As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on the pod cars, a kindly reader sent me this link to his article examining the history of the pod car science; and it’s not such a good history.
An excerpt.
“Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) Personal Rapid Transit is a futuristic transportation concept with a controversial history stretching back over thirty years. PRT is loosely defined as a network of pod-like vehicles on an elevated monorail-like structure with many off-line stations. In theory, PRT is supposed to combine the advantages of the private automobile with the efficiency of fixed guideway transit. After thirty years and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on PRT research, there are no true PRT systems in operation anywhere in the world, although there have been many failed attempts. In more recent years, PRT has served another purpose as a stalking horse to stop funding for conventional transit.
“PRT had no support from traditional grassroots transit advocacy groups such as Transit for Livable Communities and the Sierra Club North Star, both of which have resolutions opposing the public funding of PRT on their web sites.
“Personal Rapid Transit began as a concept in the 1950's and '60's and found favor among urban planners at the Federal Urban Mass Transit Administration (UMTA) who believed that mass transit could only compete with the private automobile by becoming more car-like. Millions of dollars were poured into PRT research projects.
“In 1971 Minnesota Legislature appropriated $50,000 for a PRT proposal. PRT promoters from the Citizens League testified against a Metropolitan Transit Commission proposal to build rail lines as the backbone of a comprehensive transit network. The PRT study, published in 1973 recommended public funding of a project that would demonstrate the feasibility of PRT. The legislature did not fund the PRT project, but the diversion created by the PRT promoters helped to block the MTC proposal and Minnesota had to wait nearly twenty years to get it's first light rail line.
“PRT also played a role in delaying plans for rail transit in other cities. Denver citizens voted for a one-half cent sales tax in 1973. A Congressional report explains what happened next:
"UMTA began backing away from its early enthusiasm for the Denver PRT proposal in 1974. Embarrassing cost overruns in the demonstration project in Morgantown, W. Va. had cast doubt on the financial and technical feasibility of a PRT system similar to the one proposed in Denver. In addition, the Airtrans System at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport-like Morgantown's PRT, a technological predecessor of the proposed Denver system-was not performing up to specifications."
