[Mpls] Fwd: Big Apple Article about PRT

[Dan Frankowski]

Wow, what a list. Within 3 hours on new year's day, I had received 6 
emails: one from someone I probably went to grade school with, one from 
the list admin reminding me to put my last name and neighborhood, 3 
people who had myth-busting PRT info, and 1 person with an interesting 
story about it who was keeping an open mind.

I believe they responded to me instead of the list because they don't 
want to get roped into yet another discussion about it. Thus, I 
summarize the links and info I got.

***** Links skeptical of PRT:

- Personal Rapid Transit – Cyberspace Dream Keeps Colliding With 
Reality. http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_prt001.htm

- Conventional Rail vs. 'Gadgetbahnen'. 
http://planetizen.com/oped/item.php?id=73

- Professor Vucan Vuchic. 
http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/vuchic1.htm, 
http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/vuchic2.htm

- "The Road Less Traveled: The pros and cons of personal rapid transit. 
" by Troy Pieper. http://pulsetc.com/article.php?sid=1056

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

***** The open-minded person's story (edited):

"In my view, the PRT movement is driven by the engineers who created it, 
and their Public Relations efforts have been so inept that it's never 
going to happen around here. The article you posted [actually Barbara 
posted it, not me --Dan] was so similar to the anti-PRT hysteria that 
has flown around this list that it seemed like just a rehashing of old 
fears and anxiety about new ideas, and didn't add anything new to the 
discussion.

"I'm not an active PRT proponent, but just happen to be a person who 
thought it is an intriguing idea. A friend of mine used to work with the 
engineer at the U who developed the PRT concept and filled me in on
a bit of PRT history: What happened, and it was rather unfortunate, was 
that Raytheon bought the development rights for the PRT concept 10 or 
more years ago, but tried to redesign it using off-the-shelf Raytheon 
parts and technology. That didn't work and eventually the Raytheon 
rights to develop PRT expired and went back to the inventor.

"That happened about four or five years ago and spawned the latest 
efforts by it's designers to get things off the ground. As I mentioned, 
their Public Relations efforts have been rather amateurish and
ineffective. In my opinion, the PRT folks need to hire professional 
public relations pros to get things going. But, I don't think that will 
ever happen."

Dan Frankowski, CARAG
-- 
http://cdbaby.com/cd/antonanddan My crazy jazz duo
http://cdbaby.com/cd/mpjs My jazz sextet


Dan Frankowski wrote:

> Barbara Lickness wrote:
>
>> Barbara,
>>
>> PRT is called an "epic boondoggle" by the New York
>> Press:
>>
>> http://www.nypress.com/17/52/pagetwo/newshole8.cfm
>>
>>
>
> I have a friend who is way into the idea of PRT. I am suspicious of it 
> since I believe in mass transit, and fear PRT could siphon dollars and 
> attention. However, I haven't heard concrete arguments against it 
> (e.g., its carrying capacity is too low, it costs too much, etc.). 
> Anyone know something about it?
>
> Dan
>
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