[Mpls] "PRT"-Kicking Transit When it's Down.

[David Brauer]

Forwarded on behalf of the author:

Councilmembers,

The Taxpayers League, Joe Soucheray and the Right-Wing Republicans 
aren't  the only ones kicking the transit system when it is down. 
"Personal Rapid Transit" promoters Ed Anderson and Councilperson Dean 
Zimmerman continue to bash transit even as hard-working bus drivers 
walk the picket line and thousands of bus riders are stranded.

Councilman Zimmermann continues to repeat Taxpayers League-style  
disinformation about "expensive" and "subsidized" bus and LRT transit. 
It's not true and it causes a great deal of confusion for citizens at a 
crucial time for the future of our transit system.

The literature and Web sites of Taxi 2000 and PRT promoters have the 
same disinformation about bus and rail transit. PRT promoters spend a 
lot of time bashing trains and bus transit.

Please speak out against PRT promoters' transit-bashing and urge your 
fellow councilmembers to withdraw their support from studying PRT for 
Minneapolis. Please don't give the transit-bashers another platform.

We don't need a study of PRT. The City of Cincinnati spent $625,000 on 
a study of PRT (the OKI Central Loop Report 2001). I can give you that 
study for free. When libraries and schools are closing and the buses 
aren't running, we don't need to spend a dime or a minute more to 
reject what the Germans call "Gadgetbahnen".

Thank You,

-Ken Avidor

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Learn more about who is behind the PRT campaign of disinformation about 
trains and buses.

  http://www.roadkillbill.com/PRTisaJoke.html

Shef Lang (1927-2003) was the chairman of the board at Taxi 2000.  If 
anything characterized his career it was pure hatred of transit. He 
described buses as "no see ums" because to him, they were always empty. 
His style was confrontational, macho, take no prisoners. An aide to a 
St. Paul city councilmember said that every time she heard him talk she 
wanted to go home and shoot herself.
 
He relied a lot on his year or two as Assistant professor at MIT to 
give him academic credibility. He worked as a railroad administrator at 
the U.S. Department of Transportation. Those in the know regard Shef 
Lang as more of a "railroad mortician". He regarded Amtrak as "19th 
Century" and advocated it be scrapped. At the Citizen's League and at 
the University of Minnesota, Shef Lang railed against anything on rails.

Given Shef Lang's outspoken, virulent hatred of transit, his advocy of 
automobiles and highways casts doubt that PRT and the Taxi 2000 
Corporation he headed was anything more than a cynical scam to derail 
public policy that would help Minnesota become less car dependant.
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http://www.skywebexpress.com/news/news-2003-01-16-lang.shtml


"....Our last visit was to Shef’s office at M.I.T. where he was 
Professor of Transportation. In several positions in the U. S. 
Government including a term as Federal Railroad Administration, he had 
followed the federally sponsored studies on new transit systems 
including PRT. The one specific thing I recall from the meeting is that 
he told us that he and his colleagues had calculated that if Boston 
ripped up all of their rail systems and replaced them with PRT with the 
same line and station locations it could handle the traffic carried by 
the rail system at substantially lower annual cost. This is an 
excellent example of Shef’s forthright, honest, statement of facts that 
many don’t want to hear and are unpopular in political circles."
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http://faculty.washington.edu/%7Ejbs/itrans/lang.htm


Shef in his own words:

""Marketization" is a simple concept with enormous power over the 
complex problems our fast-changing economy throws at us, an economy 
that changes so fast just because it is largely market-driven. Let the 
market sort it out. There is no longer goodreason to reserve so many of 
our transportation decisions to governments instead of letting the 
market sort them out. The time has come to "get with the program." We 
have already done some of what needs doing, but there is a lot more 
left to do. "


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Avidor Studios
http://www.avidorstudios.com
3629 Grand Avenue
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55409
612-827-0545