  fledgling  transit  company  that  touts  itself  as  a  low-cost  alternative  to  light  rail.
This  financial  stake  -  in  what  the  influential  critic  dismisses  as  a  corporation  with  no  product,  no  venture  capital  and  no  payroll  -  surprised  longtime  friends  and  foes  alike  last  week.  Most  wished  he'd  disclosed  it  all  along.  Then  the  public  could  judge  its  effect,  if  any,  on  his  credibility  as  a  critic,  as  a  plaintiff  in  a  federal  lawsuit  against  light  rail  and  as  a  dissident  member  of  the  official  citizen  committee  that  reviewed  and  endorsed  the  1996  ballot  measure  that  created  Sound  Transit.
Members  of  that  committee  say  -  and  meeting  notes  and  minutes  confirm  -  Bundy  didn't  tell  his  fellow  panel  members  about  his  stake  in  Pathfinder  Systems  Inc.,  a  developer  of  so-called  personal  rapid  transit,  or  PRT.  Not  on  Feb.  8,  1996,  when  he  talked  up  PRT  at  a  committee  meeting.  Not  on  March  5,  1996,  when  he  arranged  for  a  business  partner  to  brief  the  committee  about  the  PRT  concept.
The  committee's  chairman,  Seattle  attorney  Dick  Ford,  said  it  "troubles  me"  to  have  been  unaware  of  the  business  relationship.  Other  light-rail  backers,  including  state  transportation  commissioner  Aubrey  Davis,  also  see  Bundy's  silence  as  problematic.....

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FutureRama

PRT is a great way for the auto industry and transit haters to
distract and divert grant money, design efforts and the real hard work
that goes into creating a real transit system to channel to an
unworkable Disney ride.

As an example, the bus system was unusable for 30 years with confusing
"fare zones" that you paid coming on and leaving a bus, transfers
good only in certain directions, pocket change only, not taking dollar bills,
fares that were odd numbers. Example: $.85 to get on, .10, .15, .35
to get off at certain "zones" with exact change only, no paper money.
When they actually studied and improved the system with .25 fare gradients,
bill machines, passes and fares good for 2 1/2 hours in any direction and
fixed routes the system became barely usable. That stuff was a major operation,
and cost time, money and a good transit manager (gone now like the
Lone Ranger.) He cleaned out a lot of basic transit user problems.
Now transit money is being diverted from commuter rail,
running LRT and the bus system while the Greens and lunatics play
"suck up public transit money, give it to private companies and do
the Simpson's Monorail game." Transit service to the citizens then degrades.

I myself prefer the pneumatic tube transit used in FutureRama.

Steve Hauser

President of Steven Hauser & Associates Database Consulting

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PRT as cyberlibertariasm. . . .

I was reading an old issue of The Baffler (http://www.thebaffler.com/index.html)
yesterday and came across this passage in an article called "Invisible Hand Job" by
Sandy Zipp. In the side bar text, the writer discusses her experience in the boom
boom world of the techno-bubble of the 90s (she worked for WIRED magazine's web
end). She posits cyberlibertarianism as the politics of many of the dot com believers.
This passage describing cyberlibertatians sounded oddly reminiscent of PRT
believers. . . .

"Cyberlibertarianism's aggressive solipisism encourages and perpetuates exactly the
sort of libidinal individualism that already runs amok in America. It also rationalizes
the retreat from political engagement. As it turns out, all the sound and fury about
political freedom and liberty that overflows the chat rooms is most often about the
freedom to abdicate the actual complexity and contradictions of life lived in the
streets, offices, and factories. Cyberlibertarians fail to see this because they
consistently indulge themselves in the fantasy that technology can resolve all the little
messes of supposedly outmoded ways of life. Forsaking the pedestrian social world
in favor of digital bulletin boards or "virtual communities," single-minded libertarian
drones--the true networked, cyborg souls of the brave new world--run rampant,
indulging themselves with the fantasy that the one-to-one mind meld they have with
their monitor is a fitting model for social interaction at-large. . . ."

I get the "complexity and contradictions" of sending this passage to you via a email
list by the way. . . .

Russell Raczkowski

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If you are against and I mean it...only if you are against PRT can you send comments to:

NOTE: I will not read , answer or publish any e-mails from PRT fanatics.

 

BACK TO PRT IS A JOKE!